Dominion

Dominion: Wednesday [1]

Wednesday [1]

His eyes snap wide open to a pitch black room, but all he can see is red. Deep, viscous, free-flowing red.

Wade can’t recall ever waking so violently from a dream in all his sixteen years – jerking upright in bed and gasping deep gutfuls of air – but then, he’s never had a nightmare as bad as this before. It’s left him shaky and cold, with veins like ice and tension running through every muscle in his body; even his teeth feel like they have been clenched far too long.

Instinctively, he hits the switch for his bedside lamp. Shadows scatter into hiding under furniture and into corners during that instant between light and dark, leaving behind his ordinary, familiar bedroom with its pale blue walls and rock band posters and strewn clothes. But the vision of bloodbaths and shredded flesh continues to swim behind his eye like a retina burn, and Wade presses the heel of his palm against his forehead in an attempt to block them out. He draws deeper breaths, slower breaths, to keep his pounding heart in check. The solidity of his room and all its contents makes it easier to dismiss the dream as pure figment... yet it was so lucid. Wade is no stranger to nightmares, but he can’t believe that even the darkest, most twisted part of his subconscious could have conceived something like that. The dream just came out of nowhere.

He sits there for an indeterminate amount of time before he feels safe enough to turn off the light. Shifting his legs, he kicks and picks at the sheets that have stuck to him in awkward ways while he was no doubt twisting and turning moments ago. The sheets are clammy with sweat and fall back with a certain stubbornness to cling to their awkward places. In the dark, the alarm clock to his side glows its LED-green numbers that read 3:00 AM, bright and crystalline. Wade eventually lies down, closes his eyes, and lets out a soft breath that carries away the last of his fear.

Creak.

In an instant, he is rigid as a rock again. Still under the sheets, he strains to hear the sound but it doesn’t come a second time. Did he imagine it? Floorboards creaking in the hallway? He can’t be sure. An internal debate begins tossing through his head: does he stay quiet or does he get up and investigate?

Somehow, inexplicably, the idea that this was not a coincidence, and that this was something he could not – should not – let go, takes root and grips him in a coil of dread. He’s never felt such conviction before, needing to know what was out there. How could he live with himself if something were to happen?

His curiosity wins out in the end.

Bare feet land on springy carpet. Wade gets off the bed and creeps slowly to the door, pressing his ear to the wood.

There’s another creak, right outside his room.

He freezes.

For half a minute, he waits in a kind of helpless paralysis with all options lost to him – just waiting like a lame duck because he’s positive that something is outside, and it knows. He waits for that crash to come: tearing down his door, spearing a bloody mess through his body, cold hands on his ankles and dragging him out by his feet, a yawning maw full of teeth, sudden screeches like a banshee on a derailing freight train...

The creak sounds again, this time further down the hallway.

Reality shifts back into him. Wade takes a chance and silently turns the handle, easing the door ajar, inch by inch, afraid to be discovered. Thankfully, the door doesn’t squeak. Nothing happens but for the waft of cold air from outside.

Cautiously, he sticks his head out when the gap is wide enough. His eyes are adjusted for darkness, so, when peering out into the moonlit hallway, he has no problem seeing the stark white smudge of a person in the corner of his eye. He almost bites his tongue off in shock.

Gaze darting in that direction, Wade sees a small figure in a white nightdress standing further down the hallway, faced away from him. It’s his sister.

His brows furrow at the sight, but the surreal environment and his lingering terror prevents him from making any overt gestures. There’s something wrong with this picture.

His sister isn’t moving.

What was she even doing out of bed? With no lights on?

“Sarah?” he breathes, barely a whisper. She doesn’t respond.

Was she sleepwalking?

Shit.

Steeling his nerves, Wade opens his door a bit more and slips out. Slinking his way towards her, he keeps his footsteps quiet and eyes steadily trained on her back. “Sarah,” he tries again, a little louder this time.

He’s hovering right behind her now, and that unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach has only grown heavier. This entire time, his little sister has been as still as a statue. Hasn’t moved a muscle. Wade looks down at her more closely and notices that he’s never seen this nightdress before. Where did she get it? It’s long-sleeved and old fashioned. No one in their family owned anything like it, not even their mother, and especially not Sarah who was more inclined to wear teddy bear pajamas to bed.

Gingerly, Wade stretches a hand out, and he can see that he’s shaking. He lays his hand on her shoulder to turn her around, and his heart makes a sickening plummet when he feels that her skin is dead cold under the layer of cotton.

But that’s nothing compared to the horror he gets when she does turn. For a moment, it looks as though she has no face at all.

He stumbles back with a cry and falls hard on his rear. She falls too – crumples like a ragdoll, by the looks of it, to the ground.

“Mom! Dad!” he screams. The light comes on in his parents’ bedroom, visible under the door. There’s a bit of noise, feet hitting the floor, and then the door pulls open.

“Wade, what is it?”

“Sarah, she’s –” he points to his sister’s fallen form, but cuts himself off when he sees her starting to sit up, groggy and confused. Her short hair is tousled, but as it falls over her face, he’s able to see in between the black strands that her face is fine. It’s all there: eyes, nose, mouth. She stares back at him, a little frightened and lost.

“What happened?” she asks. She doesn’t remember.

“Wade?” his mother prompts, also seeking answers from him.

“I thought...” He breaks off unfinished and decides it’s better that he keeps what he thought to himself. “I heard something and came out here, and I found Sarah.”

Sarah looks down at herself, still troubled. “I don’t know how I got here.”

Their mother lets out a sigh and bends down next to his sister. She wraps her arms around Sarah’s shoulders and helps her up. “You alright, honey? Jesus, you’re freezing. We’d better get you back to bed.” She pauses momentarily and looks at Sarah’s nightdress. “Honey, where’d you get this?”

“I don’t know.”

Wade watches his mother and sister go back down the hall to Sarah’s room. He brushes himself off and gets up, shaking his head. Such a strange night. He is about to return to his room as well, when he notices his older brother checking things out from his own doorway, having also been woken up by the incident.

“Everything OK, buddy?”

“Yeah.” Wade waves it off. “Sorry for waking you.”

Luke shrugs. “It’s nothing. You know, you scream like a girl.”

It brings a ghost of a smile to Wade’s face. “Whatever.”