Untouched Ch 3

Again - I really am lazy & eager, aren't I - I haven't looked at the above reviews, so sorry in advance if anything is repeated ...

jasmine12 wrote: This is it, my last day at Adams High School. I pictured a dramatic exit, where everyone came up to tell me how much they liked me and how I was such a good friend, even if I didn’t know them. I could almost see people giving me their numbers so I could call them from my new town and dish about all the cute boys, how few there may be. I thought Cameron would buy me flowers and candy and wouldn’t leave my side for the entire day.
That would have been the ideal last day. This is what really happened.
I woke up on the floor, exhausted and sore from all of the packing I’ve done in the past week. My father is renting a moving truck to take all of our furniture and boxes down on Saturday. He and Bailey are taking the Expedition filled with boxes and I’m driving the silver Volvo my father bought me for my sixteenth birthday.
My father was in his office looking through papers. Bailey didn’t have school today, so I let him sleep on his little sleeping bag. His bed had already been disassembled along with everything else, and packed away in the truck. My father was nice enough to leave out leftovers from the day before for me for breakfast. I didn’t need to lie about not eating, the eggs looked alive and the bacon was as hard as a rock.
When I got to school [s]and[/s] [insert comma] no one was standing by my locker, or even putting little notes in it. I thought that perhaps all of my surprises would come later.
I had to go to each one of my classes; I even had to take a quiz in Algebra II. I got a peck on the cheek from Cameron, it’s almost like he forgot that today was my last day. Could the whole school have forgotten?
So I decided out of frustration that I would remind everyone. “What are we going to do?” I asked Cameron during lunch.
“About what?” he replied [comma here] shoveling a hand full of fries in his mouth.
“Do you think long distance relationships really work?”
He swallowed before answering. “Would you give it a rest, Genna? We all know you aren’t moving,” He said, pointing to all of our friends at the table.
My body froze. He thought I was lying.
My friend Jessica, who must have overheard, said, “Genna, lying isn’t a very attractive trait. Maybe you should work on that.” She added a smile then went back to her mindless chatter with the other girls.
So, the jerks all thought I was lying. I could feel my face burning up. I stood up and walked out of the cafeteria. Right out of the school. [ooh, what horrible people ... grr ...]
My heart was pounding a hundred times faster than I wished and the tears were falling faster than I wished. The student parking lot was deserted, save the idling cars. I couldn’t see very well because of the tears that just kept bubbling over. It was so hard to see, I almost missed the group of kids standing close to my car.
A flush of relief washed through me. I thought that maybe it was all my friends with presents and they would all say this was all just some stupid joke.
I was painfully wrong. They were just a bunch of pot heads skipping class. To everyone this was just a normal day. One of those pot heads was my old friend from middle school. She started hanging around with the wrong crowd when we got to high school. Her name was Monica [s]and[/s] [comma here] she saw me looking at her. I started swiping at my eyes.
She has a pixie hair cut with blue and pink streaks. She is tall and very skinny. She would have been so pretty without the heavy eyelids due to some killer party the night before. I never understood how even though I dress like her and probably listen to the same music as her, she is such an outcast and yet I am popular and have a lot of preppy friends. I wondered if she liked her friends as much as I hated mine.
I was close to my car now and she left her crowd to stand by my door. “So I hear you’re leaving town.” She said.
I put the key in the door. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
Monica nodded, “Nice weather, huh?” she said with a sheepish grin.
“Was there something you wanted?” I almost spat at her. I wanted to leave as soon as possible.
She gave a short nervous laugh, “I guess this is going to be really weird, but now that I know you are leaving, I just wanted to tell you that I’ve missed being your friend, and I hope I’m forgiven for kind of ditching you the first day our freshmen year.”
I smiled. This is what I’ve been waiting all day for. “Of course [comma] all is forgiven. I just wish this could have happened before so we could have been friends.”
She laughed [comma] though it sounded a little forced. “I highly doubt any of your friends would like that very much.”
I rolled my eyes and looked over to the cafeteria. I couldn’t see in the windows but I bet at least that someone was looking. “They are all assholes and I couldn’t care less what they thought.”
She smiled again. One of her friends called to her. They were probably looking at me as if I was the devil. No, they would probably like me if I were the devil. “Hey, look [comma] if you ever come back here, call me or something.”
“Okay,” I said. She went back to her friends and I got in my car.
It took a lot of willpower to start the car and drive away. I wanted to actually get Monica’s number; I wanted to punch Cameron in the gut…along with all of my friends. Instead, I went home and dealt with my father. He was mad because I skipped school. But I insisted that there was nothing for me there. It was all a thing of the past now.

