Have you ever watched that movie “Nightmare on Elm Street”? In which the kids can’t sleep because Freddy Kreuger invades their dreams and kills them. Well I experience almost the same thing except in my dreams I only see glimpses of how a person dies and when I wake up I hear news that the person about whom I dreamt died. Now I’m not saying I’m like Freddy and I enjoy it, it’s breaking me. I try my best not to sleep, not to dream, not to visualise. I’ve been awake for almost 3 days now.
It all started last week, I came home from school, slightly feverish, I took some medicine and decided to rest my eyes for a bit. It was exam season so I couldn’t really afford sleeping for too long. As I lay down I slowly slipped into a coma like state, I was dreaming but I felt like I knew I was. Maybe I was so tired that I started Lucid dreaming. Everything was pitch black, I could hear cars drive by and someone was arguing. I kept turning around to see where the voices were coming from, they were like echoes in a barren room. I turned 360 degrees again and again until I saw 4 boys, one of them was a kid in my class. I saw him getting pushed and shoved by the other 3 boys. I couldn’t make out what they were saying as everything was muffled and I could still hear cars speeding by. One of the boys shoved so hard that the kid went stumbling backwards and in the moment I heard a loud horn from a truck and then silence. In the pitch black world that surrounded me, lay a body in a puddle of blood.
Moments after I woke up sweating in my bed. The medicine had kicked in, my fever was reducing. I sipped water from the half empty glass that lay on my bedside table and noticed it was 7pm. I slid off the bed with my aching body and stumbled my way downstairs. My family was sitting at the dinner table waiting for me. As we started eating dinner, I noticed how quiet everyone had been. My dad broke the silence by mentioning how crazy it was that a student at my school had died and that there was gonna be a vigil for him in front of the school. I looked up with fear in my eyes and asked if he knew how the kid had died. My father mentioned that he crossed the road without looking and got hit by a truck and died on the spot. I was shocked to the core to hear that but something didn’t quite add up. I saw 3 others with him and I saw him get pushed onto the road.
The next day there was an assembly at school on the front steps. Children were putting notes and flowers in front of a giant picture of the kid. I noticed the 3 kids I saw in my dream off to the side, sitting on one of the ledges underneath the twisted tree in the middle of the campus. They seemed strange, disturbed, like something was bothering them. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were mumbling something to each other. The assembly disbanded after about 15 minutes and the rest of the day was pretty ordinary. I got home around 3pm, with the same pain in my body and feverish feeling. I once again took some medicine and went to sleep and that’s when it started again.
The same black scenery, nothing but the sound of shuffling, utensils? Tools? Sounds like the echo of an empty garage. I turned around and saw a rope hanging from one of the beams on the garage ceiling, a chair right underneath it and one of the kids that I saw sitting under the tree standing on the chair, determining whether he should jump or not. I screamed, stop! Stop! Don’t jump! But it didn’t matter because he couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t physically there, but it felt so real. I woke up with a jerk, checked the time, it was 7pm. My family was sitting on the table eating dinner again. As I walked into the door my sister stared at me and said “What’s wrong with you? You’re always late to dinner”. My parents had the same expression they did that day, like something was wrong. What’s wrong? I asked. My parents continued to tell me that a kid from my school had committed suicide. I felt sick to my stomach, I asked my family to excuse me and ran back up to my bedroom. Tossing and turning on my bed with the guilt that I could have stopped it from happening. Slowly time passed and my eyes got more and more heavy.
I heard my mom scream from downstairs. “Kids! I’m heading out for a bit, I’ll be back in an hour!”. My body felt feverish again, the same damn pain in my body, I tried fighting the urge to sleep, but before I knew it I was back in the same pitch black dream. I heard cars around me, honking of horns, and then I saw it. I was in the car right next to me in the driver’s seat with my mom driving, music was playing on the radio. I knew this route, my mom was heading to the supermarket, she might have needed some groceries for breakfast tomorrow that she forgot. My mom’s cell suddenly rang, and she started shuffling things in her bag to try to take it out. I looked straight ahead and there was a semi overtaking another and coming straight for my mom, I screamed “mom! Look up mom! You’re gonna crash!” but of course she couldn’t hear me. The semi got closer and closer, my heart started beating faster and faster, I couldn’t watch, it was too late by the time my mom heard the honking of the semi, I covered my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see. The horn grew louder and louder before I suddenly woke up the same way we all do when you feel like you’re falling in your dreams.
My sister was standing above me, “phone for you” she said. I woke up confused, my heart still throbbing in my chest. I grabbed the phone from her hand and spoke. “Hello?. “Hey, honey, I’m at the supermarket, do you need anything?” my mom spoke on the side. I looked up at my sister, did she wake me up right on time? Is the dream supposed to finish before it becomes reality? “Hello? You there honey?” my mom asked in a muffled voice as the phone was away from my ear.