What We Are (And How We Hate It)

Since the dog attack, the band decides to meet at Rian’s house. Jack is the one that pitched the idea; he knows that the dog and its owners are still in his neighborhood and none of them want a repeat of what happened.

The boys all head down to the basement, closing the door on the way. They set their bags aside and sit beside one another. They’d been ignoring the elephant in the room for the past few days. So they make small talk.

“How’s your arm healing?” Alex asks Rian.

The drummer glances down at his arm and rolls the sleeve up.

“It’s definitely doing a lot better. It’s mostly healed already. Should be almost completely healed in a couple days.”

Alex nods and the room is filled with an awkward silence, each of them feeling the palpable tension in the air. It’s uncomfortable, and they hate it. Rian, Alex, and Jack don’t want to bring up the dreams they’ve been having,

Zack can tell they’re not telling him something, and it hurts him a bit. All four of them are best friends. So why won’t they talk with him about it?

It’s ironic, really. The quietest one of the group being the one that wants to talk about what’s going on. He doesn’t dwell on the thought and gets to the point.

“So are we gonna talk about it, or what?” Zack asks. He’s tired of avoiding the subject.

“What do you want us to say?”

“Anything! As long as we can just talk about it. I mean, it was just a dog attack, right? Why are we so scared to mention it?”

Silence fills the room again. Then Alex speaks up.

“I—I mentioned this a few days ago, but have you guys had any...dreams about what happened?”

He glances at his friends and they all share a knowing look. They know they can’t put off talking about it anymore.

“I have,” Zack says.

“Me too.”

Rian echoes the same thing.

“Do you have them a lot? Ever since that day, I’ve been dreaming about it every night. And it’s never like how it actually happened.”

“Why are they like that?” Jack asks.

They look at him.

“What?”

“The dreams. Why aren’t they like what really happened?”

No one has an answer for that.

“Do you guys wanna talk about them?” Zack asks.

“No. Not really.” Alex shakes his head.

Jack and Rian echo the same. After that, they stop talking about the attack.

* * *

Zack sighs as he walks out to his car and throws his backpack into the backseat, getting into the driver’s seat. He thought that meeting would go a lot better, maybe more productive. Not with music; they haven’t been able to focus on that for days. He just wanted to find out what was bothering his friends, and then when he did find out, they didn’t want to talk about it.

He supposes he can’t blame them for that. The dog attack appears to be more serious than any of them initially thought. And the dreams they’ve been having seem to be more like nightmares.

His own dream runs through his mind.

Zack stands in Jack’s bathroom and is looking at Rian’s wrist. There seems to be more blood than usual. The scent of the blood starts to become prominent but he doesn’t focus on it; he needs to patch up Rian’s wrist. Zack looks around, but he can’t find the first-aid kit. He places a hand on Rian’s arm, expecting to feel warm blood ooze onto his hand, and he does. For a second. Then when he looks down at the wound, it’s healed, and the blood is gone.

The dream doesn’t make Zack feel scared or worried; it intrigues him more than anything. He can tell, though, the dreams Alex, Jack, and Rian aren’t like that.

It still hurts that they don’t want to tell him, but he pushes that aside. He can’t force them to talk about it, and he isn’t gonna be that friend that’s selfish like that. It’s not who he is.

He pulls into the driveway of his family’s house and walks inside. Zack greets his parents and heads up to his room. They’re good about giving him his space while also being pretty involved and supportive of him.

Zack shuts the door and drops the bag before he lays back on his bed. During the band meeting, he felt tired. Kind of exhausted. But now he’s more awake than ever. He barely knows how to describe the feeling; it’s more than just being awake.

Then, like he summoned it, something courses through him and leaves him feeling...alive. Like he wasn’t already. He sits up and looks at himself.

Everything looks normal, he thinks.

He looks down at his hands and for a second he thinks he can see something that isn’t there, like sparks coming from his fingertips. But he blinks and whatever it is disappears.

* * *

Alex grabs his bag as Rian tries to push him and Jack and Zack out the door. The clock hit 5, and now they’re overstaying their welcome. Well, at least according to Rian. He hated them infringing on his time.

He exchanges goodbyes with Jack and Zack and heads to his car. He opens the driver’s side door and is about to step in when a familiar smell hits him.

What is that?

He can’t place it yet. It must have taken him a while, because Jack honks his horn and motions for him to drive off. Alex gets inside and moves his car, turning on the radio. The dream lingers in the back of his mind but he does his best not to focus on it, even if finding out why it scares him would do some good.

