Supernatural Memories

Chapter 1 - Awake

Kara jolts awake, she had been in a nightmare and nearly threw herself out of bed waking up from it. She looks over at the alarm clock on her nightstand - 3:21 am. She sits up and hugs her knees.

“Why do I keep waking up at three in the morning?” she thinks. It had been weeks since she got a full nights sleep. Normally after a nightmare it would take her at least a couple hours to get back to sleep, if she was even able to. She did what was becoming routine for her, she got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and then went to the kitchen for a glass of water. To her surprise, her adoptive mother, Saline, was awake. Saline was a slim and small woman in her early forties. She had long and straight, dark brown hair and the softest green eyes.

“Hey momma, what are you doing up right now?” Kara said.

“I could ask you the same!” Saline replied, “another nightmare, honey?”

“Yeah” Kara said quietly. They were getting more strange every night. She used to talk to Saline about them but recently they’ve been getting so weird that she hasn’t wanted to talk about them at all.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Saline said as Kara sat down at the kitchen table.

“Not really,” Kara said, looking away and then looking back at Saline out of the corner of her eyes, “but thank you. I appreciate you being here for me.”

“Of course, honey.”

Saline gently rubs Kara’s back for a while, she always had a way of making Kara feel better, no matter what the problem was. Kara finished her water and got up to go back to bed. She turns and hugs Saline, “thanks momma. You’re too good to me.”

“Anytime, hun.” Saline grabs Kara’s hand and squeezes it gently.

Kara puts her glass in the sink, heads upstairs and returns to her bed. She finally drifts back to sleep and sleeps for an hour until her alarm for school goes off. Kara is a senior in high school, and she turns 18 a month before graduation. She gets up and showers first, then she returns to her room and gets dressed, does her makeup and then throws her hair up in a bun. She gives herself one last look in the mirror - “it will have to do”. Kara was actually a beautiful young woman, she was tall with reddish brown hair and blue-green eyes. She had a curvy athletic build that went well with her height. But she never saw that in the mirror, all she could see was the weird orphan girl who couldn’t remember where she came from.

When she was four years old, a couple of hikers found Kara all alone, unconscious in the woods of Northern California. The authorities came and took her to the hospital. All they knew about her was that she had a tiny, empty backpack with “Kara” handwritten on it. When Kara woke up, they questioned her but she couldn’t remember anything. She went into foster care for a little over a year while many people attempted to find her parents but no one was ever able to find much. That’s when she was adopted by Saline and her husband Carl. They took her to therapy for years and did everything they could to try and help Kara remember her past, but they too found no answers.

She shook off the thoughts of her past and went downstairs. Saline was in the kitchen and Carl was heading off to work. Their biological son, James, was at the kitchen table having a bowl of cereal. He was a year younger than Kara and a bit taller, about six feet tall. He had short dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He was quite muscular, which made sense since he played nearly every sport the school offered. Because of that, hadn’t yet gotten a job and Saline told both of the kids that if they got good grades and saved up $1000 she would help them get any car they wanted, so Kara drove them to school and usually was responsible for picking James up unless he got a ride.

Kara put an English muffin in the toaster and turned to Saline and James, “good morning!”

“Again.” Saline added, “did you get some more rest when you went back to bed?”

“A little. I’ll take what I can get.” The toaster popped and Kara buttered her English muffin and looked up at James, “c’mon you, take that to go, we’re gonna be late.”

James looked up at Kara and took a big bite of cereal, chewed a bit and stood up, “I’m done.” He drank down the milk in the bowl and put it in the sink. He walked over to Saline, hugged her and kissed her cheek, “love you mom.”

Saline smiled wide, “I love you too baby.” She looked over to Kara, “and I love you, Kara! Have a great day at school kids.” She hugged Kara and then the kids left for school.

They got to school and James immediately disappeared. James and Kara got along well for the most part but he was a pretty typical popular jock type so they never really spoke once they got to school. Kara got out of her Jeep and found her friends, Laurie and Dani. Laurie was a cute, short, blonde girl with bright blue eyes. She was a cheerleader, tiny and fit. Dani was built similar to Kara, curvy and fit but a little shorter than Kara. She had medium length black hair and warm brown eyes.

“Hey girl!!” Dani called out and gave Kara a hug. “How you doing today?”

“Ehh I’m okay. I had another nightmare last night so not much sleep but I’m used to it.” Kara smiled.

