I've been seeing a woman in my dreams.

2: No Longer Dreams

An entire month passed without any significant events after I told Kaeda, but a storm was building nonetheless. The girl with black hair kept getting closer to me in my dreams, not to mention the nature of these nightmares was becoming more and more upsetting—much more real and degrading to my already irregular sleep schedule. As a result, I spent August sleep deprived and hot.

I slept on the train usually, which paid me dearly since I missed my stop on more than one occasion. Luckily, Kaeda moved nearby and used the same train station as I did. At that point, we started to go to work together. My dependence on her grew steadily. Even if she helped me out of pity at this stage in our relationship, she was the only person I was able to lean on for any kind of support reliably. She knew this early on, but she had no idea how badly I needed it then.

On the first day of September, another American was transferred for our office. His name was James Haak, a smuck whose reputation was either far north or deep south. Some of the people I knew, like Gaku, praised him as one of the best "westerners" we'd ever hired. While others, like Sachio, usually commented that he was "the worst example the west has to offer."

When he moved into our office from Osaka, I spoke to him for the first time. Naturally, I was eager to talk to someone in person in English. However, when I did this, James lashed at me. "We're in Japan. We speak Japanese." I referred to him as Kusotarre to everyone I knew from that moment forward. (This roughly translates to "shit-head," at least in my usage.)

James quickly discovered that I was a New Yorker; he made assumptions haphazardly about where I leaned politically, so he made odd remarks that he thought would either trigger me or make me snap at him. Neither happened, but my distaste for him worsened with every passing day. I did everything in my power to keep him out of my personal life every moment we shared the same breathing space. My workday would go to shit every time I heard the fuckers voice or saw his goddamn receding hairline, no matter the distance in which it was spotted.

I vented my displeasure for Haak to Kaeda during one of our smoke breaks. Whenever I complained about a particular person, she found it amusing since she'd never heard such "real complaining" before she started to hang out with me.

As one particular smoke break started to end, she told me she signed up to go to Nagato as a guide and wished for me to go with her again, but this was stricter than our last venture, so she couldn't pull any strings.

I explained to her that I had never stepped foot there, but she insisted I try anyway. The signup sheet was a simple pen-to-paper ordeal. The rules were that the pairs would be ones that they found suitable as partners. Management knew about my recent adventure with Kaeda, so I figured it was already secured. However, I did not take into account that two Americans had just signed up to volunteer for this trip. At the end of the week, it was announced that my name was pulled in with Jame's.

"Great."

I knew better than to complain to my supervisors. Questioning them, especially as a foreigner, was out of the picture.

No matter the case, my friends dedicated themselves to throwing a celebration on this occasion for me since this was the first time I had been chosen for something hand-selected. But, again, I did not want to seem rude or disrespectful, so I agreed to go out for drinks and food the upcoming Friday after work.

My ghostly torments seemed to subside that day I received the bad news. When I got home, everything was untouched. The mask was on my table, and all my paperwork was stacked as I left it. I undressed, showered, smoked, and then got ready for bed, a routine I had grown accustomed to. I lounged around for the last hour before crashing on my bed.

Though the natural was left unaltered, my mind proceeded to have a dream that I remember thoroughly, even after all time had passed.

When it started, I was lying in bed. My room was black and red, with ungodly moans coming outside. I saw shadows stretching over the walls, morbid faces peeking and twisting as their expressions showed agony.