ANNA'S AWAKENING

Anna began to make funny moves in bed while sleeping. Her blanket and pillow had fallen off the bed and her body unconsciously shook, frequently. It was one of those nightmares, but this time move violently. The last nightmare was she covered in bear hair and fighting crime, taking down Vallout’s most notorious criminals.

Sometimes it was her running with the speed of light from Vallout to the neighboring town to save a young girl from maltreatment. The nightmares were always violent; as it was a fist between her and some kingpin. But, this present one was most violent because it was between her and an unseen creature.

The struggle and fight between her and her pillows, duvet, and bed. Anna knew not a soothsayer to interpret this strange nightmare, as it kept repeating over and over. Anyways, it was over now, as her alarm rang, vibrating. Immediately, she tapped the alarm to put on snooze, all in the bid to buy her some minutes to continue in the nightmare.

Soon after, she received a bang on her door, followed by a scream, from her mother, “Wake up, Anna! Can’t you hear the baby crying already?” This then coaxed her to awake. She checked the clock and it was 5 AM. She quickly rushed to the kitchen to prepare food for her baby sister. The same everyday routine activity of her life had commenced again.

Wake-up time was 5 AM and bedtime, was 10 PM. Anna would usually term it ‘boring’, but today, she had a feeling it would be different, because of her nightmare this morning. Nevertheless, she wished she was not awakened by her alarm and Mom, or she had wished she had woken up to her nightmare;

where she was covered in bear hairs, and she was twice her size with long frightening teeth and with a supernatural hearing sense. But the most amazing part was that she was saving lives and fighting a great evil. ‘Alpha werewolf’, was what she would term the beast she saw in her nightmare, but her best friend Jay would term it a rumor because they were out of existence.

This was also seen as a rumor because President Prescott and his council, countless times, debunked their existence in the news. However, Anna still believed they existed.After feeding her baby sister, she ensured her other two younger siblings were set for school. She carefully packed their books in their bag pack and helped Sam pack his lunch in his lunch box.

This was exactly the time Dad came into the kitchen, where they all were, except for his wife. He would not eat his meal before going to work again. This was because he had an important client to meet with, as early as possible, today. He kissed his daughters on their foreheads and quickly played rock, paper scissors with his 13-year-old son, Sam.

He then yelled, “Honey, I am off, goodbye.” Mom replied to him from the backyard, “Stay safe, Honey.” Soon after, the school bus driver arrived. He honked the horn of the vehicle multiple times, and they could all hear he was just a few feet away from their home. “He is here,” Sam said while standing up and taking the last bite of his sandwich.

“Are my stuff completely packed?” Isabel asked Anna but got no reply. She asked again loudly, and immediately Anna snapped out of her imagination. “Yes. Yes, they are.” Isabel stared awkwardly at her and left. Anna was still in the dilemma of the nightmare, the reason she did not hear Isabel the first time she asked the question.

The bite of the werewolf was the most enticing to her. How the werewolf begged her, saying, ‘Please, I have a gift for you’. And then she took off the first two buttons of her shirt, stretched out her collar, and exposed her neck for it to feed on. “Anna! What on earth are you doing? The muffins are getting burnt.” Mom yelled. Mom, walked into her while fantasizing about her nightmare, again. Anna quickly snapped out of her thoughts, again.

She further apologized. But Mom did not care about the apology. Anna did not go to school. She helped Mom in their family’s Bake-and-Eat store, down the road. Routinely, she and Mom would bake the muffins at home, before moving them to the shop every morning.“Anna!” She heard someone scream her name from outside the house; it sounded like her younger sister, Isabel.

On a second thought, it could not be her because she had left for school. Just then, she heard the doorknob creak, open, and shut vehemently. Isabel then walked into the kitchen where Anna and Mom were. “Anna, you did not pack my books completely, again,’ Isabel whined. Anna stared perplexed. “My homework you helped me do, is not in my bag pack,” Isabel added.

“Why Anna?” Mom questioned. “You’re so annoying, Anna! Again, I have missed the school bus, and would have to walk 5 miles to college because of you.” She then ran into Anna’s room and scattered her belongings in search of her homework.

Mom continued to scold Anna. “Anna you are so forgetful these days. What on earth are you thinking about? Seems you are sleeping during the day! Wake up!” The scolding from her mom began to fade out as she got lost in her thoughts again; thoughts about her nightmare. Her mom did not notice but kept yelling, “Get yourself together. If you keep up with this you would be grounded for the month; I do not care what your father would say!”

After the long-lasting rant died down, her mom decided that Anna resumed work first, while she drove Isabel to college that morning, at work, Anna still zoned out on thoughts about her nightmare. It was not rush hour yet, and there were not many customers yet. A few minutes later, her best friend, Jay, came to visit her.

He came under the disguise of a customer because Mom did not want her hanging with Jay. She did not like what Jay was turning her into, especially the places they went to at night and what they did at night. Jay had ordered a muffin but uncomfortably consumed it. “Quit being scared, Jay. She will not bother you, considering you have purchased something.” Anna said this to calm him down.

“I guess that is the only thing she cares about, money,” Jay said. Anna sighed because he was true. Jay continued, “These people do not love you; they do not care about...”

“...Jay, not today, please. I am in a good mood today. Can we not talk about them?”“Okay,” Jay said, lifting both arms in the air. “I had a dream today,” Anna digressed. “Your nightmare about a werewolf, again?”

“It’s a dream and not a nightmare. And it was not about a werewolf but, the Alpha werewolf.”“I told you they do not ex...”

“...I know you have said that a zillion times. But did you listen to the news this morning?” “Nope, because my dad forced me to go take some military college application exams today, when he knows completely well, that I am a born artist.” “Oh, wow,” she said, expressing little or no care about his career.

Then she immediately digressed, “Well, the news said, a random shop attendant complained about his shop being ravaged last night; like a group of dogs destroyed it. And CCTV footage captured a beast, that same night; a beast twice the size of a human and as fast as lightning.”

Jay said, “Well, it could be a...”

“...Anna i