The Morning After the SMI
My head pounds, my mouth is painfully dry. My hands and stomach clench tightly around nothing. My fingers are stiff and swollen, and don't appreciate the gesture.
Despite all warnings, I crack open one eye. Sun filters in through the blinds, its half-arsed attempt at golden late-morning light catching on dust motes stirred in its meagre warmth.
I would kill a man for a glass of water.
Apparently past-me had thought of now-me; there's a full glass on my nightstand that splits the morning light into its components.
I close my eyes, pinch the bridge of my nose. I need to go check on Mum.
Neil is probably out by now, prowling the city with some friend or other; it's been my job these last few weeks to look after Mum while she heals.
That mugging had been hell.
Neil, Mum, and I had been walking home from Tesco's one evening when a person whose face I never quite registered appeared before us. All I can recall is grocery bags splitting at our feet, spilling their contents. A broken jar of coffee exploding, fine brown crystals and bits of glass like shrapnel on the pavement. A knife flashing in the streetlight before stabbing Mum in the shoulder, bony hands knocking me down.
I remember waking up in the hospital. They'd patched both of us up, but Mum had lost a lot of blood; while I'd regained consciousness relatively quickly, she stayed out of commission for far longer. If Neil remembers any of it, he hasn't said.
She's only been home a few days, and I need to go set her up for the day before I journey out on another day of job-hunting.
First, though, comes sitting up. Today is not going to be pretty.
One Week 'Til Midsummer
After all the calamity since the mugging, it's nice to finally settle into a routine. I nab a summer job at a shop right around the corner on Rye Lane, a little vintage and secondhand shop called The Time Warp. Days float by, and Mum heals in increments. The only thing that doesn't improve are the nightmares.
Night blackens nearly everything, except for the face of a monster looming over me, glowing yellow goat-eyes and stained fangs that drip venom like a viper's. That broken coffee jar, dark brown crystals spilled and scattered on the kitchen floor. Someone screaming, but I can't see who. My own face, reflected back at me as the monster steals it. Then another face, a guy whose familiarity only exists in dream-logic. We have to stop her--me--the monster--but I can't move. I can't scream. I can't breathe--
I jerk awake, my throat ratcheted and sore from the noises I couldn't make. My heart pounds in my ears, and I try to suck in air, hold it. These nightmares haven't stopped since the mugging.
A car passes by outside, its lights sliding between the gaps in the blinds and across my walls like a lighthouse beacon. Safe harbour.
"Just a psychological thing," I mutter, echoing the words of the psychologist there at the hospital.
Breathe. In on one, out on two. This never stops being scