Synopsis: A recurring dream, is it more than just a dream?
*This contains some vulgar language within the speech of the characters, and violence in the plot. *
The first time I had the dream came after a long night out with the guys. I crashed hard and was in a beautifully deep sleep when the dream injected itself into my life.
I was in a large lecture hall waiting for class to start, while doodling in my notebook. Yea, it was a real exciting dream. In hind sight I wouldn’t have minded it staying so boring.
The large wooden doors busted for five men dressed in black clothing. They pulled out chain to padlock the doors shut behind them, while two others went to secure the remaining exits. The men in black started yelling and everyone was trying to figure out what was going on.
I sat up. The metallic gleam of a 9 mm caught my eye. It felt like a heavy weight had just sucker punched me in the gut.
I’m going to be one of those kids, or worse one of those pictures from a school shooting.
"Shut up and sit down!” They yelled spreading out through the room.
A student off to my right freaked and bolted for the nearest exit. The gunman closest to me turned.
I remembered it in slow motion, but it happened in the blink of an eye. The pistol leveled, his finger squeezed and a look of malice was on his face as the gun recoiled. My ears were filled with the deafening blast.
It was as if the kid had been sapped of life and strength all at once, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The student thudded to the floor and everything stopped. My breathing, the noise in the room, and even my heart stopped.
It felt like someone had taken my world and shaken it like a snow globe. A boy, just like me, no more deserving or less had been gunned down by a maniac. This wasn’t on TV anymore. It was real and it was happening to me.
Fear and adrenaline pumped through my veins like a heroin overdose, making me to shake uncontrollably. My stomach did a flip-flop, while my throat felt so tight it was hard to breathe. My body was telling me to run, but my mind was forcing me to stay.
The shooter wheeled around.
“Does anyone else want to try that? Huh!?” His face was an angry sneer mixed with a malevolent grin.
I thought to myself:
We are all going to die!
Then, his dark green eyes fell on me. Maybe I looked angry, like I was going to try something, or maybe I just had bad luck, but he sauntered over and put his gun to my forehead. The warmth of that barrel against my head would never be forgotten. He pressed until it left a round, hollow imprint on my skin.
My eyes closed as my shakes became worse. I felt hot piss running down my legs, as I waited for the bullet.
“What about you, do you wanna try something?” His voice was full of tempting rage.
He wanted to kill me. I sensed it in every fiber of my body, and yet I was helpless. My life was in the hands of another person. Whether I saw tomorrow or not depended on the whims of one man; all I could do was sit and wait, hope and pray.
The high pitch shrill of a girl pierced the air, and at first I thought I’d been shot, but the gun left my forehead. My eyes opened to find a boy trying to coral a girl, who was fighting hopelessly to run for it.
“They’ll kill you! They’ll kill you.” was the plea from a terrified boy.
But she didn’t listen; in fact, she was so worked up she couldn’t hear anything. Her sense of rationality was lost. The human psyche could only handle so much, and this had broken hers.
“Shut the fuck up and sit down.” The gunman in front of me yelled, but the girl continued.
The boy doubled his efforts, but she refused to be quelled. The blacked clothed arm steadied the 9 mm.
“One last chance bitch! SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN, OR I’LL BLOW YOU FUCKING BRAINS OUT!!!”
She didn’t stop, she didn’t even slow, and I yelled in my head,
Oh God help us, he’s going to kill her! The boy looked to the gunman begging for mercy, for some sort of kindness and understanding, but all he received was the tilt the gunman’s head to aim. The boy spun her in behind him.
Gunfire echoed through the room for the second time. The boy lurched, his hold weakening until he couldn’t hold on anymore.
The girl was finally silent.
She dropped to the floor overtaken by sobs escalating into bloody screams of murder. What sounded like a laugh came from the gunman, and loathing hate swelled up alongside my fear.
“Shut up bitch, you’re the reason he’s dead in the first place. You worthless cunt.” They fell on deaf ears. “I said shut up!” The gun swept back to my head. “Shut up or someone else is going to die!”
[I[Oh please just shut up! Oh please![/i]
“Last chance bitch!”
I watched his finger tighten down on the trigger. My eyes widened, and everything slowed down as his finger threw the hammer into action. It swung down and there was nothing I could do but watch. It made contact with the back of the pistol.
Kaboom!
I jerked awake, the noise ringing in my ears. I shivered, but whether it was from the dream or cold sweat I wasn’t sure. My eyes darted around the room making sure I was safe. Collapsing back into my blankets, I wrapped myself in their reassuring comfort and tried to forget the dream.
