Dawn (When They Return Book 1) Read Free Page A

upstairs, telling her that dinner was ready.
    So soon?
    It hadn’t been an hour yet. She glanced at the clock seated on the corner of her desk. It read four thirty. An hour had passed. Dawn glanced down at her homework. She was nowhere near done. Where had the time gone?
    “Dawn, dinner is ready,” her mother called again. “Come eat.”
    She stood up and before she could turn around, her bedroom door began to creak open. She chanted her ‘it’s not real’ mantra, over and over again as she slowly turned around. Her bedroom door was wide open. But no one was there.
    Moving slowly, she crept over to the door, glancing from left to right, fearing at any moment, the bloody mirage would jump out and grab her. She made it out into the hallway with no problems.
    In the hall the temperature was normal. She stared over her shoulder into her bedroom. Why was it so cold in there yet regular out here? She strode over to the stairs. Below, her mother and father were talking about his travels.
    They sounded happy. They would begin singing a different tune once she arrived, especially if she told them what she was seeing and feeling. Dawn gripped the handrail and before she could take one step down the stairs, she felt a cold hand on her shoulder.
    She spun around and stared into the blood shot eyes of her mirage. She opened her mouth to scream for her mother, but no sound emerged as the mirage shoved her. Dawn fell back, toppling down the stairs.
    Pain radiated through her body, starting from the place on her shoulder where the mirage had touched her. Touched her … the mirage had really touched her. That was her last thought before her body crashed into the stairs.
     

Chapter Three
 
~ Remembering ~
     
     
    Her mother was sobbing.
    Her dad was yelling.
    And there was another voice whispering for her to remember.
    Dawn could hear all of them, but she couldn’t open her eyes. Darkness surrounded her and though she knew she wasn’t moving, she felt like she was still falling. She’d been pushed by her mirage.
    It was still hard to believe that thing had actually touched her. That made it real, not a figment of her imagination. Though her mirage had been with her for a year, trying to get her attention, it had never done anything this drastic. It had never psychically hurt her.
    “Remember.”
    This time the whispered word came across louder than the voices of her parents. Still, she ignored it, trying to focus on her mother and father. They may not want her, but at least they didn’t try to hurt her… physically.
    Dawn heard her father tell her mom to stop crying. Her mother was begging for him to take Dawn to the hospital. The hospital? Was it that serious? Dawn couldn’t recall the last time she’d visited a doctor other than her psychiatrist, Dr. Gholar.
    “We can’t take her to the doctor,” her father yelled. “They’ll ask too many questions.”
    “But she won’t stop bleeding. She’ll die if we don’t take her.”
    Won’t stop bleeding?
    Die?
    What was her mother talking about? Dawn didn’t feel any pain. Where was she bleeding from? Her father’s next statement confused her.
    “Die?” His laughter was borderline hysterical. “We both know she won’t die, no matter how badly we wish she would.”
    What?
    The desire to cry welled up within her, but Dawn knew the tears wouldn’t come, even if she tried to force them. She never cried. She was never sick. And even though she slept at night, it wasn’t because she was tired.
    Her body seemed to shut down every night around the same time. Nine p.m. And no matter how hard she fought to stay awake, she always succumbed to slumber. And she was always haunted by the same dream.
    Something was wrong with her. And the fact that her father wished her dead was proof. She wasn’t natural and no matter how many times her psychiatrist told her she was, she knew it would never be true.
    Her mother sobbed louder. Dawn didn’t miss the fact that her mother didn’t