The Understudy (hiatus)

Chapter Twenty - Daniel

It comes back in waves. In fragments. Like the tide to the sandy shores of a beach, forever returning. It won't ever leave me alone. How it even started, I don't know. I had a good childhood. My adolescence wasn't the best, but it wasn't traumatic.
So can someone explain to me why I dream that I'm dying every night? What is up with that? I don't want to die. Why do I die every night?
Stacy from Uni used to call me Daniel in Wonderland because I had constant nightmares like Alice did. Whatever. I never told her what the subject of my nightmares were. She'd find me a shrink. She was like that, Stace. Always getting people the help she deemed fit.
But the scary thing is, it's always a different way... that I die, I mean. One night I'm drowning in a bathtub; another night I'm drowning in a sea of people; and then another night I'm drowning in sand and being buried alive. I've fell from soaring planes, I've been choked with my own belt, I've been cut in half by the Grand Canyon somehow. I'm crazy.
So that night when I'd died by having my ribs pulled out with tweezers and losing too much blood, jumping upright and shuddering awake, I decided that sleep wasn't for me. At least not tonight.
I jumped out of my bunk as quietly as I could. Pulling on a shirt to cover my bare torso, I heard a whisper.
''Dan?''
I turned slowly and faced the direction I thought the whisper had floated from. I was met with Tyde, leaning up on her elbows and staring at me. Her hair was perfectly sleek, meaning she couldn't have been in bed long or been to sleep at all. Usually in the morning, her hair was a massive nest of karma from tossing and turning in her sleep.
''What's wrong?'' she interrupted my staring, still whispering and looking at me wide-eyed.
I shook my head, left the bunks and walked downstairs into the kitchen area. I didn't want to tell Tyde that I was crazy. How can you tell your girlfriend of under a week that you're fucked up in the head? I flicked on the kettle and sighed, letting my forehead rest on the cupboard in front of me.
''Daniel,''
I bit my lip and met Tyde's gaze.
''Don't you walk away from me, please,''
I felt a wave of guilt rush over me. Slowly, I dragged my feet over to her body that was standing at the foot of the stairs. I pulled her into me, grabbing her hair and stroking it as I hugged her.
''I'm sorry, okay? I just get nightmares. I don't like to sleep,'' I mumbled, kissing the top of her head. She pulled away from me and looked up at me.
''Then why walk away from an insomniac?''

Ten minutes later, we were tangled up on the sofa with blankets and cups of tea. Talking.

Then I kissed her.
And I died for real that time.