Melody Hope

Part 1: Spirit Traveler

Whenever they desired, the dead could communicate with me through my dreams. I hated it with everything I had; every sleepless night led to another. I just wanted to know if I could escape that cycle of misery, but no matter how much I tried to help, there were more who needed solace.

Pain wasn't supposed to be part of the bargain when your restful sleep was traded away for nightmares. The searing, terrifyingly numb shock of having my fingers cut off or the fiery explosion of having a bullet ripped through my abdomen were real up until I woke up. Sometimes I could never tell if I was awake or in the middle of a dream.

A scream startled me awake; there was sweat dripping off my brow. The taste of salt jump-started my senses. I sat up hunched over in bed, chills running up and down my spine as the frosty air entered through my open window in waves. A pool of water grew on the ground where my shadow should have been. As I noticed the abnormalities, droplets began to fall more frequently from the ceiling.

This was another nightmare, another story.

The floor felt cool to the touch. An unnatural amount of moonlight bounced off of the walls of the bedroom. I looked out the window and found that it was completely pitch black.

"You're still dreaming," somebody said in a familiar sing-song tone.

I slowly turned around, trying to differentiate the objects from the shadows.

"Look closer," it said.

I stepped walked to my door and out in the hall, still barefoot and still in my pajamas.

"Giving up that easily?"

"No," I said, "I just don't care."

I walked down the hotel corridor; dim lights laced the pale golden walls. Shadows danced in the flickering luminosity. Things watched me from the ceiling as I continued on.

I knew that five more doors down, a scratching from inside of the room would attempt to catch my attention. I ignored it and kept going, keeping up my shadow's swift walking pace.

Outside, the sky was distorted. The windows began to shake. A hollow cry started low but increased in volume over the course of a couple seconds. Glass exploded from the windows and scattered all over the hall.

I felt a pinch at my neck. I yanked a piece of glass out of it and tossed it out the nearest hole in the wall. A hot pain surged through the wound, but I had felt it too many times before.

"Come on, you know what's on then bottom floor," sang that same voice from before, only it was in my head this time.

"Last time, you said my persistence was admirable."

It was the same dream every night for the past year. Even when I napped during the day, the same characters, sights, smells, and emotions plagued my restless dreams.

Grabbing the rail that spiraled downwards along with the stairs, I pulled myself up to a sitting position.

That voice decided to speak up. "Doing that in real life-"

"-would surely kill me because my balance sucks, yes I know."

I slid down the ten stories without an accident, though with each passing floor, a new horror tried to entice me to visit. For better or for worse, I had seen them all.

I landed on the moist, red rug at the foot of the staircase. The sudden rotting smell made me gag.

As if I had never seen it before, a twisted shape of a body stood on the middle of the floor. It collapsed into the fetal position, rocking back and forth, and it began to cry.

"Hey, we didn't finish our conversation last time," I said, venturing forth.

Its cries became louder, more desperate. I looked around, checking behind me. The wallpaper melted and started to flow slowly towards the ground.

"You said that you were wronged, most likely killed for some unjust reason that you didn't finish explaining-"

The thing spun around, grabbing my wrist with a grip as fragile as tissue paper. Its fingers were cold, but they looked normal. It looked human, and it was gasping for breath.

"Help me," it wheezed.

I exhaled. I nodded.

It stood up. He had gray eyes, frazzled red hair, the saddest brown eyes I had ever seen. Color seeped out of his flesh and for a second, I forgot that I was dreaming.

Then there was an odd tingling feeling well below my chest. I looked down at the source.

A knife was sticking out of my stomach, the kind that you'd use to slice fish and meat.

"It hurt for me as well, but only after the shock," he said, his voice rigid and cold. “He was my family, and it... I couldn't see it coming; now that, that is what hurt the most."

Seconds before the sensation could register, I was shoved forward once, twice, three times. Five, six, seven piercing objects had penetrated the flesh down my spine. I spun around, trying to steady my breath.

The red-haired boy was gone. I fell to the floor and curled up, blood rushing over and out of me. I was going to die.

The figure before me was lithe. He had dark hair cropped short and bright red eyes.

He cocked his head to the side as he examined me. “You were a born traveler,” he said. “You must be the world's accident.” He laughed, turned away and began to fade.

I tried to memorize his shape before succumbing to the pain. His salty scent reminded me of the sea.