Oleander

CHAPTER 1

She snaps her eyes open, breathing hard and still gripped with fear. What was that, why did she have that dream, why was she stabbed and most importantly, why did she see, her. She thought to herself as she tried to catch her breath.

"Sweetie, are you alright? I've been calling for a while now. I heard screaming, why you sweating and breathing so hard? Are you okay?" Martha asked looking worried, her green eyes filled with worry and fear, for the poor girl she heard screaming bloody murder a few minutes ago while she was making breakfast.

A bit calmer now, the ravenette looked at the older woman and instantly feels guilty for making her worry, so she gives her a reassuring smile and hugs her. "I'm fine, no need to worry"

“Are you sure, sweetie?” Martha says with worry still evident in her eyes, “Yes Martha I’m perfectly fine just had a bad dream” She gives the older another bright smile. Martha then smiles and kisses the younger’s head. “OK honey, get dressed and come down to eat with the others.” “I’ll be right down.” Says Crystal with a smile on her face, Martha gives her one more look then walks out the door, the moment she closed the door Crystal’s smile dropped and her breath picks up again, she runs to the bathroom, opens the tap and splashes water on her face trying to wash off the memory of the dream, the ravenette look at her reflection in the mirror and flinches.

“I look horrible.” She whispers to herself while touching her face.

Her light blue eyes looked dull and were red and swollen from all the crying, she had tear stains on her face and she looked paler than usual. Sighing, she picks up her toothbrush and starts to brush her teeth, still trying to get her thoughts in order, she takes a cool shower to try and wake up a bit. Crystal then gets dressed and goes downstairs.

Crystal goes straight to the kitchen the moment she reaches downstairs to see everyone is already eating. “Good morning everyone, I’m sorry I took so much times getting ready.” She say and lets out a nervous laugh right after.

 “It’s okay honey, we wouldn’t have started but you know Aiden and his stomach.” Martha says with laughter in her voice. “Hey, I’m a growing boy and I need to eat.” the fourteen year old red haired, with a plate full of pancakes with too much syrup on it says with a cunning smile on his face. While laughing at the boy, she takes her sit and puts some food on her plate that was in front of her.

 “Hey Crystal, how are you feeling now, I heard you scream, Martha told me you had a nightmare, are you alright? It must have been really scary for you to have been screaming like that.” Aiden’s mum, Rebecca says with worry evident on her face. “I’m fine now, it was just a really scary, but I’m fine now.” She says with a tiny smile on her face. “That’s good to hear. What was the dream about anyways?” Rebecca asks still very worried about the ravenette, she hopes it’s not what she thinks it is, she shakes her head trying to get those dreadful thoughts out of her head, ‘no, it can’t possibly be that, stop thinking about it Rebecca.’ She thought to herself.

Crystal paused on hearing the question. Flashes of the dream she had come to her instantly. She closes her eyes and shakes her head trying to get rid of the memory of that dream. “Uhm… It was about vampires, yeah vampires, they were really scary with red eyes and long teeth, one was about to bite me when Martha woke me up, it was really scary Aunty Becca but I’m okay now so don’t worry.” She lets out a nervous laugh and prays she believes her lie.

With a suspicious look on her face Rebecca replies with an “Okay” sensing that the girl doesn’t want to talk about it and not wanting to push her, she just lets it go. Crystal let’s a not to obvious sigh of relief and continues to eat her breakfast while still trying to get the dream out of her head.

Almost done with her breakfast Martha asks. “Crystal honey, are you going to the shop today?” Crystal’s eyes widen at the question. ‘s**t I was gonna help them out in the shop today, I totally forgot. What’s the time?’ She asks herself then looks at the time on her phone. ‘Oh my gosh! It’s 10, I’m supposed to be in the shop by 9.’ She shoves the rest of the food in her mouth and runs upstairs to get her bag. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Martha says while trying not to laugh at the girl.

Crystal rushes back downstairs and starts to quickly put on her shoes. “Hey hey, Crystal calm down, I called the shop and told them you’ll be running late cause you had a rough night. They said you can take your time.” Rebecca says with a smile on her face and a phone in her hands. Crystal lets out a sigh of relief. “Thanks Aunty, I think I’ll just walk to get some fresh air.” She says with a grateful smile on her face. Rebecca nodded and was about to turn back to go the kitchen when she remembered something. “Oh Crystal come home early remember you have school tomorrow.” Crystal nodded and continued putting on her sneakers, after that she looked at the mirror to arrange her hair, shouted a goodbye to everyone and walked out the door.

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Crystal got to the shop after a 15 minutes walk, that her clear hear thoughts about the dream. As she opens the door of the shop she was welcomed by the wonderful smell of flowers. “Welcome to Heavenly Be-” The person at the front desk stops her obviously rehearsed sentence when she sees who opened the door.

