The night before we left for the warehouse, I had one of the worst nightmares I've ever had in my life. And I have no idea where it came from.
As the night came to a close, I said goodnight to Ryan and Adam and retreated to my bedroom. I was still absolutely terrified about what was to come, but I was trying not to show it. I didn't want to go back there. If I was given the option, I wouldn't go back there. But I'm also not going to leave my family behind if they need me. Especially now.
I changed into lighter clothes and tried to get comfortable in bed. Outside my door, I heard the chatter continue for a bit more before it got quieter and quieter, and it seemed as though the other two had decided to call it a night as well. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but I figured it was probably something about tomorrow morning. I felt my heart start to beat faster.
I laid in bed, wide awake and anxious, for what felt like hours. It was difficult to try to relax and fall asleep, knowing what was ahead of us. We were going back...there. That awful place. We hadn't been there in two years, and for good reason. It was a place of violence, pain, and death; who would want to return to a place like that?
Us, apparently.
I tossed onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. It was a soothing off-white color, and taller than the old apartment. A small cobweb was perched in the far corner. Other than that, not too interesting. After a little while, I felt my eyelids start to get heavy, and my heartbeat begin to slow. Before I realized it, I was numb to the outside world.
It only felt like minutes had passed before I felt something fall on my face. I jumped awake and rubbed my cheek with my hand, then recoiled with unease. My hand was...wet? Where would anything wet be coming from?
I groggily rubbed my eyes open and looked up at the ceiling again. Right above my bed, a large crack had formed, and water was dripping from it onto the floor. I wasn't sure how I hadn't noticed it before. My eyes widened and I flew out of bed.
"Um...guys?!" I called out into the darkness. "Adam, Ryan?!"
There was no response, they were sound asleep. The ceiling was going to cave in and flood the entire house any minute. I had no idea what to do. Was there anything to do? I raced to the other side of my bed and grabbed my phone. Surely, there had to be an emergency service for something like this. I alarmedly pressed the power button and waited before crying out in anguish as the 'low power' screen appeared.
Motherfucker! This isn't a good time!
I glanced back up at the crack in the ceiling. More and more drops began to fall from it by the minute. I was starting to panic. How did this even happen? Nothing was there moments ago, but this looked like something that developed over years. What was I even looking at? What do I do?!
Time slowed nearly to a stop as I heard a loud rumble, followed by a tidal wave of water from above. It was too late. The room began to fill at an alarming rate, inches per second. I stood up on my bed as water pooled around my feet. I looked for any kind of escape, any way to stop this. Could I get out of my bedroom fast enough to find help? Was the rest of the apartment like this?
Did I have any other options?
Fuck it.
I jumped off the bed into the water, which was nearly chest-deep by now. My entire body was shocked as it came in contact with the icy cold. But I didn't have time to stop and recover. I had to keep moving. I tried to trudge through, against the current. Around me, the water level was getting higher and higher; it was nearly to my shoulders now. I kept moving toward the door.
The room was filling faster than I could move. In less than a minute, the water was almost to the base of my chin. I had no other choice. I took a deep inhale and plunged below the surface. Underwater, it was nearly impossible to see. I just kept moving in the same direction with the hope that I'd get somewhere...and the hope that I wouldn't run out of breath. I fumbled around for several minutes, blindly trying to search my own bedroom. I could feel my chest tightening as the air in my lungs was fading.
Then, in a stroke of luck, my hand found the handle of my bedroom door.
My eyes widened and I flung the door open, all of the water behind me spilling into the apartment and throwing me into the hallway. I gasped for breath as gallons of water rushed by me into the other rooms. I tried to stabilize myself against a wall, but it was no use. I collapsed in a puddle of water, and the rest of that time is blank.
****
When I came back into reality, or what I thought it was, things were very different from what I remembered. I blinked my eyes awake and got up slowly. Around me, the ground was completely dry; so were my clothes. How long was I out?
"Adam? Ryan?" I called out again. "Are you guys okay? ...Hello?"
I looked around at my surroundings. Something felt off. I felt dizzy, like I was hungover or something. I took a couple of steps forward into the living room.
"...Wh...What?"
Everything had been flipped on its head. Every piece of furniture, the apartment itself, even me, all of it was upside down. This night was getting stranger and stranger by the moment. I tried my best to walk to the coffee table in the living room, bumping into several things in the process. The bottle of wine from yesterday evening still sat there. I picked it up along with one of the empty glasses. Unsure of what to expect, I tried to pour the wine into the glass. Instead of flowing into the glass, the wine ran backwards out of the bottle, toward the ceiling.
