The Pedestrian » Zarry ✅

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Late at night, Zayn began to stir in his sleep. Deep in the depths of his dreams, faint whistling g sounds whirled all around from here to there. The sounds would lower and heighten, stop suddenly then continue again.

In a way, it was like a song. Sort of delicate and familiar. But also sad and lonely. Then slowly things changed. Zayn's dream started to fade away and what was once delicate became eary. The whistling sounds became screeches and ear piercing wails. It was unsettling. So much so that Zayn awakened from his sleep in a heavy sweat.

Ordinarily when someone would awaken from sleep, whatever they were dreaming about vanished. In fact, awaking from sleep is considered the very escape from nightmares and bad dreams. But what would happen when a person awakened and the dream hadn't ended?

That was exactly what was happening to Zayn.

What he thought was wailing was just that. It was the sound of a woman crying.

What made this so peculiar was that no woman lived in his- their apartment. So who was crying?

He looked down at Harry to see if he heard the crying and had also awaken. It was too dark to see but he could still hear him sleeping soundly. Zayn was not just going to let him sleep though. A crying woman who sounded like she was just outside their bedroom was just too far from ordinary.

"Harry." He whispered.

"Do you hear that?"

When Harry didn't wake, Zayn began to shake him.

"Harry. Wake up. Do you not hear that?"

He frantically shook him. But his efforts went ignored. Why was Harry sleeping so hard?

Annoyed by him, Zayn turn on his lamp, got out of bed, and slipped on his house shoes. Then he carefully treaded to their bedroom door. After opening it, he peeked his head out.

"Um, hello, is anybody there?"

"Zayn." A voice said.

As soon as Zayn heard it, he recognized it as his mother's voice.

"Ma? Is that you? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Zayn, my baby. I'm so sorry."

"Ma? What are you doing here? Why are you sorry? What happened?"

"I'm here, baby. Don't worry. Mama's here."

"Where?"

He began frantically running through the apartment, looking for his mother. By the time he finished searching every room he still couldn't find her. Still, he heard her cries of agony as if she was right there next to him.

"Ma, I can't find you. Where are you?"

"It's okay, baby. I have to go for a while but you'll be fine. You will."

"Ma?... Ma! MA!"

For the first time since he woke up, the cries began to diminish. And they continued to do so until they completely faded away into silence.

"Hello?" Zayn called out.

"Are you there?"

Completely confused by what was going on, Zayn slowly made his way back to the bedroom. When he arrived, Harry was sitting up in bed.

"Is everything okay? He asked.

Zayn rolled his eyes.

"Oh, now you're awake. Everything is over now."

"What's over?"

"Nothing. Go back to bed."

Zayn plopped down on his side of the bed and stared towards the door. Then he felt a hand on his back.