I WRITE FRIDAY#FLASH

As Black as Nightby Carolyn Brown
(The first installment of a Paranormal serial (approx. 700 words))
“Stop! Quick Stop the bus!” Jason yelled up at Diana, who was leaning from the window, imploring him to hurry up.
He had slept in once again and now found himself racing to try to get on board.
Thankfully, this time the driver took pity on him and decided to stop, but he knew that sometime in the future if he was late again, the driver would not stop and he would need to find his own way to school. Pushing that scary thought into the recesses of his mind Jason climbed the stairs to board the bus. “Thanks man, I am sorry I made you stop.”
“You, young man did not make me do anything, but that girl back there,” he pointed towards the back of the bus, in the direction where Diana sat, beaming, “she influenced me plenty!”
Embarrassed, Jason decided to ignore the comment and proceeded in Diana’s direction to sit beside her for the rest of the journey.  Diana with her long dark hair and brown eyes, which she always encircled with heavy lines of black to emphasise how dark they were, shuffled across the seat to make room for Jason to sit down beside her.
“Slept in again, did you?” she asked, a huge smile brandished across her features.
Jason let his body fall into the seat next to her and let out a deep breath, releasing some of the built up pressure from within.  He had noticed recently that he was needing to do this more often, as he seemed to get annoyed at even the slightest inconvenience.  It had all started with the onslaught of the dreams a few weeks ago and every night since, he has been waking in the early hours of the morning covered in dirt and sweat, with not a stitch of clothing on.  He had found himself curled up in a ball on his bedroom floor countless times and had also awoken in one of his neighbours gardens lying under a bush.
It was beginning to trouble him and with no one else to turn to, was considering telling Diana about what he was experiencing, but found it difficult to approach the conversation.
“Hmm, sort of.”
“Did you finish the essay for English?” she asked.
“Um, no.  It isn’t due until Friday, is it?”
“Duh, today is Friday!” she rolled her eyes and looked across at Jason with concern for her friend showing upon her face. Something was definitely wrong.
“Oh!”
“Jason, what’s going on with you? You just don’t seem to be yourself, is it anything I can help you with?”
“Well, I was going to tell you, but I just didn’t know how to start.  I have been having these weird dreams and when I wake up I have nothing on and can be covered in mud.”
“Do you remember anything about the dreams?”
“Not really, just flashes of really strange things, which don’t make any sense.”
“Like what?”
“Its embarrassing, you will think I’m stupid.”
“I promise I won’t. I just want to help you, you are my closes friend, after all!”
“I see images of these large black panthers and I am running through the bush with them as a pack.  I know its me because the other night we stopped by this mountain stream and there was enough light reflecting on the water, from the moon for me to see my reflection in the water.  The thing looking back at me was a panther too, but the reflection had my human eyes.” I looked around to make sure no one was listening, before continuing on.  “But, it is more than just that, sometimes when I look into the mirror, I see the eyes of a cat looking back at me, I can see better at night and I can jump really high.”
Diane looked straight into Jason’s eyes, “You’re not joking are you?” she asked.
“No, I wish I was.”
“So have you turned into some kind of were panther, or something, like you see in the movies?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Jason nodded.
To be continued…..