****************************************************************************************************

Beaufort Manor was a lot bigger than I could have imagined. There was a long driveway leading up to the house before splitting to the side of the house where there is a two car garage and a small garden nice imagery!]. I parked next to the Expedition in front of the garage. The moving truck was in front of the house.
There were a few stone steps up to the porch and then the large wooden front door. The stained glass in the door had strange patterns in it. All of the windows matched the pattern of colorful swirls.
When [s]you[/s] I passed the foyer the ceiling shoots up and to a hanging chandelier. It must have been part of the renovations. On the left was a stairwell that lead[s]s[/s] to the second floor, but on the right is a living room. [s]That’s where I went first[/s] I went straight to the ____ living room; the hardwood floor was covered in a Persian carpet, as is the rest of the house. In the middle of the floor was an old fashioned couch and love seat surrounding a glass coffee table. Our television stand was already in place against the wall. What would Daddy do without his big screen?
Off of the living room were double doors. I tried to open them but they were locked [ooh ...]. I walked around the living room to the hall and to another entrance, but those doors where locked too. On the other side of the hall is a library. That’s where my father was. There were already a ton of books on the shelves, but he would find room for more. There was no wall, only shelves. In the middle of the floor was a desk that had boxes open and books scattered.
“What’s that room across the hall?” I asked. He was on one of those ladders that are attached to the book self. That’s different.
“Not sure. I have a key to every door in the house that locks except that one.” [ooh, spooky stuff :p ] He picked up a stack of books and started putting them on different shelves one by one. “I’ll call a locksmith to take a look at it later.”
I nodded. “Do you think they have any locksmiths in town?” I asked jokingly.

Wow, I’m seriously loving this story It is that good!

The only thing I would work on is the thing between her and Cameron. That is sort of confusing for me because why would she be so mad about him thinking she was lying…I would try to expand that; show us more of her feelings on that subject.

Also, the relationship between her and her father is kind of shaky. Why is that? And what happened to Bailey three years ago? I guess I will just have to read on to see

Keep Writing!

interesting. that's all i can really say.

but i get the felling that jasper and genna are going to fall in love or something? i don't know why, i am getting that vibe. I just am.

i am off to read another chapter.

Hi Jamine. May take me longer to review the rest of the chapters because of the hurricane, though we'll probably just get rain. This is going to be at least somewhat harsh toward the end, probably because I'm sleepy, so I'm sorry in advance.

They always looked bored with our conversations that were mostly about school. Heather and Jessica were sent by Cassandra to make sure Damien was being a good boy.

; I wasn’t really prepared for it.

I jumped when he spoke;

“Maybe be cause you look so much like her.”

Why would I dream about this,”

“why would I dream about you before I even knew what you looked like.

“You think your dreaming.”

It wasn’t a question, but an assumption.

He stood and grabbed a picture frame off the mantle and put it in front of me on the coffee table then sat down.

She had long dark hair down to her waist, and she was smiling but it didn’t really touch her eyes that were a pale blue or green.

He would actually follow us home just waiting for me to make a move on her so could kill me, or attempt to anyway.

Jasper opened his mouth but quickly shit it.

“I wont hurt anything.

Then the doors closed and I was looking at the wooded door.

my father said walking down the hall.

“I still love you even if you found some one knew.

Those are only a few things but I’ll leave the rest out for content.

I shuddered at the thought and repressed it away as I did three years ago.

I shrugged it off and continued down the stairs to see what my father was up to this fine…afternoon.

You where offered the job because your boss knew you could handle it.”

So, I’ll leave you to ponder that.

He set his jaw then smiled. Then we reentered our world of music and nothing else.

You didn’t believe me, did you?

No one helped me do the dishes tonight.

