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. *
My story starts with me and my friends out on the night. We carry on and have a good time of it. Nothing out of the ordinary, it’s just another college night. We make our way home, and I crash hard. Usually, when I’m in a state like this, dreams are impossible, and if I do, I don’t remember them, but this time is different. I am in a beautifully, deep sleep, when a dream injects itself into my life.
The soft imagery of a bland lecture hall floats through my mind. I’m at a chair tapping my pencil on a doodle filled page, waiting for class to start. There is an odd feeling to the dream I can’t quite put on my finger on. It makes me feel uneasy.
The black hands on the oversized clock reach for 9 and 11, five minutes till class starts. My dream changes. It goes from a mundane mimic of my every day college life to something off a news cast.
Five men in black bust into the room. They spread out and block the exits. Padlocks and chain hang from the doors. They are yelling, and I can’t understand the. Either it’s because this is a dream, or because of the panic going through my mind, and the denial.
The metallic gleam of a handgun catches my eye. I try and process this in my dreamlike state. I feel fear, and I can’t seem to think of anything to do. I’m paralyzed. I have one thought.
I’m going to be one of those kids they interview on TV, or worse one of those pictures.
"Shut up and stay seated!” The gunman closest to me yells, and waves his gun around with a strained smile of malice.
A student off to my right bolts for the nearest exit. The strain smile tightens, one side curling up as he looks down the barrel.
My dream slows into something like the Matrix. The pistol levels, as I suck in a breath. His finger squeezes, and my push back into my seat willing it to go away. The gun recoils, and I’m surrounded by its deafening blast; my eyes are as wide as saucers.
The life and strength is sapped from the kid all at once. Like a puppet whose strings have been cut, the student thuds to the floor, his momentum carrying him forward another couple of feet, and causing his body to contort in a way that makes my want to expel my breakfast. Everything in my dream stops, as if paused. My breathing, the noise in the room, and even my heartbeat.
I feel like someone has taken my world, and shaken it like a snow globe. A boy, just like me, no more deserving, or less has been gunned down by a maniac. It feels so real with all the dread of losing my life forcing me to shake like a heroin addict too long without a fix.
The shooter wheels around.
“Does anyone else want to try that? Huh!?” His face has an angry sneer, but something tells me he is enjoying this.
A thought crosses my mind.
We are all going to die…
Then, his dark green eyes fall on me. I don’t know why; why he picks me, but he moves closer, and puts his gun to my forehead. The warmth of that barrel against me is instantly etched into my memory forever. It feels so real, so honest to God real. He presses until I can feel it leave a round, hollow imprint on my skin.
My eyes close as my shakes became worse. Hot piss runs down my legs, as I wait for the bullet.
“What about you? You wanna try something?” His voice is full of tempting rage.
He wants to kill me; why, I don’t know, but I sense it in every fiber of my body, and yet, I am helpless. My life is in the hands of another person. Whether I see tomorrow, or not, depends on the whims of one man; all I can do is sit and wait, hope and pray.
The high pitch shrill of a girl pierces the air, and I think that’s it. I’m dead. He has shot me, and I don’t even know it, but the gun leaves my forehead. I am still whole. My eyes open to a boy trying to subdue a girl, who is fighting hopelessly to break free from his hold, and run for it.
“They’ll kill you! They’ll kill you.” The terrified boy pleads.
But his words fall on deaf ears. Hysteria has gripped her completely; it has stripped away her rational thought, and thousands of years of becoming civilized. She is a cornered animal, and she has chosen to flee at any and all costs. The human psyche can only handle so much, and this has broken hers.
“Shut the fuck up and sit down.” The gunman in front of me yells, but it’s useless.
The boy doubles his efforts, but she fights just as hard in return. An arm covered in black steadies the handgun.
“One last chance bitch! SHUT UP THE FUCK UP, AND SIT THE FUCK DOWN, OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT!!!”
She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t even slow, and I yelled in my head,
STOP!! Oh God have mercy, he’s going to kill her!
The boy looks to the gunman begging for mercy, for some sort of kindness and understanding, but all he receives is the tilt the gunman’s head to aim. The boy spins her in behind him.
