Detective *original story.

I just wanted to make a quick note, that this is the beginning of this workshop thing for my Creative Writing class and I just wanted to give y'all a sample to know what you guys think of it. So without further ado...

I do not like having a guilty conscience. The day I got to school late that year, everything changed for me. I will never know if I could have been able to change anything if I had been there on time, but I like to think that I would not have. Thinking that makes it more believable that the events that passed would have happened whether I had been there to stop them or not. Besides, if nobody else in the school was there to stop everything that happened that day, then why would I have been?
The woman who sat at my desk stared me down and asked, “Scarlett, are you sure you can’t tell me anything about this dream you had?”
“I’ve already told you five times,” I repeat, “I can’t remember what happened in it. I forgot what happened as soon as I woke up. Why do you keep interrogating me about this dream and my other ones?”
“Your father is worried about you. He wants to make sure this is not psychological, or anything.”
“Is that what he thinks? Well, why don’t you tell me what you think, Miss Fredrick.”
“Me? Well, Scarlett, I think there is something that you are not telling me. It’ll be so much better for your health if you just tell me what it is that has you so tense.”
“Well, I think that I’m already an hour late for school and I need to get back to class. Now, if you’ll excuse me while I finish getting ready.”
My therapist left my room with a pursed expression on her face as I stuffed the rest of my books into my backpack. She knew I lied about not remembering what I dreamed about, but I could not tell anyone about it. Especially not anyone in my family, like my father, who sent for the therapist every time I told him I had a dream. After a few minutes, I closed my bedroom door behind me and make my way to the school.
As I walked into school, my footsteps echoed down the hall. My own heart beat against the silence of the school hallways. I did not find anyone in the main office, nor in the classrooms. I tried to reason that there might be an assembly and everyone gathered in the opposite side of the school, but it did not seem logical. My breathing increased as I crept slowly down the hallways looking for anyone who knew what was going on. There had to be someone in the building that could give me the answers I sought out.
I came to an intersection in the hallway, trying to focus my hearing to each turn individually. I did not hear a thing. I decided to take the right hallway, walking towards the gymnasium. That was where everyone was, right? I could not help but feel that something wrong happened. The hallways never sounded so quiet. I felt as though I could suffocate under the loud silence of the school’s hallways.
I zipped around when I heard the banging crash behind me. I knew something wrong had happened at the school now. Taking a deep breath, I turned back around and started running. I did not worry about my footsteps as they pounded against the floor of the school. My heart raced, my body going into survival mode. I did not know what I ran away from, but i knew it could be anything but good. I did not know where I planned to run to, but I knew I had to run until I no longer faced a threat.
The sound of cymbals crashing against each other rang through the halls again, but this time it sounded closer. I knew that whatever pursued me started to gain an advantage on me. I tried to pick up the pace, my breathing ragged and a stabbing pain shot through my side. I took another turn, trying to lose whatever pursued me. Blood pumped through my veins as I maneuvered through the halls.
Repeated bangs sounded through the hallways. Each time it felt like they were growing closer to me. I needed to outsmart whatever chased me, or I would not come out of this school again, at least not alive. I started to run out of breath. I could not keep the pace up forever. I had not trained for this kind of exercise. Not yet anyway.
I rounded another corner and my heart sped up considerably as I crashed into something. It found me; how did it find me? I backed up a few steps, prepared to fight for my life, but then I saw that it was only one of my best friends, Jackson. I could not believe that he found me. I grew both relieved and scared for him. We had to get out of their as fast as we could. I did not know what my predator could do to us.
I could tell by the expression of remorse on Jackson’s face that something bad happened. All my fears of that night flooded back to me as I say, “What is it, Jackson?”
“Scarlett, I—you should probably come with me,” he told me and started to drag me in the direction he came from.
“Okay, but we have to run. There’s something following me and it does not sound good,” something clanged, only five rooms down, “See? Run!”
Jackson and I ran for our lives. I recognized almost immediately that we headed towards the gym. The reason I had not been able to hear anything was because they were all down here checking out whatever had Jackson so afraid. I had been panicking, so I did not hear Jackson coming for me. I needed to be stronger than that. The brief period that I stopped running did not help with the stitch that continued to grow in my side as we made it closer to the school’s gymnasium.
I slowed down to a jog and then eventually to a walk as we approached a crowd of students who surrounded the principal. Even stranger, the principal’s posture was weird, as though he were bending over something, but trying to hide it from as many people as he could. I crept towards the crowd, trying to see what hid underneath the principal of the school. I could not see a thing, though, because there were a crowd of people between the principal and me.
I leaned over to Jackson, “I don’t care how, but you need to get me to the front of this crowd. I need to know.”
He looked at me strangely, “I’ll be able to do it, but what is it you need to know, Scarlett?”
“That’s not important. Just do what I said already.”
Not a minute later, a path cleared for me to walk through. I felt Jackson behind me as I quietly made my was to the front. The closer I got, the more I dreaded what I found out. I had a sinking sensation that it would be a lot like the dream. There were too many dreams to choose from, but something made me think it would have been last night’s dream.
At first when I got to the front, I looked everywhere except for the floor beneath the principal. I saw Ava’s gaping stare she directed towards be, unbelieving what happened. Then, I felt Jackson’s reassuring grip on my shoulder. Slowly I looked down at the body that laid on the ground. I thought the body would be from my most recent dream, but I proved myself wrong that morning.
The body had not come from my most recent dream. It came from the first dream in which I found a dead body. A remorseful sensation filled my insides as I counted the dreams I had in the past two months. I met Ava’s eyes, and I walked out of the crowd. I felt Jackson follow me, almost heard him as he called my name, but my mind reeled as it attempted to process this new information.
“What’s going on, Scarlett?” I heard my best friend ask me.
I told her, “I don’t know, Ava, but I can tell you one thing. If I don’t stop this, there is going to be a lot of bloodshed.”
Jackson asked, “How much blood will be spilled?”
“So far, nine more bodies. I’ve only been able to identify the first and the most recent body’s.”
“Who is the most recent one? While we figure this out, we can protect them,” demanded Ava as she stared me down.
“It’s not going to come to that. I’m not going to let whatever this is get that far, no matter what.