“You’re late,”Mr.Jones scolded.  
   
      “Sorry, sir,”she apologized. 

      “No, no, no, no, no,”she thought. 
The only seat was right in the center. The guy who called you a clutz had an
evil smirk on his face. Sara glared at him, but he just shrugged back. She walked slowly to the worst, yet the only seat she could have when she was saved by a miracle. 

      “Ben, you’re leaving. Pack up,”Mr.Jones ordered.
   
      As soon as Ben left, she picked up her pace and took her seat-at the back. Now Sara was the one with a smirk on her face. As she looked up, she was glad no one was watching her, but when Sara looked up at the board to fill in today's prompt she froze.  Stretched across the whiteboard was “It makes me happiest when…” and Sara was clueless about what to write.  It was like she didn’t know the definition of happy. Sara hadn’t been happy since…..a tear slid down her cheek.  And she fell.

      “SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!”
   
      Sirens went off and Sara was carried off in an ambulance to the nearest hospital. Everything was black to her eyes, but to the rest of the people around her, there was bright sunshine coming through the windows.
   
      Sara eyes shot open startling the man watching her from above.

      “Mr.Wong?”she said with shock. 

      “Why is my P.E teacher here?”she thought.
   
      “She’s awake!  Someone get a doctor!” 

      “So it is him,”she thought after hearing him yell.
   
      “Are you alright Sara?”he asked.
   
      “If he’s here, he must be on break so I was unconscious, for OVER AN HOUR A HALF!”Sara thought.
   
      “Sara? Earth to Sara!”
   
      “Huh? Wha? Oh, sorry, yes, I’m perfectly fine,”she replied.
   
      Sara shifted her gaze toward the door after a series of knocks were heard.
   
      “Come in,”the two said in unison.
   
      An asian woman, who looked to be Japanese, came into the room.
   
      “Ah, you must be Sara. I’m Dr.Fujita. Pleased to meet you,” she said.
   
      “Please to meet you too,”Sara said in reply.
   
      “I believe I found the cause of your fainting,”Dr.Fujita said, pulling up graphs on the room’s computer. “It seems you were in shock and your heart rate dropped quite severely from your average based on previous visits and right now,”she continued, and gestured to her heart monitor. “Did anything shock you at the time?”
   
      “Um...well no,”Sara whispered while looking down;her cheeks red.
   
      Sara couldn’t let the doctor know how she was most likely secretly depressed.

      “Then she’s gonna send me to a counselor and say a bunch of cliche stuff like ‘You're important,’ ‘You're awesome,’ but none of that is true about me,”she thought.
   
      “Well...alright then, you can leave, right after your mother finishes filling out the paperwork,”Dr.Fujita said.

      “She knows I’m lying. Dang it,”Sara thought.
   
      “Ok...thank you,”she said.
   
      As the doctor left, her mother came in with a worried expression on her face, but Sara knew she was faking. As Mr.Wong left to head back to school, her mother’s expression changed to show rage and fury.
   
      “GET IN THE CAR NOW,”she demanded; her voice with strictness, yet no expression anymore.

      Sara walked down the white creepy halls of the hospital and got in the car. There was less than 5 seconds of silence until her mother burst out in anger. 
   
      “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FAINTED IN CLASS!  WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
   
      It was like a bomb just dropped, but it wasn’t a bomb. It was a warning attack. Sara knew this, but she knew the bomb would be dropped soon.
   
      “i don’t know……,”she replied.
   
      “See. You don’t know. That’s what happens when you miss OVER AN HOUR AND A HALF OF SCHOOL!”her mother said.
   
      SLAP!
   
      Sara received a hard slap on her left cheek by her mother.
   
      “Get your act together,”she said.
   
      As soon as they pulled into the driveway, Sara ran inside the house by going through the slim space between the bars and used a spare key, in which she made by taking clay and putting the real key to make a mold which she filled with liquid that hardened, to open the door. 
   
