MONACHOPSIS- V. Hargreeves ³

013. DUST IN THE WIND.

The dreams Sabine had during the episodes, though, were completely clear. They played out like movies inside of Sabine's head, only better, because she experienced every smell, taste, and touch. When she woke up from one, she could recall perfectly exactly what had happened—it was as if she'd lived through it herself.

Yet, it was all so... unfamiliar.

A woman who wasn't her mother stared down at her, a sneer curling her features.

Her own hands pounded a punching bag until her knuckles bled.

She blinked at walls plastered with posters of bands she didn't listen to.

The worst one, though—at least, up until just over a week ago—had been the one she'd had just a few days after she'd turned eighteen. It started simple. She was walking late at night, enjoying a momentary reprieve from the stress of the day. Cars whizzed around her. The occasional stranger shouldered past.

Then she blinked, and she was in an alleyway. Two figures loomed out of the darkness, pointing guns at her head. She couldn't see their faces—they were obscured by grinning cartoon masks. A pink dog. A blue bear.

She woke up right when the gun went off.

Sabine didn't understand these dreams, nor the persistent feeling of displacement that accompanied them. Why was she dreaming of a life that wasn't hers? Why was she feeling like she didn't belong? She deserved to be here, after all. She'd worked her ass off for everything she'd gotten.

So, she tried to brush it all away. When Camille woke to her clutching her covers and asked what was wrong, Sabine just told her to go back to sleep. When that feeling settled into her stomach, she closed her eyes and told it to fuck right off.

For a while, this actually ended up working. Sabine proceeded with her life as usual, giddy and loving every bit of it.

But then, last week, something had changed.

On the morning of March 25th, she'd dreamed of swirling vortexes and funerals and a chimpanzee that looked suspiciously like Pogo from the Sparrow Academy. She woke paralyzed, clutching her arms as if they would vanish in an instant. Again, her entire body thudded with that uncanny feeling.

You shouldn't be here.

March 26th, she awoke with the sensation of a child's hands on her collar and a bandage wrapping around a stranger's head clinging to her. March 27th, it was sunny side up eggs, a cheerful, boring man (a piece of fucking white bread, her mind supplied, which was weird since she didn't usually swear), and...

Oh, yeah, there were also bullets ricocheting toward her head.

By March 31st, sensing that a cycle had been formed, knowing that she wasn't going to sleep in her own bed, Sabine finally snapped. Whatever was happening to her... it wasn't going to be solved here, in her apartment in Dijon. It had been going on for years, after all, and though she'd quelled the strangeness temporarily, it seemed to have come back in full force.

So, late at night on the first of April, Sabine hopped on a plane and headed to America.

She wasn't particularly sure why she'd chosen that as her escape. Oh, sure, this was where the Sparrow Academy lived, and she'd been a fan of them since she was seven, but she couldn't help but wonder if there was more to her chosen destination than just the desire to see him. Some... force, compelling her to travel there. As if it would reveal the answers.