I have lived in a small town called Ordwyn (pronounced or-dwin) for my entire life. It has one school from first to twelfth grade, two grocery stores, one gas station, and is five miles from a remote business district. This business district is at the centre of a group of little towns, and it’s often where most of the adults in each town go to work. My parents both work at a trading company in a six-storey building in the middle of the district. My best friend Polly’s parents work at the same company.
Polly has always been quite sensitive, crying often at movies or at tests she’s failed or when you’re a little too harsh towards her when she makes mistakes. But this adds a balance to her character - her overall nature is that of a puppy dog adopted by a family with a father who didn’t really want a puppy originally but ended up spending the most time with it. She’s wholesome and being around her is an unworldly experience.
‘Where would you want to be most right now?’ I ask her, lying out in the sun and consciously anticipating an eccentric answer and a sunburn. We’re on top of her dad’s beige caravan, parked outside of her quaint brick house right after a thirteen-hour road trip to Illinois for a country concert. It’s never really that hot around this time of year, so the metal roof doesn’t scald our skin, but the sun still beats down on us.
‘Here with you.’ she responds softly. Some wisps of her coiled autumn-red hair touch my elbow.
‘Okay then, pretend I came with you. Where, physically, would you want to be most right now?’ I repeat lightheartedly.
She thinks a little bit.
‘Lying down in the grass on those pictures on the milk cartons. Endless green grass and the odd cows and the sun peering over the horizon, painting an ocean in the distance.’
She has such a way with words. She’s very poetic and she loves writing - I could read her stuff for hours.
‘Lake Lirza isn’t far from here. That’s ocean enough for me.’ I crack. She laughs a bit and falls back into her character daydream. Lake Lirza is a large body of water just outside the town Lirza, two towns across from Ordwyn and the closest to the business district.
Polly started to drive by herself a month or so ago, she has that kind of license where you’re allowed to drive by yourself but you it’s not really a full license yet. I wouldn’t know as I’ve never tried to get my license. I’m 18, but driving scares me. It’s too much pressure. Anyways, she’s been driving the two of us to school everyday, and it is great to have an excuse to spend as much time with her as we possibly can.
Dean and Sasha live on the other side of town from us, far from the other side of the school, so they drive to school together. We all meet up as a group at the entrance at exactly 8:15 in the morning. It’s tradition.
I got this specific feeling of dread, not the normal dread but the unprovoked and subtle kind of dread, when Dean told us that this friend group has been amazing for him.
‘Being around you guys has helped me in ways I cannot explain. I was seriously in the gutter last year and all of you have given me what I need to improve. Especially you, Sasha. You have always been with me and checked in on me when I needed it most.’ he says.
Sasha curls up in a flare of smiles and sweetness towards Dean. This is her way of showing affection. She would never say it, but she always does something with her face or her body to show you how she feels. Her brown bob-cut drifts to the side as she tilts her head to be parallel with the ground.
I feel sick. Not of jealousy because this is actually really sweet, but I just feel like this is all wrong. As if something is not meant to be happening or as if this is the beginning of something really bad. I can’t explain it. Sasha sees me and her face drops.
‘Are you alright, Annie?’ she asks me. My name is actually Andrew, but everybody calls me Annie as a funny little nickname. It’s probably a personal thing, because I can be quite distant and unrevealing while the rest of the group spits out everything that their brain conjures, and a nickname probably makes me seem more like I’m a part of the group.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I respond monotonously to disconnect from that feeling of dread, but it’s still there.
By the end of the day, it disappears.
In the morning, Polly drives me to school as usual. I’m not very talkative but Polly can always find a way to bridge that gap. Whether it’s blasting some of her favourite songs and singing them aloud while looking at me every now and then to see if I’m secretly enjoying it, or rambling on about the latest TV show she’s watched or the latest poem she’s written, she will always fill the silence between us.
Our grade is small, being as small of a town as it is, so every class is shared with everybody in the grade. This is convenient for my friend group as we get to spend every class with each other. It’s a fluid group, people come and go often, but the four of us are the original members of the group and we have never planned to leave.
Mathematics starts and Sasha flips open her laptop and starts playing some sort of golf game in a little box in the corner of her screen, Polly is paying attention to the teacher who is writing something about algebra on the chalkboard, and Dean and I start talking.
‘My parents’ anniversary is coming up next Monday. They’re spending it out of town, somewhere near Charleston. Do you want to join the three of us after school and we’ll go on a road trip or something? Maybe to the business district or near there?’ he says.
At first I am offended that I was the last to know about this, but I got that feeling of dread again. This time it focused more on the ‘something really bad is going to happen part’ and I felt like imminent doom was near. I also feel like something is watching me, monitoring me, observing what I say and waiting eagerly for my answer.
‘Sorry, I can’t go. I’ve got a thing on.’ I respond blankly, unable to swallow or take a full breath. It feels like the right thing to say.
He deflates a little bit, either to show me that he’s genuinely upset I can’t go or to make me feel like he wanted me to go when he really didn’t.
‘You have a thing on? What thing?’ Sasha asks me after class, when I’m fiddling with the lock keeping me from opening my locker.
‘My parents have a thing they want me to go to.’ I respond nonchalantly. That feeling of doom is synced with the beating of my heart - it pulses and gets stronger and fainter and stronger and fainter.
‘Oh yeah? I just think you don’t want to go.’ she says disapprovingly.
‘It’s personal, okay? Just leave me alone!’ I snap at her. This doom isn’t overpowering, but it’s adjusting my reactions and my character. It’s like a faint echo in an empty room. It’s small but you can hear it clearly.
The next day, Polly picks me up from my house and I feel disoriented. I feel hot and sweaty but also like there’s a thin sheet of cold underneath my skin. My face looks clammy too, which she points out.
