THOMAS

Nightmares:1

No strings attached
Chapter 1 (Part one).
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Tom jolted from his dream, he was sweating profusely while his breathing was fast and raged. He sat in his small bed and gazed at the wall clock;it was two o'clock in the morning. He rubbed his face, disturbed, this was the second time he had had the same dream. In the dream, someone dressed in a long black clock was chasing him holding a big dagger. Every time he would try to escape, he would stumble and whoever was chasing him would catch up with him. He would then wake up at that point.

Tom stepped out of the bed. Peter was sleeping sound asleep, snoring as loudly as his mouth could release the noise. Tom felt a knack of jealousy encroaching his throat, Peter has always been a sound sleeper, nothing seemed to disturb him.  He walked out of the shared bedroom with his brother to the hallway, their mothers' room was just opposite their own. Their house;a rented apartment-was barely enough for the three of them-with a shared washroom and a makeshift living room that was still the kitchen.

Tom walked to the kitchen area and poured a glass of water before downing it immediately. He was sure that he was earth and sky apart from his sleep after the dream, it always happened, and he would spend the next few hours watching TV until the time his mother Mrs. Ndwati would wake up.

Mrs. Ndwati who is a market vendor at Gikomba market would always wake up around ten in the morning to prepare herself for the day, being a single mother with the responsibility of raising his two sons after his husband death few years back she had to make ends meet. She would first prepare breakfast, then leave to Gikomba and return before Tom and Peter leave for school. He would always make sure to have breakfast with them before leaving again for work.

She had noticed Tom weird behavior lately which troubled her;Tom was very lazy and despite Peter being a sound sleeper, he would always wake earlier than Tom who had to be reminded time, and again he was a student at Hillside high school. In fact, Mrs. Ndwati felt it her duty to chant it as a mantra every time he would shake his younger son from his sleep.

Mrs. Ndwati thought something must be bothering his son and he would go on with asking him.

"Waweru, nikii kiuru" (Waweru what's wrong). Tom would shrug it off with.

"Hakuna mum…Ni ndoto mbaya tuu"(There is nothing wrong with me, it's just bad dreams)

At that, Mrs. Ndwati would deliver a lengthy harangue on Tom's lack of religious consistency, claiming those were bad spirits disturbing him. …
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As Tom made his way to the gate of his school -Hillside secondary school. Someone shouted from far.  He turned his head to see Mathew, his best friend racing towards him.

“Today you are early” Mathew pointed out when he reached where Tom was standing.
“I couldn't sleep again” Tom said, walking into the school compound. A few of the students had already arrived, and the school was now bustling with life.  Tom had always been open with Mathew more than he was with Peter. Peter was a very thoughtful type of person who would always find fault in anything-he would mostly certainly blame you for not being thoughtful. And again, Peter would probably tease him since Tom had always been a loud dreamers.

“Is it the dream again?” Matt asked, sounding concerned.
“Yes” Tom shook his head frantically.
“Yesterday I googled what the dream could possibly mean” Matt revealed, glancing at Tom with concern.
“What did you find out?” Tom asked, his eyes turning into sudden needle points of interest. He himself didn't have a phone-he can't afford one and mostly relied on Matt, whose well-to-do parents had accustomed to anything one could wish for. A laptop, an iPad, and an iPhone 13 Pro max.

Matt's eyes lowered a bit as a sigh escaped his lips. “It's a bad sign” he muttered, not wanting to say what he had found out about Tom's dream.

“What is it?” Tom snapped irritably, almost shouting but checked his anger and apologized.

“It means…it…” Matt stole a furtive glance at Tom. “ You will face an awful ending…or something bad is about to happen in your life” he said rushing almost swallowing his words.

The two friends walked towards the stairs that led to their block. “I'm already bad luck Matt, I would give anything to have a life like yours… anything” he muttered, his mind fluttering to his mother who he knew was hawking fruits on Gikomba market in order to sustain them.

The first period was over before he knew it, which was mathematics. The next on the timetable was biology-and Tom hated it with pure passion. What he hated mostly was the teacher himself, Mr. James, who find it his duty to nag him; it seemed that Mr. James was aware of Tom's dislike to his side of expertise and this automatically made Tom an instrument of ridicule from him.

“Do you think there is any subject better than biology?” The biology teacher would countless times ask him. “History wouldn't been there if there wasn't biology. Biology is everything…it's life itself” he would continue praising biology, making Tom pray for deliverance. And it happened.

Just when Mr. James walked in to begin his period, the principal walked in with a new student.
“Excuse me mwalimu" he motioned to the biology teacher before announcing to the class. “We have a new student” he turned to the girl; a Muslim with a white hijab and a white trouser which was acting as her leggings and her brown skirt worn over the leggings.

“This is Aisha Sadat and I hope you will make her feel at home” he finished and ushered her to a new desk that had been earlier brought by the storekeeper.

Tom's eyes couldn't move from the girl the few first moments. All his wildest fantasies came to life instantly as his eyes locked in a daze with Aisha's: her skin was so flawless that it seemed like that of a baby, her small soft lips so pink that he thought they were beckoning for him to kiss them. And the best part about all of it was that she was looking back at him, or at least he thought she was.

When she sat a few desks behind her, he couldn't quite understand what had just happened. He had never felt something like this, as his heart was beating so fast that he thought it was going to break the rib cage and pop out.