Dreams.
Dreams can sometimes be pleasant, sometimes they are just completely random things your mind can conjure up while you sleep. Most of us forget dreams once we wake up, a majority of them. Some do stick though, I think everyone has at least one dream that stuck.
From what I hear it’s mostly nightmares that stick. A scary experience is what we remember, it can be completely random, or it can be due to some horror movie you watched.
I didn’t have so much a dream or nightmare, as I did have a… vision of sorts.
Let me go back a bit, this happened about a week ago. I just came back from a visit to my mom’s place, needed to help her with some groceries, she has back problems. Anyways, I get back home and I am exhausted, more than I’d anticipated. I am not a pro athlete or something, but I do have some good stamina. I also had a considerable amount of caffeine in my blood which, in normal circumstances, would keep me awake.
These were, I’m pretty sure, not normal circumstances.
It was Friday so I figured a quick nap wouldn’t hurt. It was still early, around 10 in the morning. I do have to mention that I was on “vacation” so I didn’t have to go to work. Well, my vacation was mostly lounging at home and just resting, occasionally visiting my mom or going out for a drink with my friends.
But I digress, I set up my alarm clock to wake me up at around 12 or 12:30, can’t remember exactly. After that I just collapsed on my bed, feeling more exhausted than ever for no discernable reason.
The moment I closed my eyes, all of that tiredness just disappeared.
I opened my eyes once again, I felt normal, as if nothing happened. I checked my phone and it was still 10 AM, 10:13 if I remember correctly.
“Strange” I mutter to myself and get back up. I felt rested from just closing my eyes for a few moments. Wish that were the case always.
I went into my living room and grabbed the remote to turn on the TV, It didn’t.
“Damn, I just replaced the batteries…” I muttered to myself as I threw the remote back onto the couch and went to the fridge to grab something to snack on. I opened the fridge to find it… empty.
Not just empty, do you know that sound a fridge makes when it’s working? Yeah, none of that. It was as if it were unplugged or something. And not only that, the fridge was slightly more to the right than I remember it being.
Confused, I leaned forward on the adjacent counter to look if It was unplugged and after squinting my eyes for a few moments I saw that it wasn’t. After that I decided to test something out, I tried flicking the light switch on and off. And my hunch was correct, there was an outage.
That still didn’t explain why my fridge was empty, I am absolutely certain that It was filled up with food and drinks a few hours ago.
I checked inside once again, I even reached my hand to the back. The temperature inside was the same as at room temperature. Surely it would’ve been colder in the fridge for some time despite It not working for some time?
Lost for any options I grabbed my phone. It was 10:20, I tried going onto Google to see if there were any local power outages or some construction in the local area which might’ve caused the outage… No reception, no internet connection…
I checked if I was connected to my router, which of course wouldn’t work without electricity. I wasn’t, I was on mobile data.
“I’m pretty sure the numbers on the router were a bit different…” I thought to myself for a second, after registering that the numbers on the back of the router were slightly off as well, but I had more pressing matters to worry about.
I tried calling my mom to see if she knows what’s going on, no reception I was just rerouted to an automated voice message… I was starting to be a little freaked out at this point. My throat was dry, I wasn’t thirsty, but my throat was simply dry. I didn’t have any soda to drink so I opted on drinking regular old tap water, and to my surprise, there was no running water.
Then I started noticing other things, such as the fact there were no car sounds on the outside. And I can guarantee to myself my neighbor was mowing his lawn the moment I laid down and then abruptly stopped…
“What the fuck is going on?” I posed that rhetorical question to myself, knowing I won’t have any answers any time soon. So I decided to go outside to see what was up, maybe the neighbors had some idea of what was going on, I thought.
Going outside I saw that the neighborhood was… Different. There were no cars driving around, there were no pedestrians. The cars that were parked, including my own, looked as if they weren’t turned on in ages. The grass outside was overgrown, and the entire place looked as if no one maintained it in months. The sky as well was gray and cloudy, it was a sunny clear sky this morning. The weather broadcast didn’t say it would be cloudy.
