When I was merely five-years old, I believed in dreams. I believed in possibility and promise. My dreams grew non-existent, because when you believe something will happen, they no longer are dreams.

I remember when I was six, gazing in wonderment at a spinning, flickering ferris wheel at the town fairgrounds. I'd never seen a ferris wheel before, and could've spent the day watching it, as it serenly spun as if a colorful wagon wheel. I gaped as my parents pulled me away, both their hands clasped tightly over my small ones as if I was a balloon bound to fly away.

When I was eight, I started to realize that my dreams weren't as powerful as I'd imagined. During the nighttime, when a black, stony shadow covered itself over our sleepy town, I heard Mommy and Daddy's whispered voices, urgently speaking, though I couldn't understand what they meant, I listened from my perch atop our wooden steps as the sky released her icy tears down upon earth, they splattered noisily on the frosty window panes, entrancing me that late night in December.

When I was ten, my life changed, and I realized dreams were composed of fantasy. I was wrenched from the security and comforts of my bed one night, and my hands were twisted and bound behind my back. A rough hand shoved me forward, and I nearly tripped in the bleak darkness of my bedroom. In the soft glow of candlelight when we emerged the doorway, I saw Mommy and Daddy being taken too. They didn't cry or shout, they simply complied. Mommy whispered that I was to be strong.

When we reached the outdoors, I realized night was still grasping our tiny, sleepy town in his angered hand, and I was blankly pushed into a bus of sorts. Mommy and Daddy went into another. I peered around me and saw in the glow of the moonlight, so like that of which hit the ferris wheel that night so long ago, that I wasn't alone. I saw my friends, my teachers, my neighbors, my parents friends.

I shivered in my flimsy night gown, shaking with horror, tears sliding easily down my flushed, reddened cheeks. The bus jolted to life, jostling me to the cold, cement floor. It's shining, demonic eyes weaved in and out of my sleepy town, until sometime later, perhaps in early dawn, we stopped.

The doors were flung open in rage, and we all piled out, messy, tired, shaken, and burning with terror. It was then I knew my dreams would never come true. I was seperated into a large group of people, and prodded forward. I died that cold, wintery night. As my heaving, burning breath emitted from my body, and I listened to the screams around me, I realized the truth.

Shakeningly, I collapsed into a heap on the ground, my life flashing before my placid, beryl eyes. I was hoisted onto someones shoulders, and laid outside, still somewhat alive, though trapped between life and death. As I slowly let out my last few breaths, the sight I saw were the twinkling eyes of the stars in a midnight black sky. I was reminded of the ferris wheel, the chaos of the fairground, my life. It was with that, as my last shaky breath was uttered, I realized something. My dreams were a lie.