by Kristal Stafford

Created on: November 23, 2008

Megan first saw her, the little girl, sitting in a wicker arm chair in a corner of her bedroom. Her dark clothing contrasting sharply against the lavender cushions of the chair. At first, she hadn't seen her. As the sun bathed the window, sending lightning bolts of rays across Megan's closed eyelids, she rolled lazily towards her alarm clock, which at that time, had begun to shout the voices of the morning DJs. In a one-eyed, one-handed motion, Megan shut off the alarm and had begun rolling back to her warm groove in the center of the bed when a small, dark shape appeared in her peripheral. Megan quickly rationalized that she had absentmindedly thrown a piece of her wardrobe across the chair and closed her eyes. It was then that she heard the almost inaudible ruffle of a page being turned.

Megan's eyes flew open and her body stiffened. As if unseen hands were forcing her forward, she sat up. Their eyes locked. At that moment, all Megan could see were the girl's black eyes, void of white, and swallowing the room. She had no distinguishing facial characteristics. Her hair, which was too dark to be brown, but too light to be black, was wrapped in a small bun. Her skin had no pigment, but held a rather grayish hue. She wore some sort of non-descript jumpsuit with laced sneakers. Except for the freakishly, large black eyes, she looked like a child removed from a scene of a black and white movie. Her tiny, frail hands were spread evenly upon each page of the book that rested on her lap.

"Am I dreaming?" To this day, Megan can't be sure if the words were spoken outside of her mind, but she still waited breathlessly for her response. The girl's face twitched, revealing rotted teeth while her eyes elongated rhythmically to a silent drum. With an outstretched arm the girl replied, with a voice so distant, "Are you dreaming?"

Megan, hoping to feel anything tangible that would discredit this as a hallucination, stretched out her arm to "touch" the image. "Are you real?" she whispered while stretching her own eyes to fully connect with what she was seeing. Just as she felt her body inching slowly to the foot of her bed, reaching hesitantly into the air, the image fizzled, flattening into a thin line of mist.

That had been four days ago. Since then, Megan had seen the girl twice more. Once, while dressing for work two days ago. She had opened the bi-fold doors of her closet and found the girl sitting, as if patiently waiting for someone, reading a book. She never looked up

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