I ran to one of my neighbor’s houses and knocked on the door with no response. I banged on the door shouting for someone, anyone to open the door or just give some sort of response… None came, and my voice just echoed in what seemed like an empty world.
I just sulked down the door and sat down, trying to rationalize what was happening. I slapped myself multiple times but nothing happened, I didn’t wake up!
Then I saw someone, I saw someone walking… limping down the road, it was a woman it seemed. She looked to be dressed in business attire. I quickly got up and shouted :
“Hey! Excuse me! Ma’am!” There was no response, I thought she didn’t hear me so I shouted once more, this time louder :
“HELLO! EXCUSE ME!” Nothing, she didn’t so much flinch at my voice or turn her head. I decided to walk up to her, as I got closer I started noticing some more details… worrying details.
I noticed her suit was torn at some parts, she looked pale as a ghost as well. I stopped I would say 10 meters from her, now a bit cautious.
“I- do you know what the hel-“ I stopped mid-sentence, she lifted her head up toward me, still limping, inching toward me… Her eyes, her sunken eyes had no pupils. Well, she did but It looked like she had severe cataracts, her eyes were completely clouded.
She groaned as she approached me, I noticed a wound on her neck. The wound was old yet It didn’t heal… there was a fucking maggot sticking out of it.
I stepped back, and like in a cliche horror flick tripped and fell on my ass. I was backing away but she was faster, she got closer and closer until… She stepped on my foot, well she didn’t so much as step on It, as much as she stepped through It.
I froze when I saw that, she, on the other hand, continued walking and groaning as if nothing happened. She acted as if I wasn’t there, she continued walking, with each step she phased through me as if through thin air.
I quickly got up and got out of her way, watching her in bewilderment.
“A-am I dead?” I said to myself in a whisper. Thinking that some sort of zombie apocalypse happened and I was killed in my sleep…
“I was confused as you were the first-time friend.”
I jumped in fear, turning around on a dime when I heard someone’s voice behind me.
“What the fuck!?” I exclaimed, once I turned around I saw a man. He was I would guess in his mid-fifties, he had a long and unkempt graying beard and I would guess messy gray hair, he had a cap on his head. He had a long dark green jacket going down halfways to his knees and dark blue jeans, slightly torn at some parts, all dirty and bloodied.
“W-who are you? What happened?” I asked.
“I’ll answer your questions one at a time. Let me just assure you one thing. You’re not dead.” He said, with a slight smile on his face. It didn’t seem to have malice in it, if anything it was an amused smile.
“Okay…” I really didn’t have anything else to add, I was a bit speechless. There was a period of silence between me and him, the sound of wind and occasional bird chirp could be heard.
“Not much of a talker I see…” The man said “Alright, follow me.” he added as he started walking in a seemingly random direction.
“What, wait a minute. Where to? And who are you?” I asked.
He turned around and gave me a smile once more “C’mon we ain’t got all day and it’s not like those guys can eat you.” He pointed to the limping woman… zombie I guess, still walking down the street.
I nodded and I started following behind him, we were walking through my neighborhood, which was now dead, overgrown, and abandoned, I saw some houses were boarded up, some were burned down, and some looked like they’d been robbed and looted a dozen times. After some time the man began to speak.
“This was about a month after all went downhill. Most people were turned, no saving them, unfortunately. Electricity and water were shut off, as I believe you saw yourself.”
“What you’re meaning to say is, that a zombie apocalypse started? When? How?” I asked.
“When I had forgotten. How I don’t know. It just happened one day, without warning.” He continued his brisk walk as he paused, then continued: “ I remember the day when I heard the news. I had woken up from a nap and suddenly people were dropping dead like flies, then they got back up. The military was overwhelmed, and governments collapsed. All went to shit.”
He stopped abruptly. My eyes were irritated for some reason and I rubbed them, when I opened them back up again we were somewhere else.
