A Rude Awakening

This is a short story I wrote. Please leave comments and tell me what you think. Enjoy!

I was running down the beach. The sand I felt between my toes was warm from the water that had been running over it all day. I could see him at the other end of the beach. I waved my arms and yelling, “Sam, I'm over here!” but he didn't seem to hear me.

He started to walk away, so I ran faster.

“Sam! Wait for me!” I screamed, but he just couldn't hear me. He was too busy looking at something out of the water.

Off in the distance I could see a large ship. It's blue color was magnified by the gleam of the ocean. It glided over the waves so smoothly.

I kept running towards him, but he just seemed to get further and further away from me.

Then out of no where there was a flash from on the water. I looked at the vessel and saw bright orange flames coming from the hull. Out of no where a booming sound filled the air. My hands flung themselves to shield my ears from the noise. I turned back down the beach to look at Sam. He was on his knees covering his ears. The beach began to shake. I lost my footing and feel to the ground.

“Retha, wake-up, the phone is ringing. Retha!” I heard the voice of a man say.

My boyfriend's hand was on my shoulder shaking me as I opened my eyes and slowly slipped away from dreamland. I jumped out of bed and walked across the room to answer the still ringing phone.

“Hello,” I said in a low raspy voice.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice, “Its Pat, sorry to wake you up.”

“Don't worry about it,” I told him, “what's going on?”

“Um, I had this girl come to me a little while ago,” he sounded uneasy, “she told me she was raped.”

At that moment I snapped back to reality and into RA mode.

“Alright, where is she now?” I asked.

“She's with me, we're in the RD office,” Pat explained “I'm really not sure what to do Retha, can you come help me with this? She really needs someone to talk to.”

“Yup, I just have to put on my shoes. I'll be down in 2 minutes. Bye.” I slammed the phone down in the hook in a hurry. I climbed under the bed to grab my shoes and threw them on.

Before my boyfriend knew what was going on I had grabbed my keys and a sweatshirt and the door closed with a slam. I ran downstairs as fast as my feet would take me. When I reached the door of the RD office I looked through the window to see Pat sitting on the couch with his arm around a red headed girl with her face in her hands. She was sobbing.

When I put my key in the lock she sit straight up and looked towards at me with fear in her eyes. I turned the key and push open the door. Pat stood up from the couch and walked over to me. His tall lanky frame seemed smaller than usual, his face a pale white. You could see the panic written all over it.

“Don't worry hunny,” I look into his eyes. He was about to cry. “I'll take of her.”

I reached up and wrapped my arms around him. His whole body was shaking. I had never seen him like this before. It scared me a little bit. I let him go and walked over to the red-headed girl sitting on the couch. Her hands were in her lap and she was looking to the floor.

“Is it ok if I sit down?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said quickly.

“My name is Retha. What's yours?” I said in the kindest voice I could.

Without looking up at me she said, “Amy,” her voice was shaky. I could tell she had been crying for sometime now.

“Amy, I'm here to help you.” I explained as I gently put my hand on her back. Her muscles tensed up. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Her body relaxed and then started to shake. She looked up at me. Her bright blue eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. The teardrops running down her cheeks feel like rain. Her pursed lips were trembling. She threw her arms around my neck and she screamed, “Why me?”

The only sound in the room was her sobbing and the occasional gasp for air that her lungs made. With her head on my shoulder I could feel her quiver. As she cried I could feel the warm tears fall from her face to my shoulder and neck. At that moment there was nothing I could do to help her. I had never felt more helpless n my life. Something that I couldn't even imagine happened to this girl and I couldn't do anything to make it go away.

After a few minutes her tears subsided and she lifted her head off of my shoulder. With her eyes redder than they were before she looked at me and said, “Why did he do that to me?”

I couldn't answer her. I didn't have an answer. So I told her the only thing I could.

“I don't know.”