As pleasant as they start, not all dreams end with such joy. In this particularly ‘good’ dream, I was being chased by demons. Literally. Creatures from Hell. I was running down a dark corridor, the ground was smooth and solid under my feet. The walls--from what little I could see--were lined with hieroglyphics, prayers for Kalona to spare mercy on the women in the afterlife, or just in general, and prayers to ward off evil. The creatures that were chasing me were seriously ugly. Seriously. They had long pointed noses, and hundreds of shark-like teeth. They had oily, green, pinched up faces, with glowing silver eyes. They had two warty, green legs, but six, flawless, cream-colored arms, with weak shoulders and flat chests; that also were green. They each had a thin stomach which seemed to be weighing them down as they lugged along, but it was a pretty quick lug if I do say so myself. As I caught the startling prospect of their description, I looked down at myself and my jaw dropped. I was wearing a beautiful white silk strapless dress with a V-shape in the front and back. The dress went down half way below the top of my thigh and had an amazing pattern that weaved and twisted around the bottom of it with setting-sun-red-purple thread. As I ran, I saw my flame-orange hair cascading down my back in luxurious curls--so unlike its usual thin-bone straightness that went down to my upper back; this went down roughly to my hips. My ghost white skin was the same from my fresh-rain-puddle-colored-eyes, to my high cheek bones, to my short round cute nose, to my full, rosy-red lips, to my strong-set chin, down to my toes. Oh, wow. What I wore on my feet almost made me stop in my tracks. But then the creatures from hell roared.  Just the sound had me bolting for the exit-any exit- and sent an unshakable chill deep into my bones.
    
I was still looking at the dazzling, expensive, cappuccino-colored, slim designer boot wedges that had a hidden chocolate brown zipper curving from the ankle of the boot to the back of the calf on the boot; they went up almost all the way to my knee. At least two-hundred-thirty dollars. All of a sudden a blink of light flashed like a really bright candle against the dark tunnel thing-ugh, I think so brilliantly when I’m sleeping. Then, as I ran towards the bright spot, the demons growled again. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard; their ‘voices’ were thick, like they had honey stuck in their mouth and throat. The actual growl was like gravel had scraped their neck raw. It sounded like an angry outburst, a sickening cry, and something like an ‘I’m-tired-of-doing-this cry’, and just a hint of---was that-pity? I couldn’t think about why they pitied me but sadly, I had other things to worry about. When I reached the light, I burst through. Sadly, to my disadvantage, because, when I leaped through, I fell. It’s not like when you’re riding a roller-coaster and suddenly it goes almost straight down; this was much worse. First, it wasn’t one of those safe ‘strap-yourself- in’ kind-of thing. I was free-falling, and worst yet I still couldn’t see the ground.

After about fifteen minutes of screaming myself hoarse, I finally stopped and looked around my falling form. There wasn’t much to see, all I could see was a puffy whiteness that engulfed my body but evaporated when I reached out to touch it. Clouds--duh, that much is obvious, sleeping stupidity, I mean ‘beauty.’ Twenty minutes passed and I found myself doing back flips and front flips and half kart-wheels through the air. It was actually fun. I felt my body shaking and I figured out that I was laughing--a lot and-strangely--trying to eat the clouds as I back flipped. Suddenly the clouds quickly broke off, and finally fell away; it was then that I finished screaming myself horse.

Emily Paul is a seventh grader who has started writing this book for fun according to her teacher, Dani Golden.