“What. Where are we?” I asked
“The convenience store, remember?” The man said as I looked around, and sure as hell, this was the store I went to regularly. Though it saw better days, I must admit, the shelves were empty, there was all sorts of junk on the floor, and a couple of corpses. What caught my attention was an old sign for Coca-Cola… It was written with a K instead of a C.
“What?” I said to myself, but before I could inquire further I heard movement behind us.
A small group of 4 people entered the store in a hurry.
“BARRICADE IT! NOW!” A familiar voice shouted to the others, as everyone was barricading the entrance of the door with whatever they could, a horde of zombies was fast approaching the store.
Then I realized the guy who shouted, though now with stubble and longer hair… was me.
They, and I… Didn’t seem to notice us, we were invisible to them.
The man who accompanied me started speaking once more.
“Some of us survived, barely. Their numbers were swelling by the day, no matter how many we downed another 10 took its place. Supplies were running short, we didn’t know what to do. But we pushed on despite all the odds, for the simple experience of seeing the sunrise once more… We pushed on for each other.”
I saw myself, my other self, and the three others which I didn’t recognize barricade the entrance and run toward the back of the store. One of the others was limping, it looked like he was wounded.
The wounded guy called for the others “Hey! Guys!” my other self and the two others turned around, “C’mon get going!” one woman in the group said
“I’m bit! I’m fucking bit, that fucker under the car got me a few minutes ago.” Everyone looked at each other not sure as to what to do.
“I’m staying.” The guy who was bitten said. “Don’t waste bullets on me, you’ll attract even more ‘em here.” He added, I looked at my other self reaching for his side, presumably a pistol. Everyone simply nodded and ran off, while the guy who was bitten turned around and raised his crowbar as the horde was tearing down the makeshift barricade if you could even call it that.
“Shit happens, people died.” The bearded man said, then my eyes irritated once again, when I rubbed them we were somewhere else.
This time we were in a town, a small town. The sky was clear, and the town itself was overgrown and abandoned. There were a few stragglers on the street, they were severely decomposed and barely walking.
The bearded man started speaking once again :
“Riverside’s the name, a town which was once home to around 5,000 residents. Tight-knit families, a single police station, two schools, a fire department, and a shooting range. Lotsa farmland on the outskirts, and a small forest not too far from here as a nature reserve of sorts. Despite the name being Riverside, the river is about 5 miles east of the town itself.”
As soon as he finished his sentence I could hear car engines in the distance, I turned around to see a column of cars. As they neared I could see that they were old and beaten down, but drivable, as I could see of course. There 6 or 7 of them, and as they drew closer to me they weren’t slowing down.
“Oh, fuck!” I exclaimed as I tried to move my legs, but they weren’t budging, as if I was frozen in one place. I put my hands up and closed my eyes, bracing for impact… which didn’t come. The cars simply phased through me.
“Aha… I forgot.” I said as the bearded man had a blank expression looking at me, then at the cars.
Once the cars stopped people started exiting. Some of the stragglers started walking toward the cars but were quickly cut down by the people, some had guns but most of them used blunt weapons.
Out of the driver’s side of one gray sedan exited a familiar figure, now with a full beard and rifle in hand was me… My other self that is.
“How are we doing on gas?” My other self asked, soon another person which I didn’t recognize… well I didn’t recognize anyone, but I digress.
“Bad, our car’s runnin’ on fumes.”
I saw as my other self swore under his breath.
“Right, guys let’s clear the area. Take anything that could be useful, food, medicine, weapons you know the gist”. My other self said in a confident tone.
“I can’t believe I would be a leader in this kind of situation… I always thought I would be dead within the first week. Huh.” I said to myself, kind of surprised at my ability to adapt and survive, to lead even.
The bearded man chimed in: “Yes, I too was surprised. But you kinda get used to It, believe me…”
I didn’t pay much attention to him, as I did to the group of 20 or so people systemically going from building to building looting It and killing unsuspecting undead inside.