Like in my dream, there was a large amount of light coming from inside and my heart tripped over itself, stopped beating, and then restarted.
It was a dream, right?

jasmine-
Oh my god! Oh my god! Is she really going into the room? She has to and meet Jasper again. Dude, I really wanted to know about him. Like how did he become a ghost and how did he die?
Those lyrics were strangely good. I like them. And I'm getting used to Peter. And man, do I love Bailey. He's so cute! {even though I barely know about him.}
Otherwise I can not write anymore, 'cause I need to read chapter four.
-Merry
~this story is really captivating!~

Haha thanks. I've always had the issue of describing but my dialog has always been strong.
I put the '...' in there because she had slept all morning due to the late night. She was confused but i may not have interpretted that in the story very well.
I guess one of my not so strong skills is tenses. Everyone has pointed that out, maybe I should write in a different person. Huh, something to think about.
It's funny because I actually had a dream about a girl meeting Jasper. That's how this all started but I don't feel as though I have captured it well. I wanted them to fall for eachother right then but it doesnt seem that way.
"Hehe Jasper the ghost." That was one of the main reasons why I chose the name, because it is so close to casper's. I 'm probably going to put that in the story some time soon. Hehe.
I threw in a lot of the sentences talking to the reader because that part was just so boring for me to actually write, I wanted something to spice it up. I dunno, I'll take them out. Haha.
You're nitpicks helped a lot. Thank you so much!!!

jasmine12 wrote:Enjoy.


Chapter Three
I started noticing a pattern. Every time some one said my name, there would be a random breeze. My father started to notice the draft too, but I didn’t tell him that I thought it was connected to me. I tried to talk to Bailey about it, but he continued to say that he was behind everything ‘supernatural' in the house. This is a brilliant start; cant really find anything wrong with it.
At dinner one night, I offered up the idea for a witch doctor. I heard about them,(maybe instead of a comma, a colon(: ) they get rid of the evil spirits in your house. Later my father dismissed the idea and he said it was wrong to encourage such things in front of Bailey.
I’ve been having a hard time sleeping the past few weeks. Presumably you've been writing in the past tense, yeah? So change this setence to, "I'd been having a hard time, etc..."

It was probably because I have gotten to know Damien and started to crush on him. I’ve been trying to get away from Cassandra’s little crew because Peter’s was so much more interesting. We would walk to our classroom together after homeroom everyday and we would talk about bands and our favorite movies. Again, I'm not sure whether you're intending to write in past or present, but if you want the same tense as you started the story with, then change all the, "I've" to "I had" and all the "I have" to "I had."

