Run Away

My nightmare started like this. I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned. Florida, I thought. Though I wasn't sure how I knew that. I'd never been to Florida.

      My breath was coming quicker and my heart was beating faster. I knew that I was running from something--no, someone. Once again, I wasn't sure how I knew that.

     What is going on? My brain was working with startling clarity, and I started to doubt it was a dream. 

     Something clicked in my brain, and I tried to change directions. But my body was not my own, and I kept heading right towards the shadowy shape in front of me.

     "No, no, no!" I screamed, trying to dig my heels in to no avail.

     "Help me," the shadowy figure whispered in agony, turning around to face me.

      There was a knife stuck in the figure's gut, blood flowing in rivulets down to the ground. The ice blue eyes locked onto mine in a silent scream, and I would have screamed too...except I was too startled. I knew that face like the back of my hand.

      Because it was my own face.

"Abigail, wake up!" Reaper hissed beside me, shaking me awake. "You were screaming and thrashing around like...like Khan was after you or something!"

     I couldn't speak for a moment or two, so Reaper just sat there and watched me quietly from the shadows.

     "You want to talk about it?" he asked gently, focusing his alarmingly dark eyes on my own.

     I swallowed hard, struggling to make sense of what I'd dreamed. "Dreams don't mean anything," I muttered.

     "They do to Gabriella," he kidded. Reaper was right--Gabriella had some unusual abilities on top of the telepathic ones we all had. Like, being able to tell the future, or walk into a room and know exactly what happened there, even up to an hour or more ago.

     "I'm not Gabriella," I managed to joke. But my stomach was still churning, and when I shut my eyes briefly I saw the blood, and the face. My face.

     "It's okay if you don't walk to talk about it," he soothed me. "We could take a walk or..."

     "No, I'd prefer talking about it, I guess," I said at last. The last thing I wanted was to be outside.

     Reaper nodded. "Okay. Why were you so scared?"

     "It started out innocently enough, I guess," I began, and then smiled slightly at my choice of words. Reaper grinned in reply. "I was on a beach, and it was storming; and there was the ocean. And I knew it was Florida--I don't know how. And it was storming. I was running down a road, houses on either side...and I saw this shadowed figure. I tried to run away, but my body just kept hurtling forward. A-and then it asked for help. The figure turned around a-and...she had a knife in her gut."

     "She? Did you recognize her? Is that why you were scared?" Reaper questioned gently. His eyes never left mine as I struggled to take a deep breath and calm myself.

     "Yes," I whispered hoarsely.

     "Who was she?"

     I shook my head. "No, it's stupid of me to be scared. The whole thing's stupid."

     Reaper didn't move. "You don't know that. It might be telepathic imagery."

     "It's not. It was nothing but a silly dream," I replied, brushing him off. "I'm okay now, Thanks for talking with me."

     "Sure, no problem," Reaper responded. He hesitated, but finally rose to his feet and left the room, leaving me alone.

     "It was just a dream, Abigail," I whispered to myself. 

     At last, I sighed, and turned to look in the mirror. The moonlight reflected onto the mirror, and I studied my gut. No blood, no knife...Slowly my gaze lifted to my own eyes.

     They were blue.