Two weeks later, I had it again, and soon the dream was a weekly thing. Time after time that maniac killed me. I dreaded waking up in the same cold sweat that gunshot ringing in my ears.
It was probably the seventh time when something happened, something changed. Instead of sitting there after the gunman swiveled to see what is going on behind him, I made a run for it. Five steps and I jolted awake from the bullet in my back.
I sat in bed, breathing hard and wiping away sweat. It was a mixture of enlightenment and trepidation. My dream had changed and I did it. Was it possible to do it again?
Two nights later I jumped the guy with the gun. There was a struggle and he killed me, but the ability to influence my dream gave me hope.
In time, I came to look at my dream like a maze. Each action represented a different turn. I established dead ends, and new avenues. Slowly, I worked through it until I had found safety.
The dream began to lose its sinister nature and eventually significance all together. I knew how to beat it. Life went on. Now it was just a dream.
That was until today…
Everything was the same like most days, when the five gunmen busted in.
The best way to describe it was someone grabbed me by the balls, picked me up and power slammed me into the concrete. While I was busy freaking out, the men in black had already taken their positions. I watched the kid that bolted in my dreams. His head was down; he was shaking like a chiwawa on speed. I hoped against hope maybe this time was different, maybe he’d stay put.
“Everyone shut up and stay seated!” came the angry shouts.
The kid lost it. He came up out of his seat like a pressure cooker that had blown its top. He clawed and hurtled his way towards the exit. He leapt into the aisle and broke into a sprint.
But he couldn’t outrun the bullet aimed at his back. The hammer dropped, the gun powder ignited and the shell ejected. He dropped without a sound.
This is really happening…
“Does anyone else want to try that? Huh!?”
Stay calm, you know what to do.
He turned around with that same sneer-smile. He walked over and pressed the gun to my head. It had the same unsettling warmth as my dream.
“What about you, do you want to try something?” I sat there shaking, unsure if it was from the fear of him killing me or from what I was about to do.
The girl screamed...
Like a domino that started the chain, the gun man turned to investigate; I came out of my seat locking him in a bear hug; my hand pinned the gun to his stomach. I didn’t even have to pull the trigger; his struggle did it for me.
The muffled gunfire followed a spasm in his body. Snagging the pistol, I leveled it with the second gunmen. I squeezed, the cold metal kicking hard and another one was dead.
I pulled the first shooter against me as I spun. The double thump of bullets embedding in his body rocked against me. I fired two back and dropped to the floor. There were three dead now.
The fourth was down by the lecture desk. Sliding to the end of the row, I waited until the fourth gun man had started up the stairs; then scooted out low and fired two shots. The gunman eyes locked open in shock as he sagged against the wall, rubbing crimson blood down the beige wall.
I stood, but the fifth was gone. I trained my gun into the corner and waited.
A girl was yanked to the floor screaming. Then the two of them rose, his gun pointed to her temple, as she wail. He grabbed her by the throat.
“Shut up bitch!”
Then he turned his attention to me. “I don’t know who the FUCK you think you are, but unless you want this fucking bitch to die, YOU’RE GOING TO DROP YOUR GOD DAMN GUN.”
“Fuck, kill her. I really don’t give a shit. I hate the bitch anyways.” I adjusted my aim off her right ear. “I used to date the cheating whore. Thought about killing her myself once. You’d be saving me the trouble.” I grinned. “Fucking cunt.”
I closed one eye and leaned in. The gunman believed me, believed I didn’t care if she died, and that I was going to kill him regardless. So his hostage was worthless, he had to kill me or he was dead. I was bluffing him into a corner, where he would make his last desperate attempt...
The gun swept from her temple. His head slid out to aim. The sound of my last round deafened the room. The gunman’s head snaped back as he crumpled to the ground. The girl fainted away.
Then...it was over. In a matter of minutes, I had killed five young men. The intense feeling to vomit wasn’t something I remembered from my dream; neither was the feeling like I had just completed a triathlon.
The rest of the lecture room sat in silence waiting to see what I did next.
The empty gun dropped from my outstretched hand. My gaze fell on the student bleeding on the floor.
I started over taking off my shirt. “Someone call 911. Tell them to send an ambulance.”
No one moved. “NOW!”
A girl dug into her purse and dialed. I absentmindedly listened to her conversation as I ripped up pieces of shirt and pushed them into his wound. I won’t save him; in the countless times I’d had my dream I never found a way save him. I looked down at his quivering body and to my hands covered in blood and suddenly it was all too much. My vision narrowed, the room spun and I was out.
###
After that day I never had the dream again. I've told my story countless times, but never mentioned the dream. I really don't think I need to explain. Even though the dream is gone, the consequences of it live on.