The weight of my clothing is shockening, a warm and inviting feeling I know. Safety, warmth, the first section is a haze… I’m running from something, I hit my head. I was doing something, a goal far clear. I wake up, a ceiling I know too well. A family home, the home of my youth.

I look around, familiar figures. Figures I haven’t seen in a long time. Faces of people younger than they should, faces of people in roles they shouldn’t. A headache, a pulsing pain rings on out. Memories flood in from another life. The path here different, my ‘selves’ soon merge. Did I wake up from a dream, a hazed life? From a dream only to realize my self?

Was my waking just now a rippling breath? My head clear, clearer than it had been long. These memories hungover from a phantom. The me here, ‘me’, has such thoughts of wrongness. Even he feels like he does not belong. My siblings, or my cousins? Have I wronged? I was unsure of it in that moment. A sense of guilt yet at the same time hope.

If I was waking from a dream, I change. If this is a dream, I will say sorry. Apologize for this other self mine. If this is real or not, matters little. What worries me is how, and for whose sake. The memories omit this question found.

I go to the bathroom, a shower set. I needed to get my mind off of things. Give it time to rest, I had ‘woken’ up. Somethings wrong with the floor, likely water. I call someone over to help, mother. The one I had known, something that won’t change.

I take this opportunity to hear…

“He’s acting different, he’s acting strange”

“Somethings off about him, he gave a look… like he was seeing something not real’ there”

My room was on the other side straight through. The bathroom was offlimits, nowhere else. I waited a bit, the door shut on closed. My anxiety and fears bubbling.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I knock on the door, “can I come on in?”. I say, before hearing the room grow still. I push myself in there, “sorry” I say. I begin to apologize for ‘me’, the haze I’ve been in for all of these years. My anxiety bursting at the seams.

Wait a second… was that truely ‘me’ or… The thought comes to a sudden piercing pain. The room freezes, goes to a shade of grey. The room is black and white with stilled faces.

>Accept the signs?

>”Something is wrong”

The first.

I pick the first option and a thought forms. A strong pulsing pain threatening to break. The room around me changes to a dream… A reality? This had happened before, another life. I had awoken from my stupor so… So I just kept going on, what is wrong?

This feeling that something was still off still stays, as if I had never woken on up. As if I was still in a long set dream. Familiar, yet but aberration. I look down, remember that feeling lost. I wake up, my heart pounding, and screaming.

I lie awake in my bed, just… breathing. What was that? A dream? But it felt so real?

I lie awake in my bed, haunted. Guilt from another life solved as I could. Guilt from a dream, a feeling of lost thought. Of lost direction, as if without end… Lingers.

I lie awake in my bed, so awake.

I lie awake in my bed, still asleep.

I cannot escape from reality. I cannot wake up from this dream, this time. What I do now will affect the story. Will it have a end this time? Or linger? A regret i’ll never see the end of. A “dream” I’ll never see the ending for.

I lie awake with my actions and mind. Every action not done, path unexplored. Less weight on my chest as I take it off. The blanket which I held close, I regret…

Every risk I did not take, path traveled.

Every friend I did not make, those I did.

Could my life have been different than now.

Seeing the two I could have had and lost.

Like ripples in the water they fade, lost.

Another path I’ve traveled long gone.

Closed off to me as if i’ve lost something.

Can you lose what you’ve never even had?

I lie awake, I lie awake, I sleep.

It drags me under once again, lucid.