Reaching Madness

I wake up shaking and sweating once again, from the same dream that I have been having for weeks. It started and ended the same, in darkness. I can't seem to shake the feeling that it was trying to tell me something, danger perhaps. The dreams had started once I moved to my new town of Hillshore in South Australia. Isolated and alone are the two words that come to mind when I think of my new home, and of myself. I was happy in Melbourne, big city, lots of friends. Or I was at least until the accident, I can't remember what happened and its killing me, one day I was walking home from school and the next I was packing my bags and moving to the middle of nowhere. No one will tell me what happened or why we needed to move all of a sudden. My dad tells me it's because of his job but I can tell he's hiding something from me... I check the time and see that its six thirty in the morning, so I roll out of bed and decide that a run would probably do me good and calm my racing mind. Throwing on my yoga pants, tank top and joggers I head down stairs. I grab my headphones and plug them into my phone, pulling up my 'running' Spotify playlist and head out the door. Hillshore gets unbearably hot in summer which just so happens to be when we moved here, I look down at my phone and it's already thirty degrees and projected to get as high as forty five by lunch time today; great I think to myself. I hit shuffle on my playlist and start running down the street towards the local park. I've been running for about ten minutes when I feel a sharp pain in my head, it's so painful it's enough to startle me into stopping. It lasts all but a second but it has me trying to catch my breath. I pause the song currently playing, remove my headphones and pocket my phone. I breathe deep and massage my temples trying to ease the headache now forming, unfortunately it's not the first time I've had one of these sharp pains. As I turn to head home I hear a rustling in the trees behind me, swinging around I see nothing, but I hear and see the branches and leaves moving with the non-existent breeze. My heart starts racing at the same time I feel the skin on my hands start to prickle, I look down and see the most unusual but beautiful black flames dancing across my hands. Mesmerised I don't even see the man approach me until he grabs my wrist and falls on the ground screaming, black flames cover his body as he writhes in pain. Scared I bend down and try and help him extinguish the flames but they grow bigger until his screams stop altogether. The flames disappear and with them so does the man, all that's left in his place is a strange marking on the ground, a strange symbol, a line with two crosses through it. Forgetting the man and everything I've just witnessed I stand back up and sprint home, hoping to forget what I just saw, or hoping it was a dream again. I walk through the front door of our house to see my mum in the kitchen cooking breakfast for everyone. "Good morning little bird" she smiles at me and continues cooking. "Morning mum" I smile back but it feels hollow. What did I just see? What the hell just happened, that man just disappeared. "Eggs, bacon and toast sweetie?" she questions. "No mum I'm ok, nothing for me" I smile again and go to grab a glass of juice. "Wren you have to eat, it's your first day and you need your strength" I roll my eyes where she can't see me and go to walk to my room. "I'm ok mum, really. I'm just going to get ready and head to school" I don't wait for her reply and I leave the kitchen and head into my room. Once the door is closed, I glance down at my hands, hoping to see any change, to perhaps see the strange black flames again but nothing appears. Resigning myself to the fact I'm now going insane I begin getting ready for school