• The girl sat in the dark with her arms wrapped around her knees hugging them to her chest. Her hat was pushed down on her head making her hair seem matted and tangled. Yume stared glassy eyed at the wall opposite of her bed and took in the sweet rotting smell of the stained sheets. She shifted only slightly but enough to let some of the thoughts that had been banging on the door to slip through the cracks. She pushed them away forcing herself to think of nothing. She again resumed concentrating on the far wall and closet. A bead of sweat rolled down her face but she didn't dare make a move to wipe it off. if she even moved a finger she would start to break, shatter into tiny pieces. Scattered so far apart she would never be able to collect all the small sharp fragments. whenever she closed her eyes she could again see the lightning strike and the gun smoke. A cloud was above her head making her feel fuzzy it smelled like death and made her head swim with the memories. She couldn't let herself fall asleep even though her eyes stung and her head ached. The minute pain was nothing compared to the reoccurring dream that she feared the most. She blinked once then twice that seemed to break her stupor making her feel how tired she really was. Her eyes were going in and out of focus and her mind screamed at her to get some sleep but she ignored the pleading and continued to stare at the wall like there was some void that led to another world.

    That would be somewhere I would live She told herself somewhere far where I could just exist and not need a purpose.

    She lifted her hand in front of her face so slowly as not to arouse the demon of her memories, and just held it there. She studied every curve and line of her palm.

    My future is so uncertain I wonder if even a gypsy could tell where I will end up She thought dropping her hand to her side and there it lay lifeless on the blanket.

    She turned her mind to other thoughts although she didn't have many to choose from. The days here at the Lincoln Nelson Home for Abandoned Children are dull and lifeless. School:the same. Except for her World history teacher he seemed to be somewhere in a far off land visiting Japan perhaps. She wished she were along for the ride. Turning herself ever so slightly she looked in the direction of the other beds in her dorm. They were what bothered her. The other orphans. Within the home for the abandoned, there were only two types of personalities; the cheery, happy and go-lucky sort of people who were "making the best of a bad situation", and the wallowing in self pity people who would shut themselves out and cry about how unfair their life is. To the other orphans Yume seemed to fall into category number two but in her own mind she was neither one. She kept a level head and didn't randomly get depressed and cry, but she wasn't generally happy either. She wished she could be alone in her own dorm but that went against the rules. The administrators who ran the home had realized this might keep people from committing suicide, so they band solitary dorms.

    If someone was really determined to kill themselves they would do it either way, maybe taking the rommies along with them in some sort of horrible fire. Yume thought morbidly.

    She heard a small airy chuckle from behind her. She turned around causing the bed to squeak, but only the pillows and the blank white wall stared back at her. Yume shivered she had felt something ominous lately.She tried to resume her thinking but something kept pushing the old memories back into her mind, she shook her head trying to rid herself of these thoughts.It was worthless they kept squeezing their way back in. Yume started to hit herself on the head in furry.

    Why can't I...get them out She thought her eyes were shining with tears and she wiped them away with her sleeves.

    No...they wouldn't dare get through the wall I've so carefully built just for them. She thought determined.

    She quietly touched her foot to the floor then the other trying not to disturb her roommates. She tiptoed her way towards the door but hesitated at the knob. No one was supposed to be outside their dorms by ten. It was eleven-o-clock but Yume put aside her hesitancy and slowly turned the knob. She swung the door open slightly so it wouldn't creak,and stepped outside into the hallway of the second floor. Her bare feet made barley any sound as she softy strode down the hall. The silence was eerie but bearable. She looked out the windows to the right of her and studied the sky color and the trees on the lawn although it was hard to see them clearly. Yume stopped at a door. The bathroom was the only place, though not an excuse, to be up at this hour.