Gunfire echoes through the room for the second time. The boy lurches, his hold weakening until he can no longer keep his grasp.
The girl is finally quiet, stunned into silence. Too little… much too late.
As if coming out of her own dream, her rational mind awakens. She drops to the floor overtaken by sobs, and bloody screams of murder. What sounds like a laugh bubbles up from the gunman, and I feel loathing hate swell up alongside my fear.
“Shut up bitch, you’re the reason he’s dead in the first place. You worthless cunt!”
His words don’t reach the grieving girl.
“I said shut up!” He waves the gun around in his frustration.
“You just don’t listen!” The gun sweeps 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 watch his hand tighten down on the gun to steady the coming recoil. My eyes widen; his finger throws the hammer into action; before I can scream, the pistol rocks.
Kaboom!
I jerk awake, the noise ringing in my ears. I shiver, but whether it’s from the dream, or cold sweat, I can’t be sure. My eyes dart around the room making sure I am safe. Collapsing back into my blankets, my breath comes labored until I calm down. I wrap myself in the reassuring comfort of my blanks, and try to forget the dream.
I’m a thinker, ponder of sorts. While I’m scared of this dream, and dread it left in me, I can’t help but try, and dissect it. Maybe, I’m more scared of school shootings that I realize. Maybe, they affect me more than I’ve lead myself to believe.
More thought doesn’t produce any satisfying answers. Perhaps, it is just a dream. With time, I’ll forget it, and move on with my life.
A couple of weeks pass, and then, I’m stricken with the same cold sweat, as I bolt awake in my bed with the sound of a gunshot ringing in my ears. I’m twice as scared. This time, everything is more vivid. I can see every intricate detail of his dark green irises filled with intense hate. The sickening images of the crimson blood escaping the life stream of the boy who runs. I can smell the gun smoke.
It isn’t the last time. Time and again, I wake up after that maniac kills me. Each time more real than the last. I dread waking up in the same cold sweat with that gunshot ringing in my ears.
Then something happens. Instead of sitting there waiting for the bullet, I run for it. Five steps and I jolt awake from the shot in my back. The sound of the gun rings in my ears, but I don’t care.
I am strangely happy. My breath is coming hard and heavy, as I wipe away the sweat, but still, I can’t help but be happy. My dream changed, and I did it. The change conjures a mixture of enlightenment and trepidation.
My only thought:
Is it possible to do it again?
Two nights later I jump the guy closest to me with the gun. There is a struggle, and he kills me, but that’s not the point. The ability to influence my dream gives me hope.
In time, I look at my dream like a maze. Each action represents a different turn. I establish dead ends, and new avenues. Slowly, I work through it until I find safety.
The dream begins to lose its sinister nature, and eventually significance all together. I know how to beat it. Life goes on. Now it’s just a dream.
That is until today…
I tap a pencil on a doodle filled page like most days. I look up at the oversized clock aching for it to move forward an hour, and let me be free of this bland lecture hall. There is a twinge in my stomach. It all seems so familiar. Like something out of a …
No…no fucking way… The grinding sound of metal doors being thrown open allows five gunmen in.
The best way to describe how I feel is to imagine someone grabbing me by the balls, picking me up, and power slamming me into the concrete. While I am busy freaking out, the men in black have already taken their positions.
I find the kid from my dream. He isn’t hard to pick out. His head is down, and he is shaking like a chiwawa on speed. I hope against hope maybe this time will be different. Maybe, he’ll stay put.
“Shut up and stay seated!” comes the angry shout I’ve heard a hundred times.
The kid loses it. He comes up out of his seat like a pressure cooker that’s blown its top. He claws his way free of the row and hurtles into the aisle, he breaks into a sprint for the exit, but he can’t outrun the bullet aimed at his back.
The hammer drops, the gun powder ignites, and the shell ejects. He drops with a thud, sliding on lifeless limbs to a halt.
This is really happening…
“Does anyone else want to try that? Huh!?”
Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm. You can survive this. You know what to do. Which scares me too.