The downside is (The downside was?) the more I got to know Peter, the less I knew about Damien. We only had chaperoned great word use [/ b]conversations with either Jessica or Heather. They always looked bored with our conversations that were mostly about school. Heather and Jessica were sent by Cassandra to make sure Damien was being a good boy.
It was Saturday night. I stayed up just looking at the thin fabric that I put on my bed for the canopy. It was a different shade of purple then my quilt was, but still dark enough to tick my father off. He never really liked the whole ‘punk’ phase. My father and brother went to bed [b]had gone to bed? hours ago and yet I still heard the murmur of a male voice from downstairs. I got up to investigate, in hopeshoping to get rid of the insomnia.
As I went down the stairs, the voice got louder, but I still couldn’t make out the source. It didn’t sound like the TV or coming from either bedroom. ”It didn’t sound like the TV or as if it were coming from either bedroom.” I went down to the first floor. The locked door was open a crackinsert comma here letting a line of light pass through. A dancing light you’ve repeated the word light twice. Try a synonym, “Glow” or “beam” or something like that twirled on the floor. My heart sank. Why would anyone be up this late, or in this room? I don’t think there’s any need for the word ‘or’. Just write, “Why would anyone be up this late, in this room?”
I pushed the sliding door to the left and stopped breathing. The fireplace was lit as were several candles among the room. Like the rest of the house, the room was full of antique couches and tables, but this room had a grand piano at the far end of the room.
There, standing where I have hadseen him stand several times before, was the boy with tousled brown hair. He was looking into the fire, staring into it as if it hurt him some how. Nice insight
You’d think that this would be bad, having someone in my house. ”that this would be bad” is a somewhat weak description. Try, “You’d think having someone in my house would worry me.” )Or something along those lines ) I shouldn’t be weirded Try not to use slang/colloquialisms unless they’re in dialogue. “weirded” isn’t a word in the dictionary, if you still want quite a ‘slangish’ word, then what about “freaked”. out because this is wasjust a dream. There was no way this is was even possible because that would mean I’m like psychic or something for seeing him in my dreams, right? Whoah there. I’m sensing a bit of a rush, right. Let’s rephrase this sense, there’s a few phrasing and tense problems. I’d suggest something like this: “There was no way this was even possible, because that would mean I was psychic or something for seeing him in my dreams.” I’ve taken out the ‘right’ because in this story you don’t normally include rhetorical questions as a rule, so it didn’t really fit in.
He didn’t notice as I walked into the room and sat on the familiar red couch. A cloud of dust appeared around me as it did with him in my dream and I coughed then laughed. When he didn’t turn to me, I did a more deliberate cough. He hung his head and sighed.
It hit me then, before in my dreams I could only see him, I couldn’t interact with him or touch him. I sighed then.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked in a metallic voice. I jumped when he spoke; I wasn’t really prepared for it.
“I-I don’t know what you mean.” I said tripping over my own words. As usual, great dialogue.
He didn’t answer. Could he be talking to himself? He turned to the couch opposite me and sat down. He didn’t look at me but put his face in his hands.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He looked up at me then. Like before, he was glad to see me and his eyes pierced right through me. “You can really see me?” he asked.
My head tilted to the side, “Are you serious?” I asked.
He didn’t reply, but waited patiently for me to answer him, “Obviously I can see you. I don’t think I would be talking to you if I couldn’t.”
He nodded, “That’s true.” He stood up and started pacing. “Curious,” escaped his lips then he looked back at me. “Maybe be cause you look so much like her.”
My heart sank, “I’ve seen you before.” I almost whispered. He stopped walking and his eyes tightened. I was surprised at how comfortable I was with him. “Upstairs in the spare bedroom is a picture of you next to the bed. Why would I dream about this,” I gestured to the room around us, “why would I dream about you before I even knew what you looked like. Maybe I really am psychic. ” Again, you are really talented at writing dialogue.
He chuckled. “I have a theory about that.” He got excited and sat back across from me then frowned. “You think your you’redreaming.” It wasn’t a question, but an assumption. I like this sentence. It’s cleverly done.
“Well, that’s the only rational explanation, don’t you think?”
He shrugged, “That brings us back to my theory.” He stood and grabbed a picture frame off the mantle and put it in front of me on the coffee table then sat down. He stood and grabbed a picture frame off the mantle. He then placed it facing me on the coffee table before sitting down.
