Dreamcatcher

18

Chase had managed to fall asleep. What his nightmare was, he didn't know. But he did know that when he woke up Aerial was already gone, gone off the mountain. His jacket covered him like a blanket, keeping him from shivering throughout the night.

The descent down took two hours. It seemed the clouds mourned with him overhead, and the sky told him, 'rain's coming, rain's coming'. But there was nowhere for Chase to hide, so the chilling water hit his skin drop by drop until he reached the trail's end.

Chase couldn't track Aerial's phone, for his own phone had died of battery after using the map app yesterday. He foolishly made his way down to the train station, deciding that Aerial could make it back by herself.

But what if she couldn't?

With no hesitation Chase walked through the train station to the other side, where sleek roads shimmered in silver puddles. He blended in with the other visitors and made his way to the village of the Forgotten. His shoes squeaked in sogginess, but he ignored this suffering. Aerial was around here somewhere. She would be stealing dreamcatchers. She was his dream, forever and ever.

"Hey," he would say once he found her. "Hey back," she would reply. "Found any dreamcatchers?" "...A few." "Ready to go home?" "Sure."

So Chase wandered and wandered, looked and looked, but he could never see Aerial no matter where he went, no matter which roads he turned. He could never see the end of houses scattered about in the village, and only then had he realized his efforts were nothing but futile.

"It reminds me just of last time," Venus said, setting down the laundry upstairs. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead, then looked over the railing at Chase sitting on the living room couch. There he sat with his bowl of snacks, the crunchiness of potato chips bouncing off the walls. "But honestly, last time you cared much more about Aerial's whereabouts."

Chase didn't reply. More crunches from the chips ensued. He ignored the fact he had salt on his fingertips, then went to grab the nearby remote. A click of a button, and the whole house went silent of television sitcoms.

"V, I care about her way more this time – you know I do," Chase said, clearly annoyed. "It's just that I can't do anything about it."

Chase heard Venus's thirtieth sigh that day and resumed his binging of potato chips, the only thing that could possibly take his mind off of his life problems.

"That doesn't sound like you, Chase....Want me to go look for her instead?" There was a shuffling upstairs, and then a prompt "ah-ha! Found it!" that Chase ignored.

Thundering footsteps sounded as Venus quickly ran down the stairs, her old phone snuggled tightly in her hand. The screen was a spider web. The clear case was cloudy and smudged to a brown. It looked virtually unusable to anybody with good eyesight.

"And you're gonna use that phone to do what?" Chase asked dryly. "Aerial doesn't want anybody to come find her, that's for sure." If she had, I would've bumped into her in the past week. If she had, she would've messaged me in the past week. "That phone isn't gonna help anybody or anything."

"The map app, Chase. I'm gonna look at the park you found last time, okay?"

And before Chase knew it, he could already hear the grunting of putting on sneakers, the ruffling of a winter coat, the click of the front door, the quick "goodbye, I'll see you in a bit".

Time seemed so fast, yet so slow.

"V?" he called from the living room.

"Yeah? I'll be back before dinner - don't worry." Her voice was already muffled, the wind blowing half her words far away into the desolate street.