What The House Forgot

I'll Leave You The Key

When John awoke he was offered two tokens of reality, two reminders that his dreams had been anything but tame. The first was something he wished not to describe. It was an after effect of watching a beautiful young man contort onto the bed, the concaves of his jutting bones being washed in his own blood. Perhaps this was not something to find so appealing, yet John knew it was nothing more than a vision, nothing more than a created fantasy in which his unconscious mind wished to torture him in. He thought nothing of it, nothing more than throwing an excess of blankets across his legs and getting his breathing to a controllable, relaxed level. He listened to his heart rate for a moment, waiting for it to settle within his chest. Blinking away the images of those eyes, those which seemed to transcend from his brain only to stare at him from the ceiling of his own room.
The second token was realized only later, a small clang of metal as he pawed along his bedside table for his phone. His alarm still had yet to go off, it was dark within the room, though by the lights of his clock John could see that he only had about six more minutes to spare until the ringing bore into his ears and disrupted his quiet, lulling darkness. Something had fallen off of the table, something which had been precariously set at the edge of the wood as if with the intention of being thrown. John snatched his phone, turning on the flashlight and searching the floor for the missing object. His worst fear would be his retainer. That metal bar had no business under the bed, collecting the dust that had accumulated over the years. Though the light caught something much different. Something hauntingly familiar.
John cast his arm over the side of his bed, feeling through the darkness until his fingers clenched upon a small metal key. A familiar shape, a familiar design, though something he had never seen in the material world. John sat up in bed, blinking as his eyes tried to adjust to the harsh light of the flashlight. He held his phone closer, keeping the key in the palm as his hand in an excess of caution. It was strangely similar to the one which had fallen from the door in his dream. So similar, in fact, that John would swear they were one in the same. The design was the same, the twisted metal arranged in a pattern of triangles. The metal was cold and lightweight, a small enough thing to fit comfortably on a keychain even before the keys were made of practical metal. Had he picked this up somewhere, accidentally integrating it within his dream world? Or had something followed him home, something other than a strange feeling of passion? He remembered the older Victor's promise, 'I'll leave you the key', though the key to what? And how could a dream possibly hold up its promises?
Squinting, John was the most vulnerable to a surprise. Therefore, when the screen of his phone suddenly lit up, vibrating madly in his hand as it announced six thirty, well John almost lost both the phone and the key in his flight. He flung himself back onto the bed, shaking with such a violent jolt of energy that he nearly cracked through his bedframe all together. He screamed just a bit, just enough to summon the rest of the house, though he kept his fingers clenched around his new treasure. Even as his mother came to turn on the lights, John knew he had to keep hold. He would keep holding onto that key until his fingers bled. Keep holding until his bones shone through. For some reason this key had followed him all the way from his unconscious mind. For some reason, John knew this key would open something very special. 

  John fastened the new key to his keychain, swinging it in his spare time with his car and house key along the decorated lanyard. He knew he had to keep it close; a small voice in the back of his head reminded him that the key was essential to a component of his life he had not yet recognized. The mysterious key would open a mysterious lock, and who knew just when that lock would show itself? Perhaps John had dreamed himself some sort of special inheritance, a box of some value that would be unearthed in the soccer fields after practice? Or perhaps there was a safety deposit box somewhere in the post office, one with a key hole that did not match the rest, an ancient thing, containing a pile of golden coins or a treasure map to something much more ancient. Or, more realistically, the key could have been left there by his mother while she was cleaning. Despite its weight, apparently being made of iron or a similar metal, it may very well unlock the chest in the basement that held their fine China. Or it could have come along with the plastic handcuffs John had played with in fourth grade, in his effort to practice his career in law enforcement. The key could be important, or it could be nothing. Though its relation to the dream could not be understated. It could not be set aside, decided upon as a trivial thing in a fantasy world.