REMEMBER ME

    She woke up with a headache again. This has been happening for the last few days. Keena figured it was just getting close to "that time". She climbed slowly out of bed and headed to the shower. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had been dreaming about something important, something she should have remembered. Ever since she was a little girl she had been having strange dreams about a place she knew, but couldn't quite remember. It was always just feelings, flitting around her mind like busy little bees, never coming into full focus. She wasn't looking forward to the day, it was Monday, which meant the school week was just starting. Keena hated school. She was always the outsider, getting picked on and shoved around, and most of the time, shoving back. This had started being a real problem in the last few months, she just got fed up with the bullying and next thing you know she's in the office for fighting, every week. Her father told her if she gets suspended one more time she was going to boot camp. Like that scared her. Better to be there than in public school with the snobs.      As Keena headed towards the front door she could her father, Micheal, in his study talking on the phone. She had a fleeting thought that she should tell him she was leaving for school and thought better about it. He didn't like to be interrupted when he was on the phone. Getting on the bus she was still trying to remember her dream from last night. It was like trying to catch water in a sieve though.      The school day seemed to drag by with only a few snide remarks and dirty looks from the other students, also only one embarrassing moment when she dumped her lunch tray on the head of the hottest guy in school when she stumbled, her two left feet getting the best of her again. Finally, the last bell of the day rung and she was out the door and headed home. She couldn't wait to curl up with a good book and lose herself for a few hours.                                                                                         MICHEAL     He couldn't believe his little girl was going to be sixteen tomorrow. How he wished her mother were here to celebrate the day, well, at least part of the day. What was to come at the end of the day was something he nor his wife wanted.  They had agreed to protect Keena from this life. When they found they were having a child they had run, as far as they could go, to get away. But, it's never far enough. The Shades always find what is theirs and they always take it back.      The Shades were fierce fighters, ruthless and cunning, arrogant to extremes, and they took what they wanted never giving a second thought about whether it was bad or good. Micheal shuttered at the thought that in just twenty-four hours his precious little girl was going to be taken by the Shades, trained to fight and God only knows what else. Had he and Isobell, Keena's mother, known that their child would be born a shade they would never have had children. Perhaps they should have told her long ago, but they didn't want that hanging over her head her whole life. Isobell had told Keena stories about the Shades, but always in a way that made them seem like fairy tails, just a child's bedtime story. She insisted that Keena would remember the stories and it would help her when the time came for her to leave. She also maintained that Keena's own past memories would help her, even if she didn't realize that they were memories. But come on, how did you tell your child that they were something other than just human? Something that has been on the periphery of humanity since time began.