His phone buzzes and he glances at his bag. Alex pulls over and takes his phone out, smiling as he sees Lisa’s name at the top of the screen. He texts back a quick response and keeps driving, but then his phone buzzes again. He’s nearly home, so he leaves it alone until he arrives.

Alex pulls up and grabs his backpack, rushing inside. He goes straight to his room, not a normal thing for him to do as soon as he gets him, but that isn’t on his mind. He just wants to talk with Lisa in peace.
The next few hours he spends texting with his girlfriend, only taking a break when his mom calls him for dinner.

Near the end of dinner, before his mom begins to take the plates to the kitchen, she cuts herself with a knife. It’s a small cut, and there isn’t much blood, but Alex can smell it from across the table. Suddenly the scent from Rian’s driveway clicked: it was blood.

“Thanks for dinner, mom,” he says, rushing to his feet. He heads for the stairs when she stops him.

“Alexander.”

He freezes and looks over at her.

“Sorry, but I’ve got tons of homework to do.”

And then he rushes up to his room again. He shuts the door and barricades the door, not wanting anyone to get in. The dream he had made him hate the sight and smell of blood, but that wasn’t what scared him so much.

What scared him was how his mouth watered when he noticed the blood.

* * *

Jack refuses to think about the dream. As long as he doesn’t think about it, it can’t haunt him. He won’t let it.

On a normal day, Jack greets his mom with a hug and she kisses his forehead. Today he doesn’t. He’s not in a good headspace and he heads to his room.

His mom notices.

“Jack?” She calls before he can reach his door.

Fuck.

“Hey, mom.”

“You weren’t going to come home and not say hello to me, were you?”

“It must’ve slipped my mind,” he says.

She knows that’s not true.

“Come here, Jack,” she tells him.

He obliges. She motions for him to sit at the table and he does. She sits beside him.

“Is there something wrong?”

Jack’s quiet for a moment. She reaches for his hand, and after a moment of hesitation, he gives it to her.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

“I’ve just—I’ve been having a recurring bad dream the past few nights. I guess it’s bothering me more than I realize.”

“Will you tell me what it’s about?”

Jack hesitates once more.

“I don’t really want to get into it.”

“I think you should, if it’s making you this upset.”

“Mom, I don’t—”

“Jack Bassam Barakat, I’m your mother. You can tell me anything. You know that. Tell me, please.”
She looks at him with pleading eyes and squeezes his hand. He knows he can’t get out of it and he gives in.

“Essentially, I’m...I have the bat that I used on the dog. And it’s attacking me again. I hit it with the bat and it hits Rian’s car. But each time I have the dream again, I hit it harder and harder. And each time...I enjoy it more and more...like I want to hurt it. And I don’t…,” Jack trails off, pulling his hand away so he can wipe the tears forming in his eyes.

His mom pulls him into a hug and holds him tight.

“Oh honey, it’s okay. It’s just a bad dream.”

I hope it is, he thinks.

* * *

Rian shuts the front door once the others leave and goes back to the basement. He grabs his backpack and brings it to his room. In the past few days, he’s been more withdrawn and spending more time by himself, specifically in his room.

It’s difficult not to notice.

He hates to think that the dream is keeping him from doing what he wants, so he convinces himself that he’s staying in more because he wants to. Because he feels tired from going out.

The dream is not making him stay inside and keep people away from him. He just hates when his friends overstay their welcome; that part never changed. He’s always felt that way since they all met. In general, he just doesn’t want to go out to do things. He’s bored with that, he tells himself.

Rian refuses to believe any part of the dream. Lately it's evolved and started to show him hurting not just the dog that attacked him, but people too. He can’t make out anyone he hurts, but he has a good idea that they’re his best friends.

He keeps telling himself all the time he’s spending alone is because he wants to be alone. Not because he’s scared of hurting people. He has to believe that.

He has to.

The others probably wouldn’t understand anyway. Rian’s sure that they aren’t being affected by their dreams. Why is he worrying about his?

Because maybe, deep down, he knows it’s more than just a dream. Maybe he knows that it’s a premonition, and he’ll stop at nothing to make sure that it will never come true.

His phone buzzes and he sees a text from Zack.

"Has anything weird happened to you since the dreams started?"

Rian wants to ignore it, or just change the subject. But he doesn’t.

"No. Are you?"

Zack takes a few minutes to respond. A little out of character for him, but he doesn’t dwell on it.

"Not really, guess I’m imagining things."