I picked up the frame that looked like it was made of gold. The girl in the picture was very young but the picture itself had to be fifty years old. She had long dark hair down to her waist, and she was smiling but it didn’t really touch her eyes that were a pale blue or green. She had a round, almost heart shaped, face. “This looks like…” I couldn’t continue what I was going to say. The resemblance was unbelievable.
“She looks like you.” He mused, “That is Susan when she was your age.”
I looked up at him, “Our age.”
He frowned, “That judgment is completely up to you.”
“Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He looked away from me, to the floor, the walls, everywhere but my eyes. “I guess the best way to explain it is to tell you the whole story.” He paused, “But first I should apologize for earlier. My name is Jasper.” Hehe...Jasper the ghost. Ah, just ignore me. Immature moment.
What an odd name. This should be in italics, and should read like, “ ‘What an odd name, I thought to myself.” “Hello Jasper.” I said with a sheepish smile.
“Pleasure to finally meet you, Genevieve.” He smiled and I was glad he played along. ’and I was glad he was playing along. “About fifty three years ago your Great Aunt Sue met me.” He looked at me and waited for something to change in my expression.
“Fifty three?” I asked.
He nodded, “Yes. She and I went to school together. She just moved here from New York when we were seventeen. Back when the town was a lot more alive then what I have heard it is today. She and her sister, Isabella, lived here with their mother. Sue had a boyfriend when I finally got the courage to ask her on a date. It broke my heart.”
“That’s so sad.” I said just remembering all of the text messages from Cameron That ’that’ shouldn’t be capitalized I received all week and deleted.
“Oh I was devastated, but I ended up walking her home that day. We became the best of friends. We spent every day together. ” He picked up the frame and looked at it. I suddenly felt self conscious because I look just like her, but he didn’t look at me like that. Good insight into her feelings. This subtly develops her character, showing that she’s slightly insecure – an extremely confident person wouldn’t care.
“She was unlike any other girl I’ve ever seen, met, read about, or seen on TV. Her boyfriend didn’t like me at all. He absolutely loathed me. He would actually follow us home just waiting for me to make a move on her so could kill me, or attempt to anyway. But I never did. She said that we were friends and I respected that.”
Jasper opened his mouth but quickly shit it. “Go on.” I pushed, truly intrigued.
“No, you need to go back to bed now.” I set my jaw, “Now’s not the best time to be stubborn. Your father will be down here soon.” I heard shuffling upstairs. [b]Darn it, you’re so good at dialogue. Me jealous.
“When will I see you again?” I asked. I sounded a little more desperate then I wanted to.
“In your dreams.” He winked.
I smiled and left the room but quickly ran back in. He hadn’t moved from the couch. “Can I go in the library tomorrow?” I asked. He was about to object but I put my hand up, “I wont hurt anything. Trust me.” I said sincerely.
He smiled. “It’s all yours. Oh, tell Bailey ‘he’ says thanks.”
“For what?”
In a movement to fast for my eyes to follow, Jasper disappeared, the fire and all the candles went out and the room was dark. “Jasper?” I called.
Next to me, I felt a cold breeze. “Shh.” He whispered into my ear. Then the doors closed and I was looking at the wooded door.
Behind me, someone came trudging down the stairs. “You’re up kind of early.” my father said walking down the hall.
“You know how I like my sun rises sunrises is one word.” I said sarcastically.
”Humph.” My father said as he went into the kitchen scratching his head.
It was then I noticed how tired I really was. I ran up to my room and flopped on my bed. I whispered his name once before falling into a deep sleep. And for once in about a month, I didn’t dream of anything.
When I woke up, I was still exhausted. I looked at my phone for the time, I had three new text messages from Cameron. Since I moved here I haven’t looked at one, I just deleted them when I got them, but today I thought I’d humor him.
The first one he sent was at midnight. “I miss you. I know it’s not enough to say but I really am sorry.”
The second one he sent was at nine. “I still love you even if you found some one knew. I understand. I love you, Genna.”
The third one he sent was from a few minuets ’minuets’ is an old-fashioned dance, hehe. I’m guessing you mean minutes. ago; it must have woken me up. “Why won’t you talk to me? It was a misunderstanding. I’m sorry.”
I sighed and replied. “You’re right, sorry isn’t enough. And I haven’t met someone else, this town sucks. And why won’t I talk to you, because you are an asshole. You were supposed to be my boyfriend, where’s the trust? I’m not ready to forgive you. And I think you should move on.” If he hasn’t already.
After I hit send, I shoved the phone under my pillow and went to my computer. Peter said he would send me some cool song lyrics that he wrote. I had one email, and it was from him. It took a while for my computer to download what he sent. I tapped my fingers on the desk just waiting.

