Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve hated the smell of eggs. Not the fleeting type of hatred that you feel for a small sensory inconvenience like walking past someone smoking a cigarette or hearing your shitty flatmate hoark up phlegm in the shower. No, the hatred I have for the smell of eggs has always felt like an alarm going off throughout my entire body, telling me I needed to run away as fast as humanly possible.
All I remember was waking up in a white room whose paint was chipping off the walls and smelled of lavender. As I awoke I noticed that my arms were completely wrapped in layers of bandages and that I was tied down to a table. My eyes struggled to adjust to my surroundings, both because of the annoyingly bright lights shining directly in them, and because I had absolutely no idea where I was. Laying immobile, I heard a door open from behind me, but I couldn’t see who had entered. A deep voice then spoke, but whoever it was that was speaking decided it would be best to stay out of view because as much as I craned my neck to look at who was in the room with me, I saw no one.
“What did you see” the voice queried.
“What?” I responded, not knowing the answer to any of the million questions racing through my mind.
“What did you see” it asked again. The voice sounded like it was coming from an older person, a man, maybe 70 years or older. I kept trying to get a look at who was asking me this strange question, but the more I struggled, the tighter the restraints felt.
“See what? What are you talking about?” I managed, choking out the words as the straps holding my head in place dug into the side of my neck.
“How many did you see” the voice came again, sounding more agitated with every flick of the tongue.
“Please, I don’t know who you are or where I am, I didn’t see anything, just let me go” I begged, to no avail.
“Allow me to jog your memory, and then you will tell me exactly what you saw and how many there were.” I could sense a power in the man’s voice, I felt like I needed to obey his every utterance. Suddenly, my mind was flooded with memories of my day. It was strange, I hadn’t even noticed that up until that point I’d never considered how I got to the room, or where I was before it. In fact, I hadn’t known the time, day, month, or year. I was back though, laying on the couch in my parent’s place, the smell of bacon and eggs wafting through the air and my Dad whistling a Bob Dylan tune over and over again. I bolted upright, and my mom who was sitting on the rocking chair across from me lept up too in shock.
“Goodness gracious Nico! You’re going to give your mother a heart attack!”
Tears streamed down my cheeks and my mother’s original look of playful surprise morphed into one of deep dread.
“Nico… what- what’s wrong hun?”
My dad’s whistling stopped and he walked into the room with a concerned look on his face. Then he stopped in his tracks, gaze fixed on the television that had once been playing the Buffalo Bills game. Where the game once was, a terrifying scene was displayed. It was our living room, but from the Television’s perspective. Not a reflection, like a live broadcast of what was going on. Every detail was perfect, the rug, my mom in her chair, me cross-legged now on the couch, and my dad standing motionless between us, all of us staring at the screen. Every detail perfect, except one. A man was pacing around the room, walking between us, juggling two eggs that he must have plucked off the kitchen island. He was dressed in a maroon suit, with a pair of pitch black sunglasses on.
There was no man in our living room though, so there was nothing we could do but stare at the monitor as I began to understand the gravity of our situation.
“Honey, don’t move.” My dad said quietly. “Nico, I want you to slowly get up and walk into the kitchen and tell me what you see”
Not even questioning my father’s instructions I rose from the couch and tiptoed towards the stovetop where our Sunday brunch was cooking away. I saw the banana bread sliced and ready on a wooden serving board. I saw the bacon crisping in the oven, the smell made my mouth water, I saw three eggs frying in our newest silver pan and two more eggs lying cracked on the floor, the carton having tipped over on its side, spilling its contents on the counter and shattering the shells of the two lying motionless on the tiled ground, yolk running over the cracks.
I figured I’d grasped the situation in the kitchen so I hurried back into the living room to tell my dad what I saw. As I went back down the short hall separating the two rooms in our bungalow, I felt something was off. I rounded the corner into the living room and my parents were both gone. Vanished into thin air it seemed. I looked back at the television and saw the same man walking around the room, laughing and juggling. Except, looking more closely I could see that he was no longer juggling eggs, but two larger objects. I felt myself becoming dizzy and I turned and threw up on our Persian rug, as I finally processed what I had just seen on the screen. The man was juggling the severed heads of my mother and father. I fell to my knees in shock, when I felt a chill run down my spine as I noticed a figure bent over in the corner of the room behind the rocking chair. The figure smiled at me with a terrifying grin, revealing a mouth filled with broken eggshells for teeth as it breathed a foul, rotten, warm air out at me. The figure was wearing a maroon suit and cackled as it made its way out from behind the chair and towards me.
Then, I was back in the white room.
“What did you see.” “How many were there.” repeated the old man’s voice, the sound was unbelievably comforting as I was out of that sick dream and back in reality.
“How many what? I just had the worst dream I’ve ever had, whatever the hell you just gave me, please, never make me go through that nightmare again” I pleaded.
“How many eggs Nico. How many eggs were in the pan.”
I paused in shock. What was this guy talking about? How could he possibly know what I just saw in that dream?
“Uh… 3… I think?” I stuttered. “How.. why..
“I am sorry.” Is all I heard the man say before that same rotten stench I’d smelled in the dream wafted into the room.
“Is this some kind of sick joke? What the hell?”
Then, in the corner of the room, the wall began to crack and I saw a flash of maroon.
I woke up drenched in sweat.
“Nico! It’s just about brunch time!” I heard my dad call from the other room. “Grab your mother and come set the table for us!”
I checked my surroundings. Sure enough, it was all just a dream. I needed a Tylenol, stat. I made my way into the kitchen/dining room when I froze. Sitting at our table, in a deep maroon suit, was the man.
“Nico, this is Trenton, a good friend of mine from back in the day. I thought I told you he was coming for brunch today”
I stared at Trenton, and he cracked a smile as he held up a single egg.