      She flopped on her bed and curled up in a ball as tears filled her eyes until she cried herself to sleep.
   
      “why am i still alive………”

The bomb had dropped........

And taken effect.

      Suddenly, all Sara saw was darkness, but she felt conscious. It was almost like a void. No. It was a void. She then saw a little girl appear and with her, a bright yellow beam of light, but she knew it wasn’t sunshine. The girl was watching the light and as Sara moved closer she gasped. 

      It was the first time the girl who called her a pig made fun of her. That girl was Emily. Sara then realized that the little happy girl was her younger self from when she was eight, but soon, Past Sara’s expression went from happy and joyful to sad and sorrowful. A chain link suddenly appeared on her arm.
Memories, almost a slideshow of memories were showed in the bright light ahead. All the times Sara felt bad about herself, every single one, was shown; and not a single happy one was shown, yet the times of each memory were very close in time. Just a few hours apart. Every memory, a new link appeared and every time Past Sara aged, the weaker she looked. Sara wanted to save her, but she didn’t know how and just continued to watch, but she watched painfully.
   
      The light finally showed today when her mother yelled at her. A final chain link appeared on Past Sara’s arm, but she now looked exactly like Sara. When Sara looked down she found herself covered in chains. A wave of weakness washed over her and she couldn’t hold her head up.
   
      “Someone! Help me!”Sara screamed.

      “Someone….help”
   
      Tears streamed down her face and her skin turned grey. Everything was now black and white including the once bright and yellow light and her own body. The chains started to tighten around Sara’s neck in her throat area. It kept squeezing and tightening every second until she could hardly breath. But it was when she remembered who was most important to her, who made her feel better about herself, who’s words might be able to save her, that she had hope. She had remembered her father. The words her father told her were Sara’s only hope. She’d never believed them, but she had to now.

“i….am….smart."

"i….am...beautiful."

"i...am...important.”
   
      Sara repeated the chant over and over and her words got louder and she got stronger. She kept going to get rid of every single chain link, but before she could get the last one the void disappeared.
   
      Back on her bed, she sat upright and gasped, but saw something she never thought was possible.
   
      “Mom? Are you crying?”
   
      “Sara!”her mother exclaimed giving her huge hug.
   
      “Uhhhhhh, what the heck is happening,”Sara muttered to herself.
   
      “Are you alright?”her mother asked.
   
      “Why wouldn’t I be?”she replied.
   
      “You weren’t breathing and you were screaming for help.”
   
      “Yea…um….about that, it’s a really long story,”Sara said biting her lip.
   
      “Please say I don’t have to tell her,”Sara thought.
   
      “Tell me,”her mother said, but Sara could tell it wasn’t an option.
   
      Sara told her everything from Emily, to the way her mom treated her, to the “dream” she had had. She then burst into tears.
   
      “Sara…..I….I’m….s-so…...sorry. I’m sorry. I should’ve treated you better. Ever since you're father left….I….”A tear slid down her cheek. “I just wanted you to succeed and become a scientist or a lawyer or have a huge company so I pushed you to get 4.00 GPAs in school, do extracurricular activities, but you’re only sixteen. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you. I’m sorry my expectations were so high,”her mother apologized.
   
      “A huge company. A lawyer. A scientist. That’s what she wanted?! Seriously?!”Sara thought.
   
      “What can I do to make it up to you?”her mother asked.
   
      “Can I switch schools?”Sara asked.
   
      Her mother sighed. “Just go for one more week and if it’s still miserable we can look for a new school to transfer you into, ok?”
   
      She nodded, but knew that she was going to change schools at the rate things were going for her. Sara couldn’t wait until Friday.

      The next day she got dressed and walked to school with confidence for the first time and after she had a full breakfast and a full on rest.
   
      Emily teased her as usual, but it didn’t bother her anymore. As she walked home she noticed a 6th grader getting bullied by an 8th grader. Being a tall sophomore and him being a short 8th grader when he saw Sara he stopped hitting the kid.
   
