• Time. There was once a begining, someday there will be an end. Yet it stretches on forever, a thousand years packed n between on secong- and the next. The phone rang, interrupting her from her thoughts. She picked it up, knowig her hopes and fears might be realized in a second.
    "Hello?"
    "Hey." It was him. The boy she had met a week ago at the park, the boy, she knew, who was her true love.
    He wanted to meet her at the same park later that day. The hour between saying godbye and saying hello again seemed more like a thousand hours, a million of them, but she managed. When she got there, breathless from running the five blocks, he was waiting for her by the old swingset. He had something in his arms. Something, she realized, for her. It was a blue rose, something she hadn't even realized existed. It was darker than the midnight sky, and was in full bloom.
    "Careful" He said, "There's some thorns on it that I couldn't cut off. Don't cut yourself."
    "I won't." She smiled and looked at him. His eyes, she realized, where the same color as the flower. They talked until the sun went down, then he kissed her goodbye.
    "Same time tomorrow?" He asked.
    She smiled at him and nodded. He left. She watched him walk along the gravel path and disapear among the bushes and disappear. After a moment, she reached down too grabbed the rose. A flash of pain shot through her hand, and she dropped it. Crimson liquid squirted from a small cut in her thump, and it was all she could do to stare at it for a moment. Shuddering, she stuck her thump in her mouth and, carefully, pick the flower up again with her other hand. Trying to ignore the strange feeing that had suddenly overcome her, she walked home. After a block and a half, she gave up trying to supress her fear and ran the rest of the way. She was too busy being frightened and wondering why too notice that she was being watched.
    END OF CHAPTER ONE