Dream of Me

November 25

I walked around the hospital for about an hour, observing the people with purpose hurrying about. I tried digging deep into myself. I needed to know what was so important—what I was missing even though I could feel it within me trying to reach the surface. Nothing worked, and I ended up back in the small room dedicated to my father's impending long stay. Upon first glance, I thought he was finally sleeping peacefully, but when he heard me he looked straight at me, a weakened version of the man that had always been so strong for me.

"August," he coughed, clearing his throat after the first speech in hours broke through, "where did you go?"

"I was just walking around the building. I had a dream. Something important that I can't remember. It's driving me crazy and I can't for the life of me figure out what—" then I remembered where I was and why. "But how are you feeling? Did anyone come while I was gone? Do you need anything?" He smiled, betraying a slight discomfort at my interrupting myself to remind him of his, our, situation.

"I'm fine, don't worry. No one came that I remember. Have a seat, son, there's something I want to talk to you about."

"Okay," I uttered reluctantly. I didn't want another death talk because he wasn't going to die. "What is this about?"

"A few nights ago, when you woke up and felt like something was wrong, then came to find me... how did you know something was wrong? And how did you know it was with me?"

"Oh," I stalled, not wanting to tell him, worry him, expose my own long held secret, "um." That's all I could say for a while, fully aware that I was in no ways gracefully avoiding the question.

"August, you can tell me," he looked at me, nothing but care and concern in his eyes, and knowledge. Like he already knew what had happened but needed me to tell him first.

"I had a dream," I finally breathed out, "that you were in the hospital, that we all were here, in a room just like this, and you were dying of cancer. I woke up crying and ran around the house, looking for you."

"Ah," he sighed, "and you think that your dream caused this?" I paused. I didn't remember revealing anything more than a regular, normal dream that had worried me to the point of finding him­; just a coincidence, anyone else would think.

"Well," I stammered, "It did. I know I didn't mean for it to happen, but," I struggled through the words, "things that happen in my dreams, they carry over into real life when I wake up. Like when dreaming about getting into a car accident, I'll wake up with scratches on my face. Nothing worse than a few bruises or cuts. And until now, until this, I thought it only applied to me. But now I'm terrified to go to sleep. What else will happen? Who else will get hurt because of this?" I started to tear up, ashamed of my vulnerability but mostly angry and afraid of what my mind was capable of worlding.

"I was afraid of this," he confided, "and your mother was too."

"What?" I was sure I misheard.

"Your mother was concerned that her—condition—would be passed on to you or Addison, or both. When you were younger, almost all of my time was devoted to resourching possible ways to get around this, to stop this transcendent dreaming, as we began to call it. There's no scientific explanation. There's no cure. I was searching like a mad man, especially when she told me about..." he paused now, unsure of how much to reveal to me about my mother and her condition. "There was a complication. She didn't know what her dreams were capable of either, until circumstances went out of control. The few days before she died, she was terrified that something was going to take her away from us, and she begged me to find a way to get rid of this 'curse' she called it if it showed up in either of you," he motioned at Addison. "But I can't. I haven't. I don't know what else to do or where else to go. I can't find anything that will stop this," now he was tearing up, beginning to shake because of his feelings of inadequacy and helplessness, not to mention sickness.

"It's not your fault," I reached to him, grabbing the overlapped arm over his chest, "I'll be okay. But what about you. What about anyone else that I randomly dream about?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "your mother never dreamed any harm to others, only herself. It's not your fault that this came into your dream. You can't decide what to dream."

I vowed a silent oath to never sleep again, but after three days of forcing myself awake and drinking every available cup of coffee in the hospital, I passed out on the cot that the nurses had brought for Addison and I to share.

Chapter 16s

"That was strange," I said slowly, after the men and the vehicle had disappeared over the mountain and we had somehow made ourselves free of any threat, for now.

"Yes, it was," my companion agreed, an almost vehement ice to his words. "Why would you say those things to them? Do you want to get us killed?"

"Get us killed? How would I get us killed? You're the one that has us hanging off cliffs a thousand miles in the air and pitching tents on the icy ledge. But I'm the one that's going to kill us, right?"

"You're right," he/she answered, "but what I'm doing is what is supposed to happen here. What you're doing is extra and unneeded. I'm going to protect you as much as I can, but if you're going to keep running your mouth, it's not going to be easy for me."

"I don't need another lecture, okay?" I yelled, exasperated with this vague and crass mountain guide that I continued returning to.

"Okay," the figure responded dully, "no need to yell."

We started heading down the mountain, for no revealed reason, just because my guide decided to, apparently.