Chapter 1
My roommate sleepwalked in the middle of the night.
When she woke up the next morning, we asked her what she had been dreaming about. She said she had dreamed of cutting open a watermelon, but it was not ripe yet. We all laughed.
But the next night, I woke from a dead sleep and saw my sleepwalking roommate standing over me, a knife in one hand, the other resting on my head, muttering, “This one’s ripe.”
My whole body jolted as I let out a piercing scream.
That scream instantly woke the other two girls in our dorm room. Jessica’s little desk lamp on the top bunk clicked on, flooding the room with pale yellow light.
Madison stood in front of me with her eyes open but glazed over, one hand still touching the top of my head while the other held a kitchen knife raised high in the air.
Oh my God.
From the bottom bunk across from me, Reilly snapped awake. As an athlete, her reflexes were fast. She lunged forward and grabbed Madison from behind, pinning her arms.
I finally came to my senses, snatched the half-empty water bottle from my nightstand, and threw it straight at Madison’s face.
She jolted. Her unfocused eyes sharpened instantly. Seeing the knife in her hand, she gasped and dropped it with a loud clatter.
“What’s happening?” she whispered.
My face had gone completely pale. “I should be asking you that. Do you have any idea what you were doing?”
Madison’s face turned white. “I… I just had a dream. I was back in the watermelon field again, picking melons. This time I finally found a ripe one, and I wanted to cut it open.”
All of our faces drained of color.