‘Are you okay? You look a little ill.’ she comments. She always finds the word that means the same thing but people don’t use it as often, like how she says ‘I’m well’ instead of ‘I’m good’.
‘I’m fine.’ I chuckle.
‘Do you wanna spend time in the caravan after school?’ she asks me.
That feeling of doom again.
‘No thanks.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just feel a little off today. I’m going to rest after school.’
Polly’s house is on the way to school from my house - she is happy to spend a few extra minutes on the way to school picking me up. When we drive past her house, her dad’s caravan is parked outside of her house. The sight almost makes me retch; I feel nauseous and almost horrified at the sight. I hold up a hand to cover the caravan as we go past it. Polly notices and raises an eyebrow at me.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asks.
‘I’m fine.’
At school, Dean, Polly, and Sasha all discuss the details of their hangout, how they’ll travel and where they’ll go and whatnot, but that feeling of dread is distracting me. I wonder to myself, what is irritating me so much? Is it a premonition or am I having some sort of mental episode? Have I experienced something so traumatizing that my brain has blocked it out? Does it involve caravans?
The weekend is when the dreams started. I had an early night on Saturday, wishing my parents goodnight after our 6 PM dinner, to which they responded with heavy scrutiny, and I spent the next two hours thinking and reflecting on the past few days. I stared at the potted succulent on my bedside table, lit by the faint glow of the moon, and fell asleep.
The dream started with Polly’s face looking into mine. Behind her was the scenic view of the milk carton world she was talking about. She was happy, in her paradise. Her hair draped past her shoulders and her brown eyes were lit by the sun behind me. And then she started screaming. Screaming bloody murder, looking into my eyes and screaming in such violent horror. Not moving.
I called her that morning and invited her over to my house, where she fed me - in my almost catatonic state - some green tea from a china cup. I never told her what the nightmare was about, only that it was horrible. She told me that my face was all sunken and ‘drained of any life’, which I took offense to. But she was right. I looked in the mirror and gawked at the zombie that stared back.
My parents took me to the local practitioner the same day, worried that I had caught some kind of disease. My mother is quite the conspiracist, stating ‘God knows what is in those fleas nowadays’ or ‘Kids like you nowadays are so disadvantaged’ every time she looked at me after a brief moment of pacing back and forth the waiting room. I felt as though she was blaming me for my illness.
The practitioner told my parents that I am a great candidate for an anxiety disorder, but they didn’t believe her. Neither did I.
That night, the nightmare was worse. It was just a large body of water, beyond the eye could see. All around me, just water. Swaying and glistening under the sun peeking over a little cloud. It doesn’t sound bad, and normally I wouldn’t be scared of it, but I was petrified. Something about the salty air and that eerie, fabricated cold breeze was grim. I wasn’t alone.
I woke up screaming and thrashing around - holding my head and rocking back and forth. My parents ran upstairs and consoled me, rubbing my back and squeezing my shoulders. They assumed I was sick and had a fever dream, but they ignored the fact that I could have been contagious and invited my friends over.
I am in bed, silently slurping the pumpkin soup Polly brought me, looking straight ahead as everybody sits around me. Sasha is looking down and fidgeting with her hair, but Dean and Polly are both staring at me, waiting for me to do something unprecedented so they have an excuse to give me help. But I lay there, still horrified, and bring the bowl up to my mouth with my shaky hands every few seconds. I’ve never smoked, but I could really use a cigarette right now.
My parents pity me. I don’t like being vulnerable in front of them because usually when I am they shower me with puppy eyes and it makes me feel weak and unable to get better on my own, but they are staying far away from me this time. It almost feels good how they are trusting me to get better on my own, at least for a little bit, but it doesn’t take away the fact that everything is just so bleak.
I wake up from my little nap, not knowing I had fallen asleep, and it’s midnight. My friends have left and all there is left for me to do is go back to sleep.
I take today off school as I just need a breather right now. Everything has been too much and I have no idea what’s wrong with me. I get a text every ten minutes from one of the three, asking me if I’m okay and if there’s anything they can do for me. I ignore the messages and spend the day reading or napping.
Today I don’t have that signature feeling of terror. Of doom or dread. It’s tranquil. There is nothing right now that could stress me out. Not even the nightmares or the caravan or anything. It’s my day off and I haven’t felt this relieved in a week.
When nightfall comes and my room goes dark, my heart sinks as I see someone in the corner of my bedroom. They’re short, and they blend in with the clothing rack except for their bright blue eyes boring into me. That feeling of dread all comes back to me at once, hitting me like the dirt that will hit my coffin once I’m buried. Sudden doom. Something bad is going to happen. But the person does not move, they just stare at me as if they’re waiting for me to realise something. Watching me, waiting for my answer.
It’s Monday today. Dean’s parents anniversary. My heart is racing.
After school they were going to go on a road trip. Polly’s Dad’s caravan. I remember how I couldn’t look at it that one day she took me to school.
That dream about Polly screaming. She was in that milk carton world, and I remember how we spoke about it and how she commented on the sun painting an ocean. I mentioned Lake Lirza as a joke.
That dream about the body of water. Dean said they would ‘Go to the business district or near there’. Lirza is the closest town to the business district. They must have gone to Lake Lirza.
I wrap my arms around my pillow and look out the window while that person with the bright blue eyes continues to stare at me. I feel nothing but dread and I feel all of the happiness I’ve ever felt being soaked out of me like a sponge in a bucket as my phone buzzes. Over and over again. People I’ve never met, checking in on me, and sending me links to the local news articles about the three teens who just drowned in a caravan when it was driven into Lake Lirza.