I See Fire

 My dreams have always frightened me. Even if they weren’t nightmares, they had something… off, about them. Faces were uncanny, surroundings too clear compared to the foreground, objects warping and changing in my hands as I tried my best to hang on to them, only for them to slip through my fingers. They say that you can’t just make up a face – that every face in your dreams, you saw somewhere. I wonder where I saw them first.

 My dad was always more than willing to comfort me after nightmares – read one of the thousand books that I had shoved under my bed out of a fear of monsters. They can’t hide where they can’t fit. At least, that was the logic my nine-year-old self eagerly accepted. I was still terrified of the closet, though.

 But the dreams were the worst. The weird thing was, I never watched scary movies, or read ghost stories, or any stuff like that. I was the stereotypical girl – I was never as social, but I wore skirts and headbands and kept a little purple diary with a lock. I still wear hairclips with big stars on them. I watched documentaries, but I basically grew up in the town museum, so that was to be expected. Nothing that matched up with how dark my dreams were.

 Sometimes it was places I recognized, sometimes it wasn’t. Fields and mansions and lighthouses and sand dunes in the summertime. I could walk around, and look at things – melting aside, I could even judge the weight of the objects I touched. There weren’t ever that many people. Even in a crowd, only a few would be able to move and speak – their voices sounded tinny, like on an old-fashioned radio.

 And every time, the person would be dead.

 Sometimes they didn’t have that many injuries at all. They’d be a little pale, a little distant – if they didn’t move so stiffly, you’d think they were normal. Sometimes they’d turn around and be a grotesque mess. A couple of times, I woke up nauseous because of how they looked. They’d always give me a message. Always. Sometimes, they even made repeat visits.

 I kept good track of them – my diary filled up a while ago, but I still have it, and wear the key around my neck. I took the diary with me when I stayed at my friend’s house that night, which turned out to be one of the smartest decisions I’ve made.

 I arrived home to ashes, and our town’s one ambulance. They told me he was dead on arrival.

 It’s been a couple days. My cousin’s flying in from out of town for the funeral. My aunt and uncle – we were never that close with them anyway. No hard feelings, just… distance.

 I think my next dream might be of flames.

 

At least I’ll get to say goodbye.