 “Oh, Crystal it’s you, how are you?  Rebecca call in and said you had a rough morning, oh look at you, your face is all swollen and you have bags under your eyes, you know what go back home, I’ll cover your shift no problem.” The girl says has she walked over to Crystal, she grabs her face and starts to scan it. Crystal removes the girl’s hands from her face and laughs. “I’m fine Armani, just a nightmare nothing to fret about.” She says in a teasing tone.

Armani pouts “Well it must have been a really scary one for you to be this way, but since you want to be at the shop today I’ll let you stay but you are ONLY working at the counter I’ll trim and water the flowers and you are going home early, do you understand missy.” She says in a commanding tone, arms crossed and brown eyes serious. Crystal reluctantly agreed knowing that even she refused Armani would have forced her to. The taller smiled brightly at this. “Excellent, now go change and head to the counter.” She says shooing the shorter to the staffs changing area.

Crystal since she was working at the counter today she didn’t have to wear her usual uniform which was a light blue button up shirt with Heavenly Bed sewn on the collar of the shirt in gold, with black pants. Instead she wore a loss white dress with blue flower patterns that she kept in her locker just in case something like this happens. She brushes her long black hair and put on her flower crown when she’s done and headed back to the front and stayed behind the counter and sighs when she see that they have no costumers, it’s a slow day she thought to herself, she says to herself and Armani was outside watering the flowers, so she was alone inside the flower shop. Her mind starts to wonder back to the dream, that wasn’t the first time she had seen her in a dream, even though it had been a while, but what is bothers is the blood, the bruises and burns on her skin, it was so hunting, she looked like she was tortured for weeks non-stop, she didn’t realise but she was crying. Also she was so consumed by her thoughts that she didn’t notice a customer had walked in.

The customer kept trying to get her attention, when she noticed her crying he put his hands on her shoulder and asked if she was okay, this woke her up from her thought, when she realised it was a consumer that was in front of her, she apologised multiple times, cleaned her face and attended to him immediately. “Welcome to Heavenly Bed the best flower in town. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. My name is Crystal how may I help you today?” She says with an obviously fake cheery tone and a forced smile. “Yeah I came to pick up my order of white roses my name is Jackson, Crystal are you okay you were cr-.”

“I’m fine, thank you Mr Jackson for you concern I appreciate it, I see your name and order, I’ll just go bring it for you.” She hurries out of the counter and goes to the room they keep ordered flowers, she scolds herself for getting lost in her thought again. She finds his order takes a deep breath and goes back to the counter.  

“Here’s your order that will be 20$.” He hand her the money and she put it in the cash register and handed the flowers over to him. “Thanks for having shopping at Heavenly Bed, come again and have a lovely rest of your day.” She says in a fake cherry voice ones again look up to the boy’s face and immediately meeting his forest green eyes that seems to be observing her, she clears her throat which made him look down after he realised he was staring. He let out an awkward cough and an apology. Crystal just nods already used to being stared at by consumers, “Uhm, I’m off now. Bye Crystal, hope you feel better.” “Thank you, have a nice day and come back soon.” She says back silently praying he leaves already. When he finally walks out the door she lets out a breath of relief. Well that was awkward

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The rest of the day was slow only a few customers here and there. It was time for closing and Rebecca called Crystal and asked her to get some stuff from the supermarket, there were a lot of people there because of an apparently good sale on some brand. So the line to the casher was long. When Crystal was out of the supermarket it was already dark. As Crystal walked home she stared regarding not taking her car, sighing she continues her long journey back home with the grocery bags in her hand.

 Her regret increases when she suddenly feels someone staring at her, she turned back looked left, right even up she didn’t see anyone looking at her, the street was empty, she shakes her head, that dream really made me paranoid, she thought to herself. The feeling gets stronger like someone was burning holes at her back, without realising she started walking faster, then she started hearing foot steps behind her, at that point she was filled with fear and anxiety, she walks even faster, she hears them pick up their pace as well, that’s when she was certain that someone was following her. She lifts the bags in her hands and throws it in the direction of the footsteps. She hears the person fall and runs for her life. The person stands up and starts to run after her, Crystal runs like she never has before, she makes a turn at a corner leans on the wall and tries to catch her breath, her heart felt like it wanted to jump out her chest. Why is this happening to her can’t she catch a f*****g break, she stands up straight and continues to run. She was close to house she could see the shop straight ahead. She hears the footsteps again and was turning to see who was following her, when she was suddenly trapped by strong hands.

“Gotcha.”                                                                                                  

She screamed.