She came to me in waves of fury
I didn’t know what to say
I stumble over the words I can’t speak out loud.
I cling to them to show her beauty
I haven’t yet found anyone like her.

The empty spaces make me crawl
this social scene makes me sick
The same social scene where she gets her fix
And I discover a new way to fall.



I read it. I read it twice. I read it three times and still couldn’t pull my eyes away from the screen. A million things ran through my mind at that one moment: Who was he talking about? Could he really feel this way towards another person? Could he feel this way about me? God, what if things get awkward with us? He is my only true friend in this God forsaken town.
Those are only a few things but I’ll leave the rest out for content. I did not really understand the point of this sentence, it might just be coz I’m slow. But if you’re going to include it, remember the tense you’re writing in and change it to past tense.
I turned off the monitor just to get his words out of sight, but even the black screen still had the lines as if they were etched into the glass. I shuddered and went on with my day the best I could.
After my shower, I went down to Bailey’s room. He was playing with some blocks and Hot Wheels. He made a bridge with the blocks that looked like the Golden Gate Bridge. I shook my head; maybe I was making that up. Or maybe the doctors where right about him. I shuddered at the thought and repressed it away as I did three years ago.
When I walked past the second library, I wondered why I wanted to go in there. In my dream, I had asked him—Jasper—if I could go into the library. That is an odd thing to ask in a dream. I shrugged it off and continued down the stairs to see what my father was up to this fine…I don’t see the need for the “...”afternoon.
He was in his library. Sitting at his desk, looking frustrated and ticked off, he sighed and threw some papers down. They scattered and a few fell to the floor.
“Problems?” I asked in a quiet voice.
He shook his head and took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “This is a lot harder than I thought. Running a business, what was I thinking?” he exclaimed throwing up his hands.
I stepped into the room and sat on the bench against the wall that faced the desk. It was made of brown leather and squeaked when I sat. “You’ve only been at this for a week.” I said sincerely. “Things like this take time and a lot of effort. You where offered the job because your boss knew you could handle it.”
He laughed a weak laugh then sighed. “Aren’t I supposed to be the adult around here?” he asked looking straight into my eyes.
I shrugged. “You are the one that raised me.” Teenagers usually tend to shorten verbs, so it would read like, “You’re the one who raised me.” Or something along those lines.
This is one of those heart to hearts you don’t see too often in family house holds households is one wordthese days. This moment is one that you should sit back and relish in. So, I’ll leave you to ponder that. You can’t really include these last two sentences if you’re writing in the past tense because they’re addressing the reader personally. If I were you, I would scrap all sentences addressing the author, it tends to make the story seem less believable and professional. I had a really big problem with this, and trust me, when you take out all such sentences, the story will be a lot better.
*****
The week went by in a slow boring blur. Peter showed me some more lyrics but nothing that really shot through me like the one he sent me last Sunday. We ended up walking to lunch together on Friday. We were so wrapped up in our conversation, I missed Cassandra and her posse.
Halfway into lunch Peter noticed, “Cassandra is really pissed.” He kept looking over my shoulder at the people behind me, but I didn’t care. He was my main concern now, not them.
“About what?” I asked, completely oblivious.
He rolled his eyes, “Because you are sitting with a bunch of geeks instead of with the popular crew. Didn’t you know?”
Now it was my turn to roll the eyes. “I don’t care what she thinks. You are my friend and if they don’t like it then they can go screw each other.”
He set his jaw then smiled. Then we reentered re-enteredour world of music and nothing else. Did you mean “and nothing else mattered” ? Or did you mean to end with ‘else’?
That night my father had some important news that he decided to share with us during dinner. I had made lasagna, It’s spelt ‘lasagne’. I always thought it used to be spelt ‘lasagna’ until about a month ago. vegetarian [b]Capitalizeof course, and Bailey baked a cake for desert. “Kids, I have important news.”
You didn’t believe me, did you? Again, you might want to take out questions addressing the reader.
Bailey continued to shovel sauce and egg plant in Into? his mouth, but I stopped eating and looked at my father. “I have to go away this weekend. There is an estate in Kansas that I need to be there to supervise. One of the perks of being the boss I guess.” I think you need to begin a new paragraph for this and make it clear it’s the father who’s speaking.
With his mouth full, Bailey asked, “We have to move again?”
I blinked a few times. Had Bailey missed what our father had just said? Selective hearing much? “Bailey,” I snapped, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
Both my father and Bailey ignored me and continued with the conversation. “No, son, we aren’t moving. I’m just going away for the weekend while you and Genna stay here.”
I couldn’t help the smile that formed on my face. “You are You’retrusting me to take care of the house and Bailey for a whole weekend?” I almost squeaked with excitement.
My father let out a sharp breath. “Only because I can’t take you with me.” He leaned towards Bailey and whispered, “Remember what I told you last time I was away, you’re the undercover spy.”
I scoffed and attempted to hold in the urge to throw something at him.
Bailey’s cake wasn’t perfect but I ate it anyway just to spare his feelings. No one helped me do the dishes tonight. Bailey was probably playing a video game and my father retired to his bedroom to do whatever it is that he does in there. Don’t even want to know.
By the time I finished with the dinner dishes and Bailey’s baking dishes, my hands looked like squishy prunes. It was getting extremely late and I still had to email Peter back about his new lyrics. I read them earlier and they weren’t too good. I’d have to send some constructive criticism about that.
Before I left the kitchen I heart faint music coming from somewhere in the house. I went to investigate to find that the locked door was unlocked and open an inch. Like in my dream, there was a large amount of light coming from inside and my heart tripped over itself, stopped beating, and then restarted.
It was a dream, right?