You're Not in This Alone

I held Ebony tightly long after she fell into a deep slumber, fearing my sleep wouldn’t be so peaceful. I didn’t ever want to let her go. I wanted to keep her with me for as long as we had left, and that amount of time grew shorter with every second that passed by.

Eventually I did fall asleep, and the dreams came. As I lost sense of my own reality, I traveled to the mind and body of someone else and what would happen to them in the future.

I was lying on a hard floor, and rough rope held my wrists and ankles together. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air and clouded my thoughts. Bright flames of fire danced around the room I was in, getting closer and closer to me. My eyes looked around, searching for something familiar.

Although this body’s brain knew it was foolish, I started to crawl awkwardly and tried to make my way to the window. My skin was already almost bursting into flames from the heat. My hair fell around my face, making it even harder to see through the smoke. The hot tears forcing themselves out of my eyes didn’t help either.

When I made it to the window, I tried to pull myself up. It was dark, but the flaming house I was in illuminated silhouettes several feet below, and they were in some kind of struggle. The only other thing I saw was the flames reflecting off of a body of water. Then my strength left me, and I fell to the floor.

The fire neared me. I tried to remember that this wasn’t really me; I was dreaming of the future. It wasn’t me, but I knew who it was. I’d had this dream a few times before, but not so vividly. I tried to remember to keep my own body still, even as this other body in my dream screamed and thrashed around and cried.

The screaming tore my heart apart, and eventually it became too much for me to handle. I managed to jerk myself out of the dream and into reality, and I sat up with a start.

Although I had succeeded in refraining from thrashing and screaming, it hadn’t kept me from waking Ebony like I’d hoped. She was holding my hand and staring at me with frightened eyes. I was gasping for fresh air, finally free from the heavy smoke. I was soaked in sweat and tears.

I let go of her hand and rolled to face away from her, wiping my eyes with the already damp sheet. Even with my desperate attempt to hide it, she knew I’d been crying. Meeting her eyes, I knew she was scared as hell again.

“Just nightmares,” I whispered, even though we both knew my nightmares were real. She was wondering what I could’ve been dreaming about that would make me cry, when I hadn’t cried after I’d dreamt about billions of people dying in one day. I turned away so she couldn’t read it in my eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asked, laying a cool hand on my bare, feverish back.

“I am now,” I replied, making my voice very reassuring. I was getting better at sounding strong now. She barely noticed how upset I was when I was awake now.

She planted her lips on my shoulder before saying, “Go take a shower. I’m sure they have everything working in this house. I’ll get dressed and take my shower tonight.”

“Okay,” I mumbled obediently. I turned around and kissed her soft lips before I got out of the bed, found clothes in the closet, and stumbled to the nearest bathroom I could find. I turned she shower on cold and stepping in gratefully with a sigh.

I allowed the water to clean me of sweat and tears, pushing me memory of my nightmare out of my mind. It wouldn’t do anybody any good if I dwelled on it. I dried myself off and got dressed, feeling cleaned of all bad things. I sighed again before going to find Ebony.

She was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, and she was waiting patiently on the bed. I smiled at her, and she played along by smiling back. We could both pretend nothing was wrong. Besides, nothing had been wrong last night before I fell asleep.

“They sent us this note,” she said, opening up a piece of paper and beginning to read, “We hope you enjoyed your night.” She giggled. “When you wake up and finish reading this, put it back on the dresser so we know you’re awake, and we’ll send you breakfast. If you want to hang out at the house all day, write that on the note. If you wand Lance and Miranda to come fore a different surprise, write so,” she finished.

“Well, what do you thing?” I asked.

She smiled shyly. “I think… I kind of miss them, and I don’t want to hang around here all day. Do you mind if we ask them to send Lance and Miranda for this ‘different surprise?’”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied truthfully. So she scribbled on the paper and set it back down on the dresser. Breakfast appeared on the dining room table just as we entered. Before we sat down, there was a knock at the door.

“Miranda and Lance,” Ebony said to me as we hurried to let them in.

“Hello,” Lance said, grinning at us when we opened the door.

“Come on in and eat breakfast with us,” Ebony invited them.

Miranda shook her head. “We’ve already eaten. It’s almost noon. You’ve slept in pretty late. You must’ve been up late last night,” she said.

Ebony blushed at her comment, but Lance saved us all by saying, “You go ahead and eat. We’ll be waiting out here with your surprise.”

Ebony and I ate eagerly, not saying much even though Lance and Miranda didn’t have supersonic hearing. When we got outside, we found them sitting comfortably in a boat you would see taking a few people around the waters of Venice. “Want to go for a ride?” Miranda asked excitedly.

Ebony laughed and hopped in. I got in after her, glad they were here to take her mind off of my strange behavior.