Chapter One

I had the dream again. I had to muffle my cries when I awoke not wanting to wake my parents. If they knew I was still having the dream, I would be right back where I started. Weekly visits to the psychiatrist and a return to the daily doses of anti-depressants I worked so hard to get off.

It was the third time this month I had the dream and kept it to myself. I didn’t want to alarm my parents and have them think I couldn’t handle starting college in the fall.

The dream was always the same. It started with my boyfriend, Kyle and I taking our trip to his parent’s cabin after graduation. He held my hand as we drove down the empty road, staring at me adoringly and excited. We had decided after graduation that the trip to the cabin would be the first time we would be together. Kyle wasn’t a virgin, but I was. He never pushed me to have sex, which is one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was always kind, gentle, and had great patience when it came to me.

The night of the accident is what started the dreams. I wish I could say they were just that, dreams, but they weren’t. They were a constant reminder, forcing me to relive the events that unfolded during that fateful evening.

While Kyle and I rode silently in his SUV, too nervous to talk, I thought about how great that night was going to be and how much I loved him. All those feelings came to a crushing halt as I shouted at Kyle to look out for a man standing in the middle of the road. Kyle swerved so hard the SUV flipped and went skidding across the lane. My cries of horror were silenced by the sound of metal scraping against concrete and the crunching noise the windows made when they shattered.

Disoriented from the crash I struggled to get out of the car. I called Kyle’s name several times and didn’t get a response. I turned my head towards my now broken window. That's when I saw a man walking toward us. I started to scream for help, but the man did not supply his aid. Instead he stood there and watched as the SUV started to burn. I stared back at the man, my expression pleading for him to help us. I couldn’t see his face, it was too dark, but his eyes, they glowed, and it frightened me. I no longer called for his help, afraid he would do more harm.

I knew I had to get us out before the car became completely engulfed in