I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past- Thomas Jefferson

My name is Reagan. My last name is not that important right now. What’s important is that my friends are dying and I can’t stop it. Out of our original group of about forty girls, only about fifteen of us are left. You see, we are orphans, and as far as we know, we’ve been that way most of our lives. Well, except for a few, like our youngest girl, Evie Berryhill. She’s only six years old, and her parents died in a car crash about three months ago. Her full name’s Evangeline, but we all just call her Evie, even her friend Molly Long.

Anywho, what is my story you ask. There’s not much of a story. My mother died when I was born, and I suppose my dad is either dead or doesn’t care about me. Either way, I’ve lived in this orphanage all of my fourteen years, and it’s fairly nice here.

Sure, there are some days I hate it, but it’s usually fine. Girls come in and out, either being adopted or simply running away, and new girls being orphaned and sent here to live. I met my best friend here as well. Desiree Goodman is one of the most eccentric girls I know. She can take even the most dire situations and make a joke. And I love her almost as if she were my sister.

All the girls here are like my family. I’d hate to see any of them die. Little did I know that I would.

One day, us girls were sitting in the television room watching the evening news with Ms. Owens, the orphan matron. There wasn’t much going on except a few fires and a case of suicide during which us older kids covered the eyes and ears of the smaller kids so as not to disturb them.

“And lastly, some cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have resulted in the deaths of several doctors in Savannah, Georgia on Wednesday. The originally infected, as well as the newly infected scientists and doctors, have escaped their hospital and are somewhere in America. Citizens of Savannah and the surrounding areas are warned to stay in their homes until the threat is neutralized. Savannah Police Department is working to find them and terminate them, as they are what many would call zombies now. If anyone sees them, they should….”

Ms. Owens turns the television off. “We don’t need to be seeing that,” she says. “It’s already seven. Reagan, can you and Desiree put the younger children to bed now, please?”

“Yes, Ms. Owens,” I say. Desiree and I get up, as well as the other younger children, and we head up to the bedroom. Our orphanage is pretty big, and each of us have our own rooms. Well, except for the younger children. They all share a total of three rooms. There’s four to each for them, but once you turn eight, you get your own. It’s what all girls here look forward to. That, their sixteenth birthday, when they get a special party, and their eighteenth birthday, when they can leave the orphanage. Yes, unlike many matrons of orphanages, Ms. Owens is nice to us. We are all very glad and fortunate to be here and not somewhere else.

Desiree and I help the younger children dress for bed, brush their teeth, and get in their beds.

“Good night, Julie.”

Good night, Annie.”

Good night, Sarah.”

We said goodnight to each and every girl. Finally, I reach Evie. “Good night, Evie,” I say, tucking her cover around her feet. After all, it’s the middle of February and little girls toes can freeze off easily.

“Night, night, Reggie,” Evie says sleepily. Since my name’s hard to say for her, she usually calls me Reggie. And unfortunately, the name has stuck among the younger kids.

“Is we gonna die from those sick people?” she asks quietly. I can hear the other girls fall silent. They must all be wondering. I smile.

“Of course not, Evie!” I say. “That’s all the way in Georgia. We live in New Hampshire. They’re far away from here.”

She gives me a sleepy smile. “Okay, Reggie. If you say so.”

“Of course I say so,” I laugh, poking her in her stomach. She laughs as well.

“Reggie, can you tell a story?” Molly asks from a bed nearby. So I sit in the middle of the floor. The girls lean forward in their beds.

“Have you all heard of Rapunzel?” I ask, naming the first story that comes in my head. The shake their heads. “Well, she was the most beautiful girl you ever saw. Her hair was long, almost as long as the walls here.” I gesture to the green walls of the room. They marvel. “And it was blonde, and as fair and fine as spun gold..”

