Yes…I’m starting yet another story…this probably isn’t a good idea since I hardly ever have time to update, but whatever. I just HAD to start this one, I couldn’t take it any more. Besides, lately I’ve been bored out of my MIND…I’m getting ready to start ripping skin off my arms because I don’t know what to do with myself…

But I’m getting too violent.

Be nice. Review.

SUMMARY: Avari's about to find out the sickening truth...That all of what she previously thought to be truth isn't so. She's one of only a handful of real, true people and she has to find out who the other real people are in a world full of fakes. Only then can all of them start working together to try to figure out why they were put in this fake world, why they are the only real people, and where to go next. And, as much as they wish to not have anything more to deal with, there’s much more they couldn’t even imagine. But how can they possibly fight against dangers and evils unknown to them?

Only time will tell.

And time can be deadly.

Chapter 1

The alarm blasted to life next to Avari’s ear.

“Mmm,” she groaned, viciously attacking the clock blindly with her right hand, her face still smothered in her pillow.

CRACK

The alarm stopped ringing.

Great, Avari thought. She slowly picked up her head and wearily peered over the edge of her bed, looking down at the fallen clock. The battery cover had popped off and its three AA batteries were scattered across the floor next to her bed. Avari sighed, crawled out of bed, got on her hands and knees, put the batteries back in the clock, and snapped the cover back into place.

She slowly stood back up and replaced the alarm clock to its place on her nightstand. Her fingertips lingered on top of the square-shaped clock as her still-sleepy mind wandered off, returning to the dream that she had been having when the clock woke her up.

It had been a good dream.

Avari forced herself to come painfully back to reality, sighed again, and left her bedroom for the bathroom. As she brushed her teeth with the orange toothbrush that she had had longer than the faded Snoopy pajamas she was currently wearing and that desperately needed replacing, she studied herself in the mirror above the sink. She was fifteen, but looked a little young for her age. At least, she looked younger than other people in her grade level at school. She decided it was because she didn’t waste time or skin cells on the gooey junk that other girls put all over their faces every morning. Sometimes – though only on very rare occasions – she wore lip gloss, but even so, her lip gloss was light and didn’t have glitter or anything else in it that made Avari want to gag.

Her hair was kind of long, going well past her shoulders. It was, in her opinion, a nice sort of brown, neither dark nor light. It was a little wavy, but not dramatically so, and the ends curled a little. At the moment, though, it was messy and tangled – a true case of bed head.

Avari’s eyes were brown and normal-shaped. She had always wished her eyes were a more unique color instead of average, boring brown, but she didn’t care that much. Her skin was pale from all the years of staying inside and reading books or playing computer games rather than practicing sports, but, like her hair, she thought it was a nice shade. Overall, she was happy with her physical appearance.

As she brushed her teeth and stared in the mirror, her mind found its way, once again, back to her dream from the night before.

It was a really good dream, she thought, smiling at her reflection. Even though I’m not completely sure why it was so special…like the other ones.

This wasn’t the first time Avari had woken up in the last few months thinking about what a nice dream she had had the night before, but not knowing what had been so nice about it. This time was no different from the others – she woke up, was slightly confused for a couple of seconds, then she remembered some of the details of the dream and was filled with a feeling of complete contentment for no apparent reason. It was the same feeling that came with thinking about a problem for hours and finally coming up with the solution. Avari had no idea why this feeling accompanied these dreams, but she had never really thought about it too much before. Now, standing in front of her bathroom sink, she started realizing just how odd this whole thing was.

For the past four months, Avari had been having dreams about people she had never seen before outside of her dreams. Yet, somehow, she knew these people were real. Not just while she was dreaming, but even when she was awake did she feel a sense of reality when it came to thinking about the dreams.

The majority of the time, Avari had normal dreams. But ever since Avari’s first dream about those people she didn’t know, the odd dreams became more frequent. It started off as just a single dream in early June, before the new school year started. Then she had another one in the middle of July, just as she was forgetting about the first one. Then she started having them about every three weeks until school started. Towards the end of August, this changed to every couple of weeks. Now, in early November, Avari could expect at least two of them a week.

Never before had she considered the possibility that these strange dreams had some kind of meaning. She just accepted themas they were and enjoyed the happy feeling they brought. She never thought they could be important…in fact, she usually forgot about them an hour into the school day. But this morning she started thinking that they probably weren’t normal. Maybe they did hold some kind of importance. She started wondering how she could have ignored them before.

After all, it wasn’t exactly normal to have frequent dreams about people you didn’t know at all but at the same time, knew for sure that they existed, somewhere. Nor was it normal to feel so happy about a dream that you could only remember a few, small details about.

Avari had never remembered more than short flashes of these dreams. Whenever she had a normal dream, like going to school and finding out that one of her least favorite teachers died or something, she could remember the whole thing clearly.

She spat out the foamy toothpaste, rinsed her mouth and toothbrush, and started brushing her tangled mass of hair, coming finally to the conclusion that she was probably thinking way too much about something stupid and insignificant.

But that’s what happens when you don’t have a life, Avari thought, smiling slightly at her reflection as she put her brush down. She then went back to her room to finish getting ready for another normal day at school.

---

“Hey,” Avari said, smiling, as she walked up to the front of the school and met Tovi, one of her best friends.

“What’s up?” Tovi said, smiling back.

Tovi had long, black hair that just curly enough to not be completely straight. She was just as pale – if not paler – as Avari and had eyes that were a very pretty greenish blue which Avari envied. Tovi was the first person that Avari met at Jerony High. Avari, unlike her friends, had only just started going to Jerony this year, having moved into the area the previous summer.

“Nothing…I really didn’t want to come to school today,” Avari said sounding bored.

“Me either,” Tovi agreed. “I hate Mondays.”

The two girls were quiet for a moment. A loud group of cheerleaders walked past them, the loudest being a tall, blonde girl whom Avari strongly disliked.

“You know…” Avari said, her voice trailing off.

“What?” Tovi came to attention, noticing right away that this was important from her friend’s voice.

“Nothing,” Avari said, waving it off. She had, of course, been getting read to tell Tovi about her dreams, but decided not to. She was going to stand by her conclusion that she was being too concerned about something dumb.

Another loud group of cheerleaders walked past the girls as they slipped back into silence. Avari didn’t notice this new group for a few seconds, but then one of them caught her eye.

It was Ivi, the tall, blonde girl that had just walked by a few moments before.

No…that’s not possible. They just walked by from that direction a few seconds ago. There’s no way they could have walked a circle around the whole school by now.

“Didn’t Ivi just walk by from that direction?” Avari asked, staring at the group of cheerleaders as they walked by.

“I didn’t notice. I try not to look at her,” Tovi said, watching Ivi with obviousdistaste.

“I could’ve sworn she did…”

Tovi shrugged.

Avari sighed. This was starting off as a very unnormal Monday.