"Well," I muttered to myself as I set the wine down, "that's certainly unusual."
I started feeling lightheaded from the change in scenery. I put my hand up to the wall to stabilize myself and get a grip on everything. First, the apartment flooded, and now everything was upside down. I'd learned to stop judging things like this a long time ago because of...well, everything at this point. But two strange occurrences in one day? That's new. That's almost...
L-word territory.
My stomach felt sick at the very thought of it being anything related to The Light. My limbs felt weak and shaky. I tried not to let it consume me. I tried to stay present. That was something Dr. Atwood had taught me.
What can I focus on? What can I look at to take my mind off all this? Are there any sounds, any smells? Come on, come on! There has to be something. Anything.
My eyes met the night sky as my legs gave out from under me. In the window, I could only see the light from the moon. Tears welled up around my eyes. I wanted to scream. Behind me, I felt a presence. But it wasn't someone that seemed...familiar to me.
"Is there someone there?" I called out.
Missing little time, the person behind me held their hand out to help me back to my feet. I hesitated for a moment, fearing who it might be or what they might do. But what more did I have to lose? I slowly took the other person's hand and they gently helped me up, not showing their face or saying a word. I was getting really uncomfortable.
"Who...Who are you?" I asked.
I could see the figure's smile through the darkness before an unsettling and familiar voice spoke.
"Why are you scared, Jack?"
My eyes widened as they stepped closer, and I saw their face.
It was me.
Behind him, more replicas of me emerged, each with the same evil smirk. They all crowded around me closely. My heart was nearly beating out of my chest. What were they going to do to me?
"What's your deal, Jack?" One replica snarled.
"Why don't you want to see The General?" Another prodded.
"Don't you want to get revenge?" A different one said, with an almost psychotic grin.
I started hyperventilating in the center of the circle. "No..."
One of the replicas giggled evilly. "What if he kills you?!"
"Stop!"
"Haha!" Another chimed in a sing-song voice. "You're gonna be a dead man!"
"Quit it!" I cried, covering my ears. "Just stop!"
"You're gonna die!" The first replica started chanting, and the others joined in.
"Leave me alone!" I sobbed, tears streaming down my face.
I fell to my knees in the middle of the cacophony. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't drown out their noise. My chest started tightening; I could hardly breathe. If they kept this up, they could kill me themselves.
"Jack?!"
I lifted my eyes just above the ground. I could hear my name. Distantly, but it was there. And what's more, the voice sounded...familiar, and comforting.
"Jack!"
Was it...Adam?
"Jack!"
I gasped and flew up into a sitting position. I was in my bed. It...was a dream? And a fucking awful one at that. Adam and Ryan sat on either side of me, horrified expressions pasted on both of their faces.
"Jesus Christ, Jack..." Ryan exclaimed.
I was still breathing extremely heavily. I attempted to calm myself down a bit before I tried to reply. "What...what happened?"
Adam took an exasperated breath and ran his hand through his hair. "You...you were screaming in your sleep. It terrified us. We thought...something was wrong..."
I looked down at my blankets and said nothing.
"I could ask the same of you," Ryan returned. "What the hell happened, Jack? Are you okay?"
I was visibly shaking, but I didn't want to worry them. I shook my head. "Nightmare..." I replied, to the best of my ability. "Bad nightmare..."
Adam raised an eyebrow but said nothing more on the topic. Ryan frowned in sympathy.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Ryan queried.
I froze. What if it was The Light? They would want to know. But even I didn't know. And I didn't want to put everything in jeopardy. Ryan would hate me for that. I had no idea what to do.
I looked at Ryan and shook my head. "No...I think it's just...nerves...about tomorrow..."
Adam and Ryan nodded in unison and Adam patted me on the shoulder.
"...I haven't slept well all night," He admitted. "My stomach's in knots, I'm terrified."
"I haven't slept much, either," Ryan agreed. "But I know this is the right thing to do."
I sighed shakily. Maybe we all thought that, but now I had a premonition. I knew it; that dream was a message. I had never had a prophetic dream, ever in my life, but I knew one thing:
Something bad was going to happen.
"As long as we have a solid plan and we stick together, everything should go fine," Ryan tried to assure us.
Adam sighed as he stood up. "Let's hope so. Goodnight."
"'Night," Ryan said tonelessly.
"Y...Yeah..." I muttered.
The door closed behind Ryan with a quiet click. I readjusted to be as comfortable in bed as I possibly could. I found myself staring at the ceiling again. The crack was nowhere to be seen.
As soon as I heard Adam and Ryan's doors shut, I felt tears roll down my face.
That was the first night I cried myself to sleep in a long time.