But she was in a terrible situation, you see. Ever since her mother had gotten sick and stolen the plant she needed to get well, Gothel, the woman who was stolen from, had owned her. Fearing her beauty, she kept Rapunzel locked up in a high tower in the middle of the forest, where no one would ever see her and free her, and named her Rapunzel, after the very plant her mother stole.“

“This lasted until her sixteenth birthday. Not once had beautiful Rapunzel been allowed out of her tower room. On the day of her birthday, she was staring out the window, wishing she could explore the wide world she saw, a young man came riding through the woods on a beautiful pony. He saw Rapunzel looking and called, ‘Hello, fair maiden. What are you doing up there?’”

“Rapunzel gasped, for she had never seen anyone apart from Gothel and the pictures in her storybooks. ‘My name is Rapunzel. I live here. What is your name?’”

“‘My name is Henry,” said the young man. “Why do you live up there?”

‘I am trapped up here, and have been all my life,’ Rapunzel replied.

‘Is there any way up there?’ Henry asked.”

“None apart from the stairs, and she locks the door.’”

“Henry then had an idea, Rapunzel’s hair was hanging out of the window. “Rapunzel, lower down your hair, and I will climb it” he called up to Rapunzel.“

‘But that will trap you here as well!’ cried Rapunzel.“

‘Not with this,” Henry says, holding out a length of rope. So, Rapunzel threw the whole golden length of her hair out the wiindow. It reached all the way to the forest floor. Henry began to climb up, rope in hand, When he reached the top, he tied the rope to a heavy old rock in the room, grabbed Rapunzel, and began to rappel down the side of the tower.

About halfway down, Henry felt the rope beginning to tear. I must hurry, he thought. So he began to decend more quickly. When there was about twenty feet to go, a figure appeared at the window. Gothel! She held a very sharp knife in her bony hands.

With a gasp, Henry went even faster. At about ten feet, the rope severed. The pair fell with a thud onto the floor of the forest..

Luckily, they were unharmed. The two hurried onto Henry’s horse and rode as fast as they could through the quickly darkening woods, and the two lived happily ever after.”

“That was wonderful!” said Evie, sounding even more tired than before. A couple of the girls had already fallen asleep. Desiree and I quietly stole out of the room as quietly as possble.

“You’re really good with them,” Desiree marvels for the umpteenth time.

“I dunno, you’re pretty good yourself,” I reply on the way to our rooms. We were glad when we got adjoining rooms when we turned eight. She laughs and heads into her own room. I enter mine, which is, as I said, next door. It’s simply furnished, with a twin bed, a small desk and drawer, and a small closet. I also have a large shelf where I keep my collection of books. It stretches across the longer wall of my room, and it’s full of books. Some of them I buy with the money from my part time job and some of them my friends from school gave me. My favorites are by L.M Montgomery and Charles Dickens. I especially like Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. They had the place of honor on the edge of the shelf in easy reach whenever I want to read them, But tonight I do not want to read one of them. I pick up the library book I got. It’s fairly new, and it’s called Vampirates by Justin Somper. I’ve read up to the third one, and am reading Black Heart right now. It’s a good read so far. I really hated in the last one when Johnny turned to Sidorio.(AN: for those who have no honest clue what I am talking about, read the books. They are awesome, but hardly anyone’s heard of them!)

So I stay up until ten or eleven o clock reading the book, almost finishing it, but enarly fallng asleep in the process. So I set my book down and  lay down to sleep. After all, tomorrow’s school.

That night, I have a dream. A pair of men are advanding on me. They are staggering, and they twitch uncontrollably, as if they seem unable to stop it, no matter what. They don’t even seem to be quite in this world. As they advance, I gasp. They are going to attack me. But instead of me, they lunge slightly to my left. I hear a familiar voice scream in agony. I look to see the victim. It’s Evie. Her pretty brown hair is now dark reddish brown with her blood, her pale skin a gruesome shade of mauve. Her little chest falls one last time. She’s dead. But before I can react, the creatures go after me.

I wake up as the thing in centimeters from my neck. I feel the smooth skin. Nothing. I look at the alarm clock on the side of the dresser. Only three thirty in the morning! Sighing, I fall back asleep. It was just a dream, I tell myself.

I wish I’d known the truth.