Make Your Move Katherine

Everything is familiar

Kat was floating but she couldn’t open her eyes just yet. Murmurs reached her ears but not words as she succumbed to the darkness once more.

She is alone. Lucid enough to know she was dreaming but yet couldn’t alter it.

It was the same dream she kept having but this time it was different. Before it was always a gloomy wet night, this time it is daylight and she could see the familiar-looking house. It was the same house from before she knew, for she felt the familiarity from it. She is very aware of her surroundings unlike before.

Was it a neighbor? Someone she was familiar with?

‘I have been here before.’

She didn’t have grandparents alive- maybe it was theirs? Maybe she was making up a make-believe safe place? Kat knew her mother said her family all died in a tragic killing and she didn’t want to talk about it. She had respected her mother enough to not ask questions about it after she had seen the woman’s tears as she stared at the single photo of her family.

It contained her mother’s parents and her best friend in front of a house but the house was hidden mostly so Kat figured her mind made this place a safe zone, a representative of that house perhaps.

And she had no family on her father’s side either, for he was adopted and ran away at the age of fifteen he had said. He was alone and Kat figured it was the main reason behind his divorce from her mother and his remarried status and baby on the way soon after. Her father did not want to be alone; he wanted a family and a huge one at that too. He wanted a wife to come home to, a place of belonging. Love. 

She had understood him.

The birds made their presence known in the warm summer air, and Kat smiled when she heard their happy chirping as they flew around from tree to tree. Dogs were heard in the background although she couldn’t see them, she sensed they were not belonging to the house owner, in front of her. Shading her eyes with her hands, she looked around for other signs of life but that was it- no other homes were seen as far as she could see. She seemed to be in some sort of plantation however for she only saw trees in the distance and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in- guava.

Kat immediately knew March month is the best time to plant this tree and more than three years of patience. She knew the guavas could survive dry summers with no water, although they do best with regular deep watering. She knew the earth should be allowed to dry to a depth of several inches before watering again just as she knew it what to avoid to hinder its bloom. She knew the trees could thrive in any soil with good drainage and full sun for best flowering and fruit production.

She opened her eyes glancing around her feet, she saw she was wearing sneakers, just as she always did in this dream but this time it was dry. And she was wearing jeans and tees, unlike the regular wide frilled, heavy dress and soaked shoes. Kat felt light-hearted. She looked at her hands and wiggled her fingers before she looked at the ground before her. Butterflies of all colors but mostly yellow and red flew around and Kat smiled when her eyes found a rabbit hopping into some bushes. The beautiful soft grass covered the entire land as far as her eyes could see. Kat also noticed the area was hilly…not like big hills but a meter apart, type. It was very much like the fairy book tales she enjoyed reading as a child.

One acre of land could handle over one hundred fruit trees so she tried to make the calculations over the hilly lands, she knew was a few acres but the winds suddenly stopped and Kat opened her eyes wider and looked towards the house, for she could feel the stare of someone. And it was not a good one but an eerie kind of stare.

The atmosphere changed to an almost standstill and night was suddenly around her. In the same instant, she sensed the creature was behind her and not in the house after all. Kat sensed its presence without turning around and she screamed trying to wake up but she couldn’t.

‘Wake up Kat!’

But her voice was gone again. She screamed silently as the creature placed its hand on her left shoulder and she shrugged it off, running at fast as her legs would take her in the direction of the house. Not once did she stumble as she leaped over the four steps and onto the porch, grabbing the door handle she yanked. It was locked. She grabbed harder and then pushed her body into it- which made no sense for that was a push and she was pulling at the handle.

Kat had no idea why people did that or even why she was doing it but she did it again. Was she hoping her frail body would magically bust down the wooden door? She knew she was being frantic and that would not work.

Think Kat think, she coached herself and looked to her left where she saw an open window, protruding onto the small porch. Running towards it, she ducked under the opened frame and came up on the other side of it and pushed against the mesh that covered the area. She was dismayed when her open hands were stopped by bars, making her cry out in frustration. But still, no sound came from her lips.

Panic had her ripping the mesh still, hoping she would fit through the bars.

“Katherine,” she heard the monster call out to her and she tried to scream again for the voice was a familiar sound. Everything here was familiar- including the shadowed person next to her. How? She hadn’t even heard his footsteps.

“You will obey me.”

No, she screamed but still, no sound escaped her throat.

“Like it or not, you will. No one dares disobey me,” his quiet voice threatened and then she felt his breath against the back of her neck. His words were so familiar sounding.

Kat’s weak legs almost gave out so she allowed her weak knees to take her to the floorboards, her hands still holding onto the window frame.

‘What do you want from me?’

“Die.”

What? The fact that he understood her silent question did not shock her for it was after all a nightmare and anything is possible here, Kat knew but why did he want to kill her?

The monster pulled her back to her full height and threw her against the same window that was supposed to be her escape and Kat’s eyes went to his mouth for a smirk was present there. A human-looking mouth. A mouth she knew. Red, full lips, so familiar somehow.

Then to her disbelief, his white teeth elongated and became sharped edged and pointy and a wicked almost red tongue stuck out and passed itself onto one of the pointed edges and disappeared back inside the mouth.

Kat’s mouth hung open, for this was the creature she knew that had plagued her dreams since coming here. A human-looking…vampire? She stared at the face of the man who was giving her a hooded look as he stared into her eyes. She wondered why his face was still handsome and not contorted like the movies and books said happened when a vampire was about to take a victim and showed his fangs. This …man/creature/monster thing had one hundred percent good looks.

No crinkle forehead or sunken cheekbones. Kat's mother had been obsessed with a series named Buffy about a vampire slayer that fell in love with a vampire and that is where Kat got her 'what vampires should look like' from. She supposed he was like Edward from the Twilight series but she heard they glittered in the sun- Kat had never seen an entire movie from the saga- just bits and pieces. Vampire diaries...still as handsome as those vampires were, their facial structure was still ruffled.

Kat didn’t have any fight in her when the black, tuxedo-wearing man leaned forward and she knew he was indeed aiming for her neck. Kat closed her eyes waiting to feel the sharp fangs sinking into her flesh.

‘Isn’t this where I should wake up?’