“You should go see a sleep specialist or something. Maybe these dreams mean something!” Laurie said. She was into a lot of the more naturopathic stuff. Plus, Laurie was Kara’s oldest and closest friend so she always meant the best.

Kara giggled and smiled at Laurie, “I’m pretty sure it’s just dreams. But if it ever gets really bad I’ll see someone.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” Then they pinky swore on it, that had always been their thing.

The rest of the day went by as normal, classes then lunch with the girls, more class and then after school while James was at football practice, Kara had soccer practice. Football practice usually took a bit longer than soccer practice so Kara drove over to the football field and went to the bleachers to start homework. She was able to finish a little over half the homework she was given for the day by the time they finished.

As the football team was dismissed, Kara packed up and went to wait by her Jeep. When James came walking up, he had his best friend, Finn with him. Finn was a senior too, and Kara had actually known Finn a little longer than James did. But as Finn and James became closer friends, he and Kara slowly hung out with each other less and less. Finn was really tall, at least a couple inches taller than James. He was slim and muscular with short brown hair and blue eyes.

“Hey, Kara.” Finn said, smiling at her.

“Hi Finn.” Kara leaned against the door of the Jeep.

“Can you give Finn a ride home? His car wouldn’t start this morning so he got a ride from his mom.” James said.

“Uh sure, I can do that. Get in.” She nodded.

The boys hopped in the Jeep and Kara drove to Finn’s house. His mom was a single mother who worked two jobs so she was gone and would probably be gone all night. “You know,” she looked in the rear view mirror and met Finn’s eyes, “you could come to our place if you don’t wanna be alone. I’m sure our parents would be cool with it.”

James turned and looked at Finn, “yeah that’s true!” Finn looked between them thoughtfully as James added “I know you’re guaranteed to get a nice warm meal out of it!”

Finn smiled, “sure, okay. Well since we’re already here, let me grab some stuff.” Finn jumped out of the Jeep and ran inside, coming out just a little bit later with an overnight bag. Kara drove them all back to their house, where as predicted, Saline accepted Finn with open arms. The night went smoothly, save for the fact Carl still hadn’t come home. That wasn’t unusual though, most nights he worked late. Some nights he didn’t come home at all.

They had dinner and Kara finished her homework. She managed to sneak a quick shower before the boys and then went to bed early. Since she hadn’t been getting much sleep, she was trying to get to bed earlier. As she slowly drifted off, she slipped into a dream.

Kara is walking through a forest, late at night. She’s cold, tired, and hungry. There’s a bright burst of light and she hears rumbling, almost like a loud growl. She runs back to the Jeep and hops in. She looks around slowly, then decides to drive off. She drives for some time but it seems darker than usual. Suddenly, a man runs out into the road. She screeches to a stop, and looks at the man. He has his hands on the roof of the Jeep and she notices he’s...covered in blood?!

“Oh my god, sir, are you alright?” She yells out to him. When he looks up she gasps...it’s...Carl? Kara jumps out of the Jeep and runs over to him, “Carl, oh my god, what happened?”

He looks up at her and grabs her arms tight, “your...your mother...” he voice is unsteady and starts to break as he passes out. Kara catches him as he falls, and drags him to the passenger side of the Jeep, pushes him up into the seat and buckles him in. She runs over to the drivers side, hops in and floors it towards the hospital.

She looks over and notices Carl blinking. “Hey, what happened? You were saying something about mom?”

He looks over to Kara and says, his voice barely other a whisper, “not Saline. Your...” he trails off and looks through the windshield, his eyes going wide and pointing “your mother.” Kara looks out the windshield as a blinding light appears in front of them. She slams on the breaks, and shields her eyes from the light. As the Jeep screeches to a halt, it was like Carl was ripped out of the Jeep. She could hear him scream and then it...stopped. The light went away and it was dead quiet. Kara’s heart was pounding as she looked around. All of a sudden, a dim light appeared, then brighter and brighter until it was burning like the sun. Kara struggled to see what it was and she screamed “HELP!!” in hopes that someone, anyone, would hear.

The light seemed to get closer and closer, Kara’s ears were ringing, and she heard a soft, feminine voice come from the light, “Kara...” it whispered. As Kara’s system overwhelmed, she screamed...

Kara gasped as she fell out of bed. She was sitting on the floor, wrapped in her blankets, sweating. “Well...I’m awake now.” She looked at the clock - 3:28 am, typical.