Tomorrow’s Light
Written by Drew Clements
Conceptualized by Drew Clements and Bryan Hester
(Part Four - I)

Tomorrow opened her eyes and blinked repeatedly until her room came into focus. The first thing that greeted her was two framed, black and white pictures of Venice. They had always been beautiful photographs, but for some reason, today, they seemed so much more.
“Hello Venice!” She smiled, sat up, and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. A yawn escaped her mouth.
To her right sat a bedside table that held a lamp, a bottle of water, and an alarm clock.
“Great. 6:10.”
She sighed; it was twenty minutes before she actually had to wake up. That, for her, was always one of the nightmares of getting up early in the morning; she’d much prefer those extra minutes.
“It could be worse-I didn’t actually set my alarm, so I could be getting up late,” She paused. “I’ve gotta stop this talking to myself thing.”
She looked down at her body. She was still wearing the same clothes, jeans and a tee shirt, from yesterday. Her gaze went behind her to the bed where she had slept on top of the covers all night.
That had easily been the worst headache she’d ever had. The good thing, though, is that that was probably the best night’s sleep she’d ever had! The bad came with some good, so that’s not too bad, she supposed.
Opening the door of her room, she exited into the hall and made her way to the bathroom. On the way she felt a breeze on her legs.
“What the hell?”
She looked down and found that her jeans were split at the seams from the bottom to just above the knee on both legs. Her eyes grew large; something wasn’t right!
She turned around and went back to the door to her bedroom and looked over to the bed and then to the floor in front. There was nothing on or around her bed that she could have snagged her pants on during the night.
“Sleepwalking?”
She shook her head and returned to the hall, glanced around for something here that might have tore her pants. Nothing was out of place. Sure, she could spend all morning searching the house for something that could have ripped her pants had she been up walking in her sleep, but she didn’t want to waste the time. She also didn’t want to have to explain any of it to her mother, who would no doubt wonder why her daughter was running around looking for something about the height of her lower legs.
“There goes a perfectly good pair of jeans.”
“Up already?” Her mother called from the hall.
Tomorrow hurried to the bathroom and closed the door just enough to where a small space was left open so as to be able to speak clearly to her mother and not expose her ripped jeans if she came near.
“Yeah mom, I’m up!”
“You went to bed awfully early. I was going to wake you but decided against it. A growing girl needs her sleep, you know?” Her mother’s voice carried from the hall.
“Yeah, mom, I know. I’m getting a shower now.” She dismissed her mother’s voice and closed the door all the way.
She threw back the shower curtain and turned the warm water on and waited for it to heat up. While waiting, she looked down at her jeans, “More weirdness… this is not the best way to start the day. Here I was thinking that things would return to normal. That’s what I get for thinking.”
She unbuttoned her jeans and slipped them off. Pulling the rips closer to her face, she examined them. There were clean rips at the seams; nothing to indicate she had snagged them on something. Apparently, they just ripped, but why?
The question danced around in her mind as she matched the cold water with the warm to find the right temperature and lifted the lever to turn the shower on. Then, slipping off the rest of her clothes, she entered the shower.
The warm water fell over her body, instantly giving her chill bumps. This was one comfortable feeling she could count on when all else was gone-much as it was at this very moment; the water seemed to rinse away any negative feelings of question and doubt.
“Mono. That’s it. There’s been a good bit of that going around.” She nodded as her hands sifted through her long, drenched hair.
Sure, she must have gotten it from drinking after someone, because she knew very well that she didn’t get it by kissing someone! She smiled as she popped open the top to the shampoo bottle. The blue cream swept into her hand.
How could it be mono, though? It’s not like the symptoms are tearing jeans during the night and seeing dragons. Perhaps, she thought, she was just trying to rationalize something so outstanding and unexplainable; the human mind at work.
Her thoughts continued as she spread the shampoo into her thick hair.
“Surely things will get better as the day goes on. No reason to doom the whole thing just because I’m crazy! Oh, and talking to myself… again!”
She laughed and suddenly the bitter, copper-like taste of the shampoo entered her mouth. It was unpleasant, but with her mind so heavy with dismissive thoughts, it registered and soon left her mind altogether.
After completely rinsing the shampoo out, she searched, blindly with her hand, for her wash cloth. After finding it, she reached for the bar of soap situated on a small shelf set into the wall on her right.
Turning away from the water, but still letting it fall on her head, she began to thoroughly soap the cloth.
Perhaps, if she kept her eyes closed she wouldn’t have to face any sort of reality. But there was no way she could keep her eyes closed forever.
“What a profound thought for a sixteen-year-old!” She smiled and, as her lips turned upward at the corners, the copper-like taste entered again. Surely she had gotten all the shampoo out.
After fully soaping the cloth, she began to lather her body, starting at her arms. She opened her eyes slightly to be sure of what she was doing.
What she ended up seeing froze her body completely.

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