The World Through Various Eyes

[3] One Friend (Alex's POV)

I woke up, flustered and sweaty. My hand flew to the edge of the blanket and tore it off, flinging it across the room and onto a nearby chair. Tired, groggy eyes blinked open and I took in my surroundings. A lot had changed. Instead of the large, frighteningly silent place that I had been in moments ago, I was back home and in no harm. I checked my wrists for impressions most likely left by the ropes that had bound them, but nothing.

No evidence was left of what had happened just minutes ago, except my memories.

Was it all just my imagination? All the clues seemed to stack up that way. There was no way of telling that I had actually experienced all of that. But my memories... they were so detailed! All the colors, patterns, sounds, smells; they were so memorable. So vivid. So intricately crafted. It couldn't all be a dream. It was like a typical cop-out in movies. Tons of action occurs and it leads up to something crazy, but it's all just a figment of the main character's imagination. I always hated those endings.

But this was hardly the ending. This was a beginning. Something had happened to put me in that place, wherever it was, with all the crazy rooms. This wasn't my imagination. I had felt it with my five senses, and I wasn't about to just forget and move on. It seemed so improbable, yet so real.

All of me was saying to leave it in the past, and save myself the trouble. Nobody would believe me. Everyone, just like any sane human, would write it off as a massively creative dream. They might even praise me for having a brain capable of producing such an inventive and persuasive vision, but they wouldn't believe me for a second if I claimed it was real.

Sure dreams could be detailed- but remembering so much of them? Uncommon to say the least. I had been sleeping no longer than five minutes ago, right? Or had I? I really wasn't sure of anything anymore. How had I somehow traveled or been transported to the land of magic and utter impossibility? I had never believed in anything like that. That is, until I lived it. I was conscious during this "dream", I knew it.

There was no way that I hadn't been. I felt so much like I was perseverating on a dead issue. I wanted to drop it, but I couldn't just forget the semi-conscious feeling that my little nap had imbued in me. It felt like I had stepped into a video game, and I was playing a character. I felt separated from whoever I had been then. I didn't feel like myself at all. It was like sleep-walking, or that's at least how I would have imagined it to feel like.

I really had no experience on the subject of it.

I convinced myself just to push it out of my mind long enough to sit up. I arose, which took more effort than I expected it to. My neck was stiff. My throat was like a desert. My eyes found their way to the counter in front of my line of vision, and spotted a big jug of soda. The vibrant label exclaimed "Yum! Soda", the off-brand Fanta that the local Willow Grove, Massachusetts grocery stories carried. Where did it come from? I didn't remember buying it. Ah well, what did I remember?

I turned back, repositioning my body so I was sitting up, my back sinking into the couch, and my legs on the coffee table. A vibrating noise was barely audible, coming from what sounded like underneath the couch. For some reason, I dove straight for it. It was my phone, I was sure of it.

In the past, I had been told that I was too dependent on that thing. Friends, even my own mom, told me I was addicted to using it. It was one of my prized possessions, though. Of all the technology I owned, it was one of my favorites despite its age and the fact that it was considered somewhat outdated. It had been a nineth birthday present along with my credit card, back when we were well off with money.

Finding it wasn't too hard; it had fallen in plain sight, if you counted crawling on your hands and knees to peer down at dust bunnies under a ratty old couch "in plain sight". It took me a second, but when my cell illuminated to reveal a new message, I reached for it and pushed it towards me, getting it out from underneath.

Who could possibly be messaging me, though? I wasn't exactly popular. From the time I had gotten my phone to this moment, no one, if any, had jumped at the chance to communicate digitally with Alexander Swaltz--or in any way for that matter. My whole life, I could only remember giving my number to a few people besides my own family. Come to think of it, I could only think of one person I had given my number to that would actually take me up on my offer to text me. That only left one possible candidate...

Jade.

"Where were you today?" I struggled to read.

The bright back light on my phone reflected off of my glasses, making me realize my they were smudged. As I swiped them off, and rubbed their lenses between my shirt, a chill went down my spine and spread to my whole body in one continuous wave. It was just like in my dream.

Forget it, Alex; you're just cleaning your glasses. It's such a normal action.

But something about it reminded me of the events I was trying to forget. My startled self tried harder and harder to push the dream out of my thoughts, but the more I tried, the more it stuck. If I was trying to solidify the dream in my mind, I seemed to be doing a fine job of it.

I slipped my glasses back on, and took another look at the brown "One New Message" screen. My phone was so old that it had the little sliding QWERTY keyboard, no touch screen, and the standard number keypad. I pressed the center key to view my message.

Although the backlight was still glowing harshly, my eyes didn't take too long to adjust, and my fingers immediately found the keyboard, both eager and anxious to reply. Before I could even start my response, my cell vibrated again, alerting me of yet another message. I pressed to view it, and a puzzled expression formed on my face.

"Why haven't you been talking to me lately? Are you mad? Please respond.."

What?

What the hell did these mean? My heart raced as I struggled to piece together her cryptic messages. The letters of each word kept going through my brain as I attempted to process what I had just read. Had I missed something? I couldn't recall anything substantial happening between us. Jade wasn't the kind of person to ever be serious.

All of our conversations, text and verbal, were always some sort of elaborate joke, or contained a good amount of sarcasm. It was how I coped, and it was how she appealed to the language I spoke. The language of a broken boy and the harsh reality he lived in but tried in vain to ignore. I was noticing a pattern; I sure loved running from my problems.

Reading and re-reading the short message, I had began to panic, a slight sweat forming on my forehead, and my breathing becoming heavy and shallow. What was it with me today? Was this my new normal: freaking out irrationally and having to deal with the consequences? I was just making a big deal out nothing; wasn't I?

My fingers pressed hard on the keyboard, their movement swift and efficient. I hit send promptly, and awaited her reply.