Fever Dream Red

1

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I woke up, heaving as if I had just ran a marathon. I'd had a bad dream, one where my brother had died from the bang of a bullet. His face bled into my mind, red neon lighting reflecting the wide eyes and pale complexion fought onto his face.

I had sat up, snatching myself away from the vines of my fever dream, and started trying to breathe slowly.

It was dark all around, although my eyes could just about work their way along the unfamiliarily familiar workings of my new yet old bedroom.

I had stayed there in that very bedroom as a child, listening to music on the hand-me-down headphones everyone else before me had had. I had slept there everyday, praying and hoping against hope that I could get out of that place.

It was awfully ironic; I couldn't had waited to get out of there and yet I was all too eager to return to its covert once disaster struck. I was like a bird returning to its nest once it realised that the real world was a wicked, cruel place.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It was only when I had heard two more bangs that I realised that the gunshots from my dream were simply reimaginings of real sounds, ones for which I had no explanation for.

I hastily scrambled out of the bed which always creaked, paced along the wooden floor which I always wished was carpeted, and fumbled with the door handle which was always a pain to open, even when I was little. When I got into the hallway, I realised that I wasn't the only one who had heard the bangings.

Pretty much everyone was there.

"What the-. What the Hell is going on?" Doug asked, his tall frame shrugging.

I wasn't sure whether to reply, as the question didn't seem to have a recipient. It irritated me all the same, which was unfair because the question had come out of shock. Even so, how could any of us have known what was going on?

Aggie started muttering things like "What in the world?" and "Oh my God!", which made no sense because even thought I hadn't known Aggie long, I knew she didn't have a God.

Aggie was a wine drinker who seemed to be constantly riddled with headaches and ailments. She didn't appear to be a particularly affectionate person even to Lily and Fae, her adopted daughters. If she wasn't loving to them then it seemed hard to believe she would be attracted to any sort of worship.

The statement, coming from her mouth, seemed performative and satrical. Whatever words she spoke always seemed to be trainted with disdain and mockery. Mind you, some people did always appear to be hilarious caricatures of humanity when disaster struck.

Alongside Aggie, Lily was the perfect juxtaposition. She didn't say much to Aggie. She just kept looking to her door.

In another vein, Sunny, Doug and Alfie were all wide eyed. Doug must've finally caught on to what was going on. He and Alfie, as the adults in the situation, were trying to calm down Sunny, but you can only calm others down if you are calm yourself. Doug and Alfie were not calm; in many ways they were more stressed than Sunny. Alfie was probably going through the list of possibilities regarding the source of the sound. Doug was probably just scared of loud noises. Sunny was looking at them with a grimace on her face, a look she often gave them. If anything, they probably provided Sunny with a distraction.

Fae hovered over next to her sister Lily, and her mother Aggie, but she may as well have been stood in front of a wall for all the good it did her. She was listing all the things it could be, gesticulating to no one in particular with a screeching baby swaddled in her arms. I noticed her pretty boyfriend wasn't there to take it. I wondered where he was.

Maybe he was a heavy sleeper. Like Danny.

Eli and Mimi were stood in Zoe's doorway, muttering quietly to each other, which meant I was unable to hear what they were saying. Their faces were spiralled with fast talking lips and meaningful stares, but that was a permanent fixture on their face ever since they arrived back here. I suspect it's been permanent ever since Zoe got ill.

I was stood there, leaning against my doorframe, and realising that the reason I may have so desperately wanted to leave the island was not because of the lack of freedom; it may have just been because I couldn't stick the people I was with.

I felt two reassuring squeezes on each of my shoulders, and looked around to see Inez and Danny, my siblings of sorts, each with a hand on each of my shoulders, and leaning on the sides of my doorway. Inez and Danny both had uncertain smiles trademarking their faces.

"You okay?" Inez asked me, staring into my soul with her deep blue eyes. Inez was always meaningful in her actions.

I nodded with what I hoped was an air of grateful sincerity. It's hard to get that across in a nod.

"Does anyone know what it is?" Danny asked, gnawing at his nails.
"Nope."
"You didn't even hear them!" Inez exclaimed."Had to wake him up." She told me, pointing at him and rolling her eyes at me.

That was easy to believe. Danny was a heavy sleeper. He was also dim enough to sleep through heavy bangs and not think much of it.

Suddenly, another door opened. Skye reluctantly leant on their doorframe, their usually dyed, tidy mulled completely ruffled. They looked unsettled, which wasn't normal.

They used to be reliable. When I was younger, I would pay them to do my homework for me. I used to look up to them. I used to ask them for help. They used to be calm and collected.

But now they had changed. Just like everything else. The hierarchy had become unstable: the power shifted. The world, once again, had become unstuck and forever changed.

The apocalypse never seemed real. It seemed like a fever dream unfolding in front of my very eyes. A facade which would not go away no matter how many times I pinched my skin, no matter how many times I willed the madness to end.

"What's all this banging about? Can you all pack it in?"

That's it.

We were royally f-

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Thanks to PavoCartel, Hammywentz and dojacant for doing so. It is appreciated :)