As soon as he did so, Allison turned on her heels and ran.
I'm not letting her get away this time, Ryan thought, his jaw tightening. He dashed after her, his feet pounding against the pavement. He ran as fast as his feeble legs could carry him, catching glimpses of a white gown disappearing behind the corners of the school buildings.
He followed in hot pursuit, his lungs beginning to burn. He slowed down just enough to catch his breath when he saw her stop at the small footpath leading into the forest bordering his town.
As quick as a bunny, she vanished into the shadows of the trees. Ryan paused for only a second, his heart hammering against his ribs, before he followed suit.
At a distance, Allison sat on a tree stump. Her back was turned, her eyes staring intently at the ground.
Ryan stood there, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He took in his surroundings; they were enclosed by towering trees of various types and ages, each giving off a peculiar, heavy, rusty smell. They stood in a small clearing, neatly bedded by rotting leaves, where the canopy above had long ago joined to form a dense, suffocating ceiling.
This is nature's try at an expensive house, Ryan thought. Strange plants clawed their way along the trunks, sinking thorns into the bark like something out of a dark fantasy novel.
Allison remained silent, transfixed by the ground. Ryan noticed a dark liquid dripping onto her white gown. Concerned, he rushed toward her, but Allison kept her head glued down. Her dress was now drenched in blood, and a strange, wet rasp escaped her throat.
Ryan, not taking any chances, forced her face upward. What he saw made him recoil, his face turning a sickly pale. His whole body quivered; for a moment, he forgot how to breathe. Allison's face was bashed in—a huge, jagged crack dripping with maggots and thick, dark red blood. A side of her nose was chipped off, exposing a hollow hole at the center of her face.
She stood and walked closer to him, her cold breath smelling of that same ancient rust. She leaned in, kissed his forehead, and smiled with teeth that shouldn't have been there.
Ryan screamed at the top of his lungs, kicking and struggling to free himself from her cold embrace.
"Ryan, wake up! Ryan!"
The forest vanished in a blur of grey. The scream was still echoing in his throat, but the air was no longer open and cold; it was stagnant and smelled of old paper.
Ryan sat across the table, his face buried in his hands. His head was swiveling, his vision blurred by the sudden shift from the bright morning sun of the dream to the dim lights of the library office.
Beside him, the world was moving on without him. Miss Keren and Melissa, Ryan's mother, sat next to each other. Melissa's forehead was deeply wrinkled, her gaze fixed on the window as if she were trying to see through the glass into a different time.
Miss Keren let out a sharp, dry cough, bringing Melissa back to the world of the living. Before anyone could speak, the rush of squeaking feet ushered in the school principal, her face tight and seething with "I-told-you-so" rage.
"I told you this child was not meant for this school," she snapped, not even looking at Ryan. "He is not normal. There is something disturbing his head."
Melissa hissed, her hand coiling into a fist on the tabletop. "That's my son you are talking about. Have some respect for your position!" She hit her fist hard against the wood, the sound cracking like a gunshot in the quiet room.
For a minute, the two women faced each other in a deadly silence, until Miss Keren clapped her hands sharply.
"Ladies, let's calm down. Respect yourselves in front of the kid. Ryan?"
Ryan didn't answer. He sat completely oblivious to the drama unfolding between the former friends. His skin crawled. Slowly, he pulled his hands away from his face.
His palms were sticky. He looked down, his eyes widening. A dark, tacky residue of blood coated his skin, smelling of old copper. He reached up to touch his head, and his fingers brushed against something crisp and dry—yellowish, rotting leaves were still tangled in his hair.
One of his shoes was gone, left somewhere in the forest of his mind.
But here they were—the principal and the librarian—looking right at him, telling his mother he needed a psychiatrist, completely blind to the fact that he was literally covered in the evidence of where he had just been.