      “Hey! Leave him alone!”she yelled.
   
      As Sara came closer, the 8th grader left since she was half a foot taller than him.
   
      “Marcus!”Sara heard someone yell.
   
      “Are you alright?”a girl who came over asked.
   
      The boy who she assumed was Marcus nodded and told the girl how Sara saved him.
   
      “Thank you so much Sara,”she said.
   
      “No problem, but how do you know my name?”Sara inquired.
   
      “We’re in the same class. I’m Jasia by the way,”she said.
   
      “Nice to meet you. I’ll see you tomorrow,”Sara replied.
   
      Sara and Jasia hung out everyday at school after Sara told her mom she didn’t want to move.

      “We should hang out this weekend,”Jasia suggested.
   
      “Great. I know the perfect place, but I’m not telling you,”Sara said.

      On Saturday, Sara woke up with fear and excitement. She hadn’t been there in years and promised herself never to go again.
   
      She got ready despite her fear to go and walked out the door to meet Jasia.
   
      Sara and Jasia both walked together all the way to some sort of park.
   
      “Is this it?”Jasia asked.
   
      Sara shook her head and lead Jasia through a cave that was hidden by many tall trees. A bunch a green vines covered the inside of the cave and she felt like someone-she shook away her thoughts and continued walk.
   
      “Start throwing rocks at the vines,”Sara ordered.
   
      “Ummm, ok,”Jasia said in reply.
   
      “Is she crazy?”she thought.
   
      Eventually, one of Jasia’s rocks went through the vines and her jaw dropped.
   
      “Ummm, are you sure this is safe?”she asked.
   
      “Yeah. Probably.”
   
      “What do you mean pro-wow.”
   
      As Sara led Jasia through where the rock flew Jasia’s eyes shot wide open. Before her was something breathtaking that she couldn’t believe. A smile slowly appeared on Sara’s face.
   
      “My father used to take me here every weekend,”she said.
   
      In front of them was a beautiful Wisteria Willow tree on top of a dark grassy hill. The bark was dark and almost black, yet healthy. The tree trunk was tall and the branches held up long violet and magenta leaves, drooping down, but not touching the grass.
   
      “Sara, why did you bring me here, because I know you don’t wanna hang out here. Is it because…”
   
      “Yes. I really was hoping he’d be here after all these years, but I guess not.”
   
      “Sara-”
   
      “It’s okay though. My life is finally turning around so it doesn’t matter if-Jasia was that you?”

      “No~”
   
      Their heads turned toward the rustling coming from the vines in the cave.
          “Ok, climb up the tree silently. Use the leaves has ropes to climb up,”Jasia instructed.
      
      As they climbed up Sara noticed a tall black shadow. She figured it must be an adult man.
   
      “Please be him,”Sara thought, but soon, she’d given up hope.
   
      As she continued to climb the leaves her grip slipped. Instead of being smart and logical, she screamed.
   
      “Who’s there?!”a man yelled.
   
      Sara knew that voice and it definitely wasn’t who she expected.

      “Uncle Chris?”
   
      “Sara?”
   
      “What are you doing here?”Sara asked.
   
      “Just taking a look,”he said. “Hey, Jasia.”
   
      Uncle Chris and Jasia met at Sara’s house when he visited and Jasia just happened to be there.
   
      Suddenly, another tall shadow emerged. Everyone’s instincts told them to hide, but their bodies stayed right in place.
   
      “Chris! Wait up!”the man yelled.
   
      Sara’s mouth had no words. She knew that voice.
   
      “Yeah, umm I forgot to tell you that-”
   
      “Dad……..”
   
      A man approached them and his jaw dropped right open.

      “Sara……….”
   
      Sara ran towards him and kneeled on the ground sobbing.
   
      “I’m sorry,”she sobbed.
   
      “For what?”her father asked.
   
