The Collectors

Siren

She is walking just in front of me, her soft brown curls bouncing. She is just as I remember her, in her white dress. Her black shoes slapping the pavement  beneath her feet. She is skipping on our way to school humming one of the hymns we had sung in church. She is giddy as she watches the wind twirl the leaves making them dance around her feet. She is so young, so innocent.

I can hear something in the distance, a siren. "Rosey!" I yell for her but she can't hear me. "Rosey! The siren!" She just continues to walk. What's the siren even for? I can't remember. It's something bad. Something very, very bad. The siren continues to scream, warning us. 'Run children!' It says. 'Run home!'

"Please, Rosey! We have to go!" I lunge for her grabbing her around her tiny waist dragging her away. I pick Rosey up, I begin to run, I see our house, I see mother her arms reaching for us. I sprint towards the cellar. I throw Rosey into Mother's arms. As she catches her she begins to reach up for me...

Someone is crying. It's me.

                I open my eyes still yelling for my sister but she isn't there. I am completely alone in the darkness of my bedroom. I can hear the wail of a police cruiser and curse under my breath. My breathing is ragged and I try to calm myself down. Hot tears were still falling freely from my eyes and I didn't even bother to stop them. I bring my knees up to my chest and squeeze my eyes shut trying to block out everything I had just seen. 

             There was a knock on the door, I ran my fingers through my hair and quickly wiped my face with the back of my hands. I opened the door into the dimly lit hallway. Levi stood in the doorframe his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Sorry." I mumbled. Lately the nightmares had been getting worse and I couldn't stop myself from screaming even if I wasn't consciously aware of it. He looked at me like I was some abandoned animal, something he had to take care of. "I'm fine, really. Sorry I woke you up." He shook his head and made his way inside. "You keep telling everyone you're fine, Poppy. We're not stupid, we know something's up. We're dead sure but we're not stupid."

             I know he meant the last comment as a joke, something to calm my nerves but all it did was make the nightmare even more real. "Just talk to me." He sat down on my bed, the sheets and blankets thrown about in my fit. "Seriously, just tell me what's wrong. We all have some pretty messed up shit we have to deal with. It's like post-traumatic death syndrome you talk through it and you'll feel better." He patted the spot next to him. "Promise."

           He was probably right, it probably would feel better to tell someone, anyone. I had been carrying around the weight of what happened that day for what felt like a lifetime. But I couldn't say it outloud. If I said it outloud than it made it real, then it wasn't some bad dream that I could try and forget about. "You just have to, uh, what's Birdy always saying? Oh, you just have to let go." He offered me a smile, a small dimple appearing on his right cheek. He took my hands in his, "Just let it go, Poppy." My lips quivered and I feared that the tears I had been trying so hard to conceal would reappear. I pulled my hands away, and noticed I was shaking slightly. "That's the problem." I confessed, "I did."