Prescient

Chapter 5

The sun came through my lounge-room window at 5:45 AM and hit me full-on in the face.

I hadn't closed the curtains the night before and at some time around midnight, I'd passed out on the couch. Smelling of vodka and the previous day's sweat—as I hadn't had a shower at any point before I'd gone involuntarily down for the count—I crawled off the couch like some kind of fat slug sliding off a plant and shuffled my way to the bathroom.

I turned on the hot water in the shower to heat up. The pipes shuddered and moaned as the water spluttered out, shaking the shower head as it always did. The flat I lived in was old—as was the plumbing. I told myself for the millionth time I would have to get out of this dump one day soon as I started to undress; realizing my stomach wasn't going to allow me a morning off hangover duties, I bent over the sink and spewed.

Charming, right?

Great start to a Wednesday morning.

So, once I got a shower out of the way—washing my hair because I got vomit in it—I resigned myself to my bed with the intension of sleeping off the remaining vodka in my system.

So what if I was in bed for the rest of the day? I hadn't been rostered on to work Monday and already called into work sick yesterday so why not be sick again today.

I was avoiding work because I was avoiding Cheryl and the others who had been at the party on Saturday.

I can't say I was embarrassed exactly about what happened. I don't care enough about people's opinions to be humiliated about anything. I just didn't want their eyes on me any more than usual. The people I worked with – Cheryl being the exception – had learned by now not to bother looking at me or making eye contact with me because it never ended in a friendly manner. Now, however, they would have a new reason to stare and whisper and I was too perpetually hung-over to deal with it at the moment.

Yet I wouldn't be able to avoid work forever.

If I had too many days off I would get fired and at first, I didn't care as I already had contemplated quitting, but it wasn't an option. I hated my job and I hated getting out amongst people but I didn't want to go back to being on the dole again.

I decided I would have this one more day and go to work tomorrow.

I rolled around for a few minutes, kidding myself that I could go back to sleep because every time I closed my eyes I saw Kaylah and I was sick of seeing her. All I'd seen in my sleep of late was Kaylah, Kaylah, Kaylah.

It infuriated me how annoying and banal these dreams were but the night of the party, when I had come home and drank myself into a stupor until I passed out, something about the dreams changed.

A shadow had appeared in the dream, surrounding Kaylah. When I first saw it I knew it meant something bad. I could feel the weight of its impeding darkness growing heavier in my stomach and I wasn't at all surprised. The ordinary nature of these dreams was not what my visions usually were so it made sense they would eventually change to something bad. It's not like I could have been dreaming about this girl because she was going to grow up to stop world hunger or something.

Of course, I was dreaming of her because something bad was coming.

The shadow was getting darker in the last couple of days. It was only on her too. It never touched her friends or her parents, just her. Kaylah's own personal darkness. It meant something. But what? I had no idea, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't want to know.

I knew I would find out anyway.

I couldn't stay there, and hung-over as I was, I had to get out of that flat. Grabbing my wallet and my keys, and slipping on some thongs, I headed out.