Nightmare

“Can you guys hear me?” Johnny asked as he raised his hand and located it before his eyes. There it was. His hand was normal, his fingers still read BEER, and his eyes saw perfectly well.

Why was there a high feeling to it? He contemplated, maybe he´d been drugged or something, but that was just beyond his comprehension. If he were drugged he´d have blurry vision and a shitty brain processing, and he seemed to be processing better than ever. He could think better than he could talk, and that had never been normal in him.

“Yes! Johnny?” Brian called.

“I´m here… Somewhere…”

“You guys, are you… somewhere dark, too?” Matt asked, his voice still sounded as near as the last time he´d spoken.

“Yeah, there´s fire… flames everywhere…” Syn replied.

“Not here…” Matt sang back, he sounded amused, astounded.

“There are flames here, Syn, they´re like… floating.” Johnny announced. “What the fuck´s going on?”

“You tell me…” Syn replied. Unlike Matt, Brian sounded further each time he spoke.

Johnny looked around him for the 3rd time and wondered how he´d ended up in a place (if it could be called so) like that.

He tried his legs again, and this time he did stand up; when he looked down at the black whatever that he was on, he was taken by surprise and a scream slid out of his throat. He remembered he was just suspended in the air, and smacked his forehead.

That has got to be the stupidest thing I´ve done yet.

“Johnny!?” Matt and Brian shouted in unison.

“I´m alright… I just… never mind.” Johnny rolled his eyes at himself.

“Well, don´t do that anymore! You scared me to death!” Brian shouted. He sounded so distant his voice had almost become a whisper.

“Syn, are you walking somewhere?” Johnny asked; taking advantage that he could still hear Brian.

“I wish I was! I can´t even stand up!”Brian complained.

For a minute Johnny caught a glimpse of Brian´s body, sitting a couple of meters away from him, but the vision was slurry, Syn gave the impression of being transparent.

“I can see you!” Johnny shouted, for a moment Matt had been totally forgotten. “Fuck, I can see you!”

“You can?” Brian´s face lifted towards him, but his eyes didn’t seem to locate him at all.

“Yes! Don’t you see me?”

“No.” The image faded into black nothing again, and Johnny hit a fist against his leg.

“Fuck!”

“Syn!? Brian! Brian!” Matt´s voice shouted frantically. “Johnny? J…”

“I´m here.” Johnny replied almost bored. Yet his brain was still processing the raw fear.

“Syn… He just disappeared.”

“What?”

“He vanished before my eyes, Johnny!” Matt shouted, he sounded scared. “I don´t fucking like this, Johnny, I really don´t…” Matt´s tone went from fear to concern.

“Can you stand up?” Johnny turned around. If he trusted his hearing sense, he´d be facing Matt that way… (of course, if Matt were anywhere to be seen.)

“Yeah… But I feel funny; like when you´re drunk, but I just have the physical aftermath, my mind and mouth run freely.” That´s why he writes the lyrics, he can describe things. “God… What if something happened to Syn?”

“I hope not.” Johnny scratched the back of his head, and decided to walk towards the flames; he kept talking to Matt as he did so. “Do you remember anything before this? What the fuck were we doing?”

“I don´t… Holy shit, I don’t remember.” This is fucking great.

“I don’t either.”

“This is fucked, man.”Matt started sounding amused again. “Woah! Johnny! A fucking mirror just appeared in front of me.” A mirror… Great. What´s next? A fucking pony?

When Johnny noticed he hadn’t reached the flames yet he stopped, and squinted towards the fire, he couldn’t get to it, he was walking in place. Or the flames are just an illusion… He realized he could come up with thousands of theories, but they wouldn’t change the fact.

“Johnny, fuck man this is great.” Johnny turned around, and found Matt standing, probably five steps away. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Matt! How did you…?”

“Walked through the damned mirror.”Johnny didn’t ask himself how that was possible, but tried walking towards his friend. He did move from place.

“Great.” They were in front of each other now. Matt grinned.

“What now?”Matt had really no idea of what the hell was going on, and that was new for Johnny, when Matt had no idea of situations anything could go wrong.

“I don´t know… Did we die? Are we in fucking hell?”Johnny spat this. Matt´s eyebrows lifted.

“Could be…”

They stood in place until, as if from nowhere, Johnny observed as Matt´s eyes grew, a face of surprise or anguish washed over his face; Matt fell to his knees making a grunting sound, holding onto his stomach, as if he´d been punched.

“Matt!” Johnny kneeled before Matt and gripped his shoulders. “Matt, are you okay?”

“No.” Matt managed to choke out, his intestines felt like jelly on a roller coaster. It was as if something were squeezing his insides, the pain was so sturdy it almost made him numb to emotions. “Johnny…” His eyes tightened closed, and his teeth clenched, then he felt like throwing up. “Johnny!” Now Matt´s hands held from Johnny´s arms, his nails dug into Jonathan’s skin, but Johnny was much too preoccupied with Matt´s grunting to even flinch at this.

Matt´s body went limp and fell towards Johnny, who took the weight of the body and embraced it, turning him upside-down. Matt´s eyes wide, his mouth slightly open, blood poured from it as he tried to speak once more. Johnny´s concern mixed with horror and pure panic. How the hell could that happen? There was no explanation for it, it just went off.

“N-night.”Matt´s eyes slowly fell shut.

“No, Matt, no… God, please, hold on.” Johnny could feel his tears pouring down his cheeks.

“Night… mare.” Matt exhaled for the last time in that black hell.

No, this can’t be happening. It is. It must be a… Nightmare?

His arms lost all force they ever had and he tried to let Matt´s body easily on the floor; he absently wiped some tears from his cheeks, but couldn’t ignore when he saw his hand smeared with a red thing. He was crying blood.

“Having fun yet?” A cold, heavy voice asked. Johnny screamed, and then looked around.
Right behind him a skull, somehow, grinned at him. What the FUCK? Johnny´s hands began to tremble, his lips as well.

“I like the blood crying detail, very thoughtful.”It mocked.

The thing got closer to him until it was at a touchable distance; it then put its bony hand on Johnny´s head, and squeezed. Johnny shouted once again, unexplainable pain exploding, not only in his skull, but in his brain.

Then out of nowhere he saw a light, a big bright light, but his ears disconnected, they could only hear one thing, coming from the grave, low voice:

“You should have known the price of evil,” followed by a hysterical, yet somber laugh.

He started drifting away, every second more and more. His eyelids started feeling heavy, and his mind was fogging out. Little by little he ended up not being conscious about what was going on, the bright light had just taken him away, yet the short time he had to think he could feel reality punching into him; he wasn´t aware of anything, except that he´d been taken away from the skull, and Matt´s body.