“Unbeknownst to them, for now at least, is that store down the street. See it?” The bearded man pointed down the street to some small corner store, I nodded and he continued “That small store has a basement which is under lock and key, good thing that guy over there” he pointed to a guy coming out of the building with a handful of some tools “That guy is a good lock pick. And behind that locked door, and down the stairs is an untouched store of canned food, enough to last for half a year, maybe more.
That was enough time to establish some kind of permanent settlement, a farm not too far from here still had some seeds, we used that to kickstart some kind of agriculture, and life seemed to be better and better from here on out.”
As soon as he finished his sentence time began to speed up, like a timelapse I saw people become lines in the air, moving to fast to perceive, I saw as day and night lasted for mere seconds each, I saw some days were sunny, some cloudy. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it snowed.
I saw as the buildings were slowly repaired, I saw makeshift walls erected around the small town, and I saw more and more people come. I saw as the seasons came and went, I saw the harvest and I saw how the fields were plowed each year.
I saw life return to normal.
Time slowed down to normal speed this time, and I saw that the once abandoned and overgrown town grew to a lively settlement with people going about their lives with little worry. Though in the distance I saw a small group of people gathered around something… Rather it was someone, there were two people arguing about something, and the argument was quite heated.
I couldn’t tell what they were arguing about but I could see even from that distance that the people in question were an older fellow and some younger guy.
The older guy seemed familiar… Long dark green jacket, a cap on his head, slightly torn jeans…
Just when it clicked, *BANG*.
The younger guy pulled out a pistol and shot the bearded man point blank in the chest.
I looked to my right to see, what I would now call a ghost, the bloody patch on his jacket was on the same spot where he’d been shot.
I looked back at the growing commotion that was happening, the people nearest to us were now alerted because of the gunshot, they rushed to see what happened. Though despite the shouts and overall chaos that was now happening, I could hear a woman’s voice scream someone’s name, shriek in pain… But not the kind of pain where she is physically hurt, no… It sounded like that time my mother screamed when she heard dad was dead, she screamed his name.
But this time, the name which the woman was screaming was… It was my name.
The bearded man, the ghost, whilst gazing into the forming crowd, though it looked like he was gazing through them, spoke
“All living things live, and they die. No matter if there is no more room in hell, room shall be made. Every life is a story, be it in apocalypse and cataclysm, or in times of abundance and prosperity. It is always a story of life and death. One day you will awake and you will find yourself in another world. A world that is completely different from where you once were, and you will relive this story. Your world will not be gone, you will simply be yanked from your comfort and thrown into chaos like you were today. But then you will not be as untouchable.” He said, turning his head to look at me.
“This is the story of how I died.” He paused.
I felt something tug on my arms, forcefully. Launching me backwards.
“This is the story of how you died.”
I opened my eyes, my alarm was blaring, and my heart was just about ready to catapult itself out of my chest. I looked at my phone and saw that it was 12:30. I quickly got up and turned on my TV, It worked, and my fridge was as how I remember It, full.
It took me a good hour to completely recover from that… dream? No, it felt all too real. But it wasn’t reality, something was off. Yes, there was some sort of apocalypse, zombies roamed the Earth for God’s sake.
But something was off. The K on the “Koka-Kola” sign and the signs on the roads were not in the same place, though withered and beaten I could see the difference. And my house… The fridge, the numbers on the router… It was as if I was in another alternate universe.
And most importantly… The older and dead version of myself, what he told me was that I will be awoken in that place. That I will be thrown into chaos… Jesus, I couldn’t ask him when, why, or how.
Just when I felt that I calmed down, I noticed something. I looked down at my arms, to see red handprints right at the place where I was grabbed by… Something.
I feel as if I am going insane, almost a week has passed, everything seems normal, the internet is working fine. The news is nothing out of the ordinary. and I can’t help myself but be constantly anxious. I can’t sleep, I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep and wake in that… place again.
And that I will feel that bullet one day hit my own chest, in that dirty dark green jacket.