SPECTRAL.

† N I N T E E N †

     I HAVE OFTEN HEARD IT SAID THAT THE MIND IS A TREACHEROUS CHAMBER, an endless labyrinth where dreams and reality weave so tightly together that their seams blur until one is no longer certain which side of consciousness they are inhabiting. I used to think such words were only philosophical ramblings, something professors might toss into a lecture hall to spark debate, but not anything that could touch me, not anything that could root into my bones. Now, I know better. I know what it means when reality bends until it resembles a dream, and when a dream breathes until it resembles reality. I know, because I have stood in that dangerous threshold where the two become one, and in that threshold, I have felt the hands of something not of this world pressing against me.

     I tell you this because at this point in my story, I did not know anymore whether I was awake or asleep, alive or trapped in some half-lit chamber where logic had no dominion. After that day, after that vision, or dream, or whatever monstrous phenomenon it was, of Brooke being pushed into the road and crushed beneath the tires of an oncoming car, and of waking up on my bed with the heaviness of guilt clamped to me like shackles. Of McKayla's voice reaching for me, tethering me to the ordinary rhythm of night, but deep inside, knowing there was nothing ordinary left.

     I still convinced myself it was a dream. Dreams are wild, they said; dreams are the subconscious unraveling its threads in the dark. But when the sun rose, and I walked to campus the next morning, I learned that dreams can spill into the day with teeth.

     The first thing I noticed, even before I reached the main building, were the sirens. They weren't alive anymore, not wailing, not pulsing with light, but they had left their presence stamped into the air. Two police cruisers were parked at crooked angles in front of the entrance. An ambulance squatted like a metal beast with its back doors open, its insides pale and sterile. Officers in navy uniforms stood with their notebooks open, pens scratching across paper as they circled students who huddled together like frightened sheep. Their voices were hushed, subdued, filled with a kind of reverent fear that belongs only to places where death has visited.

     The morning air was cold, yet I remember a heat spreading beneath my skin, a prickling awareness that whatever I was about to learn would split the line between dream and waking in ways I wasn't prepared for. I slowed my pace, watching as a group of freshmen answered questions with trembling lips, their hands moving nervously, eyes darting as if even words might betray them. The officers listened, nodding, jotting, their expressions heavy with authority, and behind them, other students watched, whispering to each other in the language of dread.

     I stopped at the edge of the crowd. I couldn't move closer. Something in me resisted, some instinct that whispered not to step into the circle where grief was taking root. And that was when I noticed him, one man breaking away from the cluster of officers, walking with deliberate steps toward me. His shoulders were squared, his jaw tense, and there was an air about him that marked him as different from the rest. He wasn't here to observe; he was here to hunt for answers.

     He stopped in front of me, flipping open a badge with a practiced movement. "Detective Harris," he said, his voice low, steady, controlled. The badge gleamed briefly in the gray light before he tucked it back into his coat. I barely glanced at it—I didn't need to. Everything about him screamed law, screamed investigation.

     "What's going on?" I asked, my voice a shade thinner than I wanted it to be.

     His eyes shifted around us before returning to mine. "A body was found early this morning," he said, matter-of-fact, as if death was simply another item on a long to-do list. "Over near the east side, just past the intersection by the main road. We're gathering information, trying to piece together what happened."

     A body. My stomach dropped. His words cracked open the memory from last night, and I saw again the blur of headlights, Brooke's body colliding with the car, the sound of steel and bone colliding, the screams that had been swallowed into the day. But that wasn't real, I reminded myself. It couldn't have been real. I had woken up safe in my bed. Yet here he was, telling me exactly what I had seen in my so-called dream.

     I cut him off, the urgency strangling my voice. "What… what did the body look like?"

     For a moment, his brow creased. Perhaps he thought it was an odd question. But he answered anyway, as though he had repeated the details enough times already to recite them without thought. "Female. Young. Auburn hair. Light build. She was wearing—" He hesitated, then lowered his voice. "—what looks like a student's outfit."

     Every description struck me like a hammer. Auburn hair. Light build. A student. My chest constricted. That was Brooke. It had to be Brooke. My hands felt suddenly damp, my skin prickled with a nervous heat, and my heart raced so violently I thought he might hear it pounding through my ribs. Could it be possible? Could I have truly killed her? No—no, it wasn't possible. If it was real, if what I had seen was not a dream, then why had no one pointed to me? Why hadn't a hundred accusing fingers risen to name me as the one who shoved her into the road?

     And how—my mind reeled—how had I woken in my bed afterward? How does a murderer simply vanish from the scene and reappear tucked safely into her sheets? Nothing about it aligned with the rigid laws of reality.

     "Are you alright?" Detective Harris's voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. His eyes were sharp, searching my face for cracks.

     "Yes," I lied quickly, forcing my lips to shape the word. "I'm fine."

     He didn't look convinced. Still, he pressed on. "Did you hear or see anything unusual last night? Any disturbances on campus, maybe someone out late?"

     I shook my head too fast. "No. Nothing. I wasn't even at school."

     He studied me, but before he could ask more, another officer called out to him. He excused himself, jogging toward the cluster of uniforms, leaving me rooted where I stood, trembling.

     I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. The words replayed in my skull like a chant: a body was found. A girl with auburn hair. A student. I saw her face in my mind, Brooke's mocking smile, her cruel eyes, the last image of her body on the asphalt. Had I really done it? Or had something else done it through me? Was I the instrument, or only the dreamer cursed to witness it?

     I turned to leave, to escape the scene before my nerves betrayed me, but what I saw froze me to the marrow.

     Brooke.

     She was there.

     Standing only yards ahead, speaking to one of the officers. Her arms folded, her expression hollow, sad, her voice low as she responded to his questions. She was alive. Alive. My vision wavered, my mind split open. How could she be alive? How could she stand there breathing when a detective had just described her corpse?

     I stared, wide-eyed, my thoughts twisting in painful knots. Had I misheard? No, he had said auburn hair, a student, female. It was Brooke in every detail. Unless… unless it wasn't her. Unless there was another body that bore her description.

     I looked again toward the ambulance. Its open doors yawned like a mouth, and inside, I imagined the sheeted figure waiting, still, silent, nameless. The urge to see surged through me, to peel back the curtain of mystery and look upon the face that lay beneath the white cloth. Maybe then, finally, I could separate dream from waking, guilt from innocence.

     I began to walk toward it, each step weighted with dread and desperate curiosity. But I had barely covered half the distance when the vehicle shuddered to life. The engine roared, the doors slammed, and in seconds, it was moving. I stopped dead in my tracks, watching helplessly as the ambulance rolled off campus, taking with it the answer to the riddle that had trapped me.

     I stood there long after it was gone, hollowed out, more confused than ever, caught in the terrible space between knowing and not knowing.