Chris:

It’s one in the morning; now it’s too late

To turn me in; await your fate.

I am the book report due today.

You didn’t read or write me; you have lost your way.

I am the last of your visitors here.

Make your decision as closer you peer.

Will you please write me?  Or stay in the dark?

To never again see the morning lark?

Chris breathed out with a huff.  That was the answer!

“I will write you!  I will!  I promise!” he shouted

The paper in front of him shivered and solidified.  Chris caught it as it drifted downward.

“Go, Chris,” whispered the wind.

Suddenly the basement was ablaze with candlelight.  All along the wall, candelabras flared with light.  They were set in intervals; the one Chris had been about to take was just one of dozens.

He grabbed one to light his way and raced up the steps.  He ran past his sleeping bag, not even glancing at his possessions.  Leaping over rotted patches, he raced for the door.  But it kept getting farther away; no matter how hard he ran it kept getting smaller and smaller.  The wall flew away from him and he was falling…falling…

Chris jerked upright.

The sun was shining in through the haunted house windows.  His iPod blinked 6:24 a.m.  The papers were just a dream, and school started in an hour.

He fell back onto his sleeping bag, panting.  He eventually gathered up his strength and packed up his bag.  He approached the front door cautiously, but it didn’t move.  He opened it onto a beautiful sunrise.  As he made his way over to Miles’s house, he thought about his odd dream.  There were no papers.  No souls.  No clocks.  There was, however, a book report…

Chris knocked on Miles’s door.  Miles opened it, looking rumpled.  When he saw Chris, he smiled, then sneered.  “Where’s your proof?” he asked.

Chris lifted his hand to show Miles the candelabra, then remembered—it had all been a dream!  That meant that he had no proof.  But it all had seemed so real…and what about his promise?  What if he had actually made it—to himself?  He envisioned himself in high school, accepting his diploma.  He imagined himself in college, majoring in writing and English.

“Whoa!  Sweet!” Miles was saying.

Chris looked at his hand.  He was holding the candelabra.