Maybe it was Jack's rambling, but I had a dream that night about the hole in the ground he spoke about. As I came to the edge of the hole, I noticed the shards of glass under my feet weren't glass at all. It was pieces of bone. There were pieces of femurs, ribs, and shattered skulls.

I came to a doorway that had fall down. Its intricately carved metal frame was half-buried under the wreckage. As I looked down from between the two fallen walls, I stared down into the abyss was overcome by a memory of falling. A memory came into my mind of seeing the sky fading, and I toppled down into the darkness of hell.

I blinked and stepped back. No, I hadn't fallen. It was an illusion. It was a dream. I needed to wake up.

"You've finally come," a voice said from behind me. I spun around half-expecting a vampire. It was just a boy. He was tall, slender, with a mop of black hair and bright green eyes. Even though he didn't look like a monster, there was something about him that filled me with unease.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I could ask you the same," he said and came up beside me. "What are you doing here?"

"You first," I said. Maybe it was instinct, but I didn't trust this boy. I didn't know why I was dreaming of him. I had never seen him before in my life.

"I was born here," he said. "I've been here, always, waiting for you. But this isn't my dream. It's yours. I've never seen this place in this state. You're showing me so much." He blinked at me. I didn't know why he was fascinated by my face. "You don't know," he whispered in awe. "You have no idea what you're doing here."

"You're not answering my question," I said and took a step back toward the edge of the hole.

"Give me your hand," the boy said and reached out toward me. "Let me see you. Let me find you."

"No," I said and took another step back. He tried to grab my hand, but I back away. I lost my balance on the edge and fell.

*

I woke up in with my heart pounding inside my chest. It was Jack who had woken me. I sat up and took a few gulps of air. Holly was sleeping on a couch nearby. Vaguely, I recalled Holly, and I had decided that we should stick together instead of retiring to separate rooms. I was lying in a sleeping bag on the carpet of Andrew's living room. I wasn't lying at the end of a bottomless hole. It was only a dream. I was back in South Beach. It was just a dream; I repeated to myself.

"What's going on?" Holly mumbled from under a pile of blankets. "I thought I told you to sleep upstairs."

"I came down because I heard Ailith screaming her sleep," Jack said. "I thought the vampires got in."

Before I could reply, we heard sirens in the distance. The flicker of police lights appeared through the closed blinds.

"Come out with your hands up!"

All three of us stared at each other. We sat still, as though we had been turned into stone. As the police's voices continued to blare over the megaphone, we still didn't do anything. Somehow, things had gotten to the point that we knew that warning wasn't for us.

We were still among the living.

I jumped as the gunshots started.

I felt so numb from the events of the past couple of days; it almost sounded like toy guns to me. It was disturbing to me that this was what was considered normal now. We were living in a war zone.

When the shooting finally ended, we heard a moaning. The seconds seemed to stretch for years until we heard one final shot from the police officer's guns that put the thing out of its misery.

Could those things still talk? I gulped. Did that mean it was still human, even just a little bit? That it could have been saved if the right medicine came along? That the officers had killed in cold blood?

No, Holly was right. I needed to stop thinking like that. That thing would slurp up my guts like a never-ending bowl of pasta at the Olive Garden if it had a chance.

"Another one on Martin Luther Blvd!" One of the men outside yelled.

We heard police cars being started up and then the sound of vehicles driving away. The ordeal was finally over, at least for us.

"Like I was saying," Jack said, clearing his throat as though nothing had happened. "Ailith was screaming. I'll go back upstairs to bed now."

"No, wait!" Holly said. "There's another couch over there. You can stay there next to the window."

"Gee, thanks so that the vampires will eat me first?" Jack said, laughing. Despite his retort, he settled down on the couch and pulled a blanket over his jeans. I saw his feet, with his big toe sticking out prominently from a hole. He wriggled it from under the covers. "You okay, Ailith?"

"Yeah," I replied, settling back down under the folds of my sleeping bag. "I'm okay. I had a nightmare."

"About vampires?"

"No, about a boy with black hair and strange green eyes."

"Was it someone you knew?" Holly asked. "I dreamed of Jimmy and my parents back in our house in Windflower Springs. I saw them eating New Year's Dinner without me. I wonder if that means they're dead."

"It wasn't anyone I've met before," I said. "Yet, he felt familiar. He wanted me... to take his hand. The thing is, I don't think he was leading me anywhere good."

"Be careful," Jack interjected, suddenly stern. "Sometimes, dreams aren't just dreams."

"You know somethin' Jackie boy?" Holly asked. "Something you're keeping from us?"

"Nothing," Jack said and rolled over on the couch to turn his back on us. "Just go to sleep, okay?"

After a few minutes, I saw a light come on from under Jack's covers, and then as he rolled around to face us, I saw some colorful lights reflected on the lens of his thick glasses.

"What are you doing over there?" Holly demanded.

"Candy Crush. I gotta get to level 6000 before the end of the world," Jack whined. "It's my last wish. Don't you have one too?"

"Well, I would like my death to mean something other than becoming vampire food."

"Oh, shut up, stop feeding the troll," Holly yelled and threw a pillow at me.