Life always finds a way!... Sometimes it’s just not so subtle about it.
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-Will-
[07:45 am], [Southwest Suburbs]
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As I look around the room I take count of the number of people in here with me. 9. Always 9. I can never make out their faces or anything about them for that matter, the only thing I know is that there are always 9. When I try to make out their faces, I feel a prickling sensation in my chest.
When I look down clutching at my chest, the wet touch of blood is what I feel on my fingers, along with a knife protruding from where I assume my whole and complete heart used to be.
The world swirls around me as I hear the distinct sound of girlish scream shouting my name. Vertigo settling in, my body tilts backwards as I come crashing onto….
With a start, I wake up in my bed. Breathing heavily and with sweat all over me I try to recall as much as I can from the dream…nightmare I just had. Not much comes back. I sit up and take a look at the time on my night stand clock.
07:45 am.
The horrific death dreams every night aside, it is nice to have a biological clock that wakes you up precisely every day. Down to the minute. I haven’t needed an alarm in a while now.
Hmm, I need to go through my morning routine.
Stolen novel; please report.
I reach into the drawer of my night stand and fish a diary. Flipping to the most recent entry, yesterday of course.
[February, 10th2018. 07:45 am. I woke up sweaty as usual. The dream starts always with her; 09:03 on the dot. I can’t see her face but her blond hair with platinum tips is somewhat unique. She was wearing a red shirt that said, ‘Dying to Live’…. The irony does not allude me. The event of the dream changed a bit, but that was expected. My tattoos are there so the day must be close, I can feel it, I can see it. People in the room haven’t changed, although they did move around. No clues from the room or where it could be. This time I think my killer was a female but I’m not sure. The knife through the back hurts.]
Even reading this I can’t believe I’ve kept track for the last year or so. That’s when the nightmares started. At first, I thought they were just that, nightmares. However, one drunken night I got a small tattoo on my inner left wrist. It showed up in the nightmare. Ever since then I started keeping track of what happened in my dreams, the parts I could remember when I woke up at least. I noticed that whatever changes I made in my life changed the dreams little by little. Working out, wearing different sets of cloths for the week, taking different bus routes to work and even getting a tattoo. On the third month after the nightmares started, I decided on changing my tattoo once a month, every month. I had three lines/bars throughout the third month and got a fourth line in on the first day of the fourth month.
[May, 2nd2017. 07:45 am. IT CHANGED. My tattoo, it changed, it has 12 lines on it. That means whatever will happen is just 8 or 9 months away. This is absurd………..]
I’m not interested in reading the rest, I already know what it says. I take a look at the inside of my left wrist. 12 lines. 12 bars. A tattoo that is the countdown to that day. I don’t know which day it will happen exactly, I’m too scared to try to find out. That is not to say I haven’t prepared as much as I could.
I pen in the entry for today and take a look at the clock again 07:50 am. I need to get ready if I’m to catch the 08:40 bus to downtown.
I head into the bathroom, washing my face and teeth while admiring the hard work I’ve put into my body over the last year. Standing at 179 cm (5’8’’) high, with black hair, clear brown eyes and clean-shaven face. Not particularly handsome but good looking enough to be above average. A well-toned body with a light tan, the effort of not skipping a single day of gym for eight straight months.
‘I am as ready as can be’ I try to convince myself as I hop into the shower. ‘whatever comes, comes. Hopefully not today; I need to go to the bank.’