He turns around with that same sneer-smile. He walks over, and I realize I never did figure out, “why me,” but as I am suddenly aware. Maybe I’m too calm. Maybe that is what makes me stand out.
I grit my teeth against the unsettling warmth against my forehead. I feel the sensation to pee, but I refuse to give in to it. I dare a look up into the cascading layers of dark green peering back at me.
“What about you, you wanna try something?” I begin to shake, unsure if it’s from the fear of him killing me, or from what I’m about to do.
The girl screams...
Like a domino that starts the chain, the gun man turns to investigate; I come out of my seat locking him in a bear hug; my hands pin the gun to his stomach. I don’t even have to pull the trigger; his struggle does it for me.
The muffled gunfire causes a spasm in his body. Snagging the pistol, I level it with the next closest gunmen. I squeeze, the cold metal kicking hard, and another one is dead.
I pull the first shooter against me. The double thump of bullets embedding in his body rocks against me. I fire two back, and drop to the floor below the last row before the aisle of the cascading seating. Three dead gunmen, and there are two to go. I don’t dare dwell on what I’m doing. I’d lose my nerve. I just react as I’m suppose to.
The fourth is down by the lecture desk. Sliding to the end of the row, I wait until I know the fourth gun man is started up the stairs; then scoot out low, and fired two shots. The gunman eyes lock open in shock, as he sags against the wall, rubbing crimson down the beige wall.
I stand, but the fifth is gone. I train my gun into the far corner and wait.
A girl is yanked to the floor screaming. Then, the two of them raise, his gun pointed to her temple, as she wails. He grabs her by the throat.
“Shut up bitch!” His tone is borderline hysterical.
Then he turns 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.”
“Kill her.” I’m shocked at how even my tone is.
“What?” He’s panicked, obviously not the response he planned on.
Her eyes go wide, and she starts to wail again, but his tight grip closes off her air.
“You heard me. Kill the fucking bitch. I really don’t give a shit. I hate the cheating slut.” I adjusted my aim off her right ear. “I used to date her. Thought about killing her myself once. You’d be saving me the trouble.” I grin. “Fucking cunt.”
I close one eye, and lean in. The gunman believes me. I know he does. And if I don’t care if she dies, his leverage is gone. Now he is standing unprotected, his human shield rendered useless.
My gun is aimed, and he thinks I’m ready to pull the trigger. He doesn’t realize I am bluffing him into a corner, where he will make his last desperate attempt...
The gun sweeps from her temple towards me. His head slides out to aim. The sound of my last round deafens the room. The gunman’s head snaps back, as he crumples to the ground. The girl faints away.
Then...it is over. In a matter of minutes, I have killed five young men. The intense feeling to vomit isn’t something I remember from my dream; neither is the feeling like I just completed a marathon.
Suddenly all my senses crash back into me. The harsh metal grip of the gun feels heavy in my hand. The smell of gun smoke burns my nose mixing with the stench from my sweat. Students are screaming, and wailing in high pitched, breathless tones. Some are running, others are waiting to see what I’m going to do next.
With the gun locked back and empty, I let it slip from my outstretched hand. It lands with a finality on the floor. My gaze moves from it to the bleeding student, still strung out lifeless on the floor.
I start over taking off my shirt. “Someone call 911. Tell them to send an ambulance.” My voice has lost its evenness. Now it is coarse and broken.
No one moves. “NOW!” I croak.
A girl digs into her purse and dials. I absentmindedly listen to her conversation, as I ripped up pieces of shirt, and push them into his wound. I won’t save him; in the countless times I’ve had my dream, I never found a way to save him. I look down at his quivering body; then to my hands covered in blood. The metallic order along with my fatigue is overpowering, and suddenly it is all too much. My vision narrows, the room spins, and I’m out.
###
It's been six months and the dream hasn't come back. I've told my story countless times, but I never mention the dream. I don’t understand it myself, so making someone else understand it is impossible. I wouldn't believe it, if it hadn't happened to me, anyways. I can't expect anyone else to believe.
I know one thing though. Even though the dream is gone, the consequences of it live on.
I really enjoyed the second read. You added some fine and much needed description. I especially loved this line!
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