Kinetics: In Search of Willow Read Online Free Page B

sliver of the moon between the
branches of a distant tree. A baby's crib sat in the middle of the
room, an orange glow emanating from inside.
    I hesitated for only a moment before
walking over to the crib and looking inside. There was a baby
sitting in the middle of the crib, its blanket was pushed back and
little stuffed animals were scattered at its feet. The baby was me.
I was little more than a year old.
    The baby me was on fire.
    He looked at me and screamed a scream
that made no noise. He seemed frightened, but who wouldn't be if
they were on fire?
    The door burst open and a young boy
ran in. I recognized this boy, too. He was my brother--a much, much
younger version of him, but unmistakably him. The illusion slowed
as my illusion-brother reached my crib. His mouth was shouting in
slow motion.
    Then suddenly the world was spinning.
The illusion blurred, and we were back in the room I grew up in. It
was the same place but a different time. The decorations in the
room had changed and there was a small toddler bed in the corner.
And there I was, sitting on the floor playing with blocks, a couple
years older than the baby I had seen in the crib.
    And then it happened again. Fire shot
from my small hand and set the blocks on fire. First the blocks,
then the floor, and soon the curtains and the walls themselves were
on fire.
    The younger version of me was standing
in a ring of fire, crying and screaming. The illusion slowed again
as a woman, my mother, came through and grabbed me from the fire.
Her clothes and her hair caught the flame. I shut my eyes trying to
shut the illusion out, but there it was, under the darkness of my
eyelids, forcing me to watch my mother burn alive.
    I screamed, trying to force the vision
from my mind. And then it was gone.
    I could feel heat around me. I let my
eyes flicker open and saw flame again, but this time it was mere
embers on the fringes of papers, billboards and the walls around
me. It was dying out and I could feel the heat coming off it. I
looked around and saw that it had made a perfect charred circle
around me.
    There was no one around and the
monsters were gone. I sucked in a breath and jumped out of the
circle.
    I ran, not caring what direction I was
going in. I had to get away from the fire. I only stopped when I
was tripped by a fallen chair that had been strewn haphazardly
across the hallway.
    Only then did I realize hot tears were
leaking from my eyes. I jammed the heels of my hands against my
eyes and stopped myself from sobbing.
    I had to be strong for Willow. I had
to always be strong.
    I pushed myself up and tried to find
my bearings. I was near the media lab, close to the front of the
school. In the distance, under the distant screams and shouts, I
could hear someone speaking.
    A girl.
    I followed the muffled voice to a
classroom. And inside was the girl, Laura.
    She stood in the center of the
classroom with her hair falling over her face in blond waves. With
her hands clutching a chair and her face hidden and shadowed, she
looked more like someone deep in thought or prayer than someone
wreaking havoc throughout the school.
    "It's okay. It will all be okay. They
can't hurt me here," she muttered to herself.
    "Laura?" I called out.
    She looked up at me. Her eyes were
red-rimmed and bloodshot. Her mouth was set in a frown.
    "Laura, whatever you are doing, you…
you need to stop." I stepped forward, holding up my hands to show
that I was no danger.
    "They've hurt me enough!" she
screamed, throwing the chair she had been clutching. "It's my
turn!"
    I was breathing hard, trying to figure
out what I could say to her to stop the screams filling the
school.
    "No one's going to hurt you," I tried
to assure her, stepping around the chairs and tables.
    "Too late." I felt the invasion into
my mind the second it happened. At the corners of my vision, I saw
fiery monsters rising from the depths of my subconscious. She was
trying to frighten me.
    "Stop!" I shouted, pushing away