      “I’m the reason you left…...right?”
   
      “No~. I left for many different reasons, but you nothing to do with a single one of them……….and…………..I’m coming home.”
   
      A smile appeared on both their faces and laughter emerged when they both saw to smartphones recording.
   
      Jasia pulled out the picnic basket she brought as they enjoyed a picnic and decided to go to the movies.
   
      At ten o’clock pm they returned home after dropping off Jasia and Uncle Chris.
   
      “Mom?”
   
      Sara saw her mother with her arms crossed sitting on a chair as she turned the lights on.
   
      “You're three hours past curfew. Explanation?”
   
      It was that moment when her father walked in that her mother’s expression softened and turned into shock.

      “Mark?”
   
      “Ashley.”
   
      “Where have you been?”Sara’s mother asked.
   
      “That’s for another time.”
   
      Sara got ready for bed and hopped under the covers. To her, it was unbelievable how all this was happening. Her mind started to question if what happened this week was real, but before she could really ponder on it, she drifted off to sleep.

      “No~, no no no no no~”
   
      Sara was back in the void. The same void in which she was covered in chains. Scared to look down, tears fell from her eyes, but the same light from the previous time, shone right in her eyes, drying her tears.
   
      “This…..can’t…..be…..happening…..”
   
      Scared to look at the light she sobbed for what seemed like hours to her, but it was only thirty minutes.
   
      “Why? Just when I thought things were okay everything goes wrong again.”
   
      Sara repeatedly pinched herself to try and wake herself up, but she was still in the void. She finally realized that her only hope, and her only choice, was to face the light.
   
      “I guess I have to face it. Here we go.”
   
      Sara lifted her head up to face the bright yellow light and got ready to face her chains, but the memory was different.
   
      This time, the memory in the light was………….when her father came back today at the Wisteria Willow tree with her Uncle Chris.
   
      As she looked down, the last chain link, the final one, disappeared.

      She woke up and shot up in an upright position.
   
      “Okay. So this week I fainted in class, then I had a terrible dream where I could’ve died, and I made a friend because I stopped a bully-DAD!”
   
      Sara rushed to her parents room and came to a sudden stop in front of her parent’s room. Scared to see what was inside, she gathered up her courage and slowly turned the doorknob and creaked open the door.
   
      Her father…………………………..

wasn’t there.

      Leaving her phone downstairs the night before, she rushed down to call him.
   
      Almost tripping, she caught herself, as a feeling of relief washed over her. Her father was right there, standing in the kitchen by the stove cooking breakfast.
   
      “Hello Sara,”her father said. “Pancakes?”
   
      Sara smiled and nodded her head.

      “Mmmmmm. Smells good,”her mother said with a yawn as she slowly walked downstairs.
   
      Sara was overwhelmed with joy. Everything was back to normal for her. She had her father back, she had an amazing friend, and her mom was acting normal.
   
      She then placed three tickets to the amusement park on the table. Smiles emerged from her parents.
   
      Sara was finally happy and happy with herself. She couldn’t ask for anything better or anything else.

      Most importantly, she had no more chains dragging her down.

THE END?

As Sara boarded the Ferris Wheel she received a text from Jasia, but she ignored since didn’t want to drop her phone, but Jasia continued to spam her.
Text:
Jasia:Sara
Jasia:Sara
Jasia:Sara
Jasia:Sara
Missed Call From Jasia
Missed Call From Jasia
Missed Call From Jasia
Me:What do you want! I’m busy!
Jasia:It’s important!
Me:What could possibly be so important that you have to interrupt my family time.
Jasia:Your……….
Jasia:Uncle Chris……….
Me:What about him……
Jasia:He told me something you might not believe.
Me:Then why would you tell me?
Jasia:My mom confirmed it.
Me:What does she have to do with this?
Jasia:Sara
Jasia:Don’t you get what I’m saying
Jasia:He’s my……………….
Jasia is typing……...........

To be continued.......................