Nightmares

Episode 6.3

Message from: My precious
i'm home

You don't know how much I wished that I was wrong about my theory, but unfortunately, I'm not. My boyfriend sees dreams, paints them, and they turn into reality, but in their horrible and dreadful form, which later try to hurt him. I broke this chain when I gave him sleeping pills, and he started to make cartoons, but I can't rely on only that. I need a solid, one and final solution.

 Abruptly, my phone does two pings. Someone messaged me. It's Joshua. He reached home early, says he had only two classes today. Well, that's good, I won't have to go to pick him.

Wait, Joshua? His father! Yes! If he has this I don't what to call it, a disease? his father must know about it. I quickly search for him in my contact list. I think I've saved his number by the name Dracula or something. He's no less than a ghost himself, he looks so white and pale. Though I've never met him, I've seen him in one of the pictures on Joshua's phone.

Father Dracula. Okay. I was not this nervous even for the interview as I'm now. I gulp and tap on the call button. It's ringing. Gosh, fighting with those ghosts would have been easier. I was thinking about what to say when he picked up, "Hello?" his voice came from the other side.

"Mr. Hong?" I say

"Yes, who am I speaking to?"

"Hello sir, my name is Jeonghan, I'm...um, I'm your son's frien-...b-boyfriend,"

"His boyfriend?" 

"Uh, um, y-yeah,"

He stays quiet for a moment, "Is he here with you?"

"No, he's at my apartment,"

"You both live together?" he said in disbelief. Oh no! I shouldn't have said that.

"Yeah, I mean, we were staying in his house before but something happened and-"

"Leave him as soon as possible before he kills you," 

"Sorry? What?"

"Just like how he killed his mother,"

"W-What are you talking about?"

"You don't know? I thought you've seen it yourself," he said, "Look, get away from that boy, he's...he's dangerous,"

"What are you saying? What happened to his mother?" I said. He remained silent. "See, I-I know about his dreams, I want to know what's happening with him, that's why I called you, I want to help him. So, tell me, Please," I said

He spoke after taking a breath. "Ok, but you'll have to believe me,"

 "Yes, I will,"

 "He was three years old, a happy small kid who loved to draw. But we didn't know our baby had...some special magic. Soon, we started to see strange things in our house, it was butterflies, flowers, weird toys, and dolls, they looked like drawing of a little kid. It was our Joshua who made them in his sketchbook, he used to draw what he dreamt, it gave him some sort of comfort. We watched him for few days and it didn't take time for us to realize that his dreams come true if he paints them." He took a pause. 

"But so do his nightmares," his father said, "We were in the living room when we heard him scream from his bedroom, he said he saw a ghost, his mom assured him there was nothing like that. After putting him to sleep, we were coming downstairs. I-I didn't even know what it was, it.....it suddenly appeared behind her and pushed her down the stairs. Whatever that thing was, it was so strong, I couldn't stop it. She was saying, the sketch, the sketch, then I ran to Joshua's room. I found his sketchbook, he had drawn the same, I tore the page into pieces and ran to her. That thing was gone.....after killing his mother." 

Complete silence on both sides. I spoke, "You told him she died after giving him birth,"

"I lied." he said, "I tried to use him. I missed her so much and wanted to see her again. I showed him his mother's pictures so that he dreams about her, then I asked him to paint her. He was too young... couldn't even draw a straight line correctly. And I hated him for that. She was dead because of him. It was so foolish, no one knows how his paintings may turn out in reality. It was not flowers and butterflies anymore. He was just three, couldn't understand all these dreams, ghosts, and reality so I simply forbade him to draw anything from then on. I removed every picture of his mother and told him she died after his birth to not try to paint her in the future."

"So? it stopped?" 

"Yes. He's a compliant kid, he listened to me. But I couldn't stop the artist in him, he started to hide them from me. As he was growing older, he was getting better at painting. Whenever I got home, I used to see children passing in front of me, and weird people. They were so...so horrific, without eyes, looking like deads. It could scare anyone out of their wits, so many times they tried to hurt him and me too. I scolded him not to paint anything, he listened to me for few days, then again started to make them hiding from me. It was stressing me out. These were getting too gruesome day by day, he wasn't aware of the danger of it. I was tired of saving him, finding his sketches, tearing them, and erasing them from walls. So, I told him I got a transfer abroad and he should stay here for his studies."

I was speechless for a while. "You...you left him here all alone?"

"It's not like that. I send him money every month,"

"It doesn't matter. You left him here.....to die!"

"It'll be better if he dies." He shouts. "He could have killed me one day, he can kill you too. That's why I'm saying you to stay away from him. Leave him alone,"

"Never! Thank you for your fucking time. Have a good day, sir." I cut the phone immediately. Just what kind of father leave his son to die alone? I'm not gonna do the same as him. I look at his art room and start piling up all his paintings on the floor. I go to the kitchen to bring kerosene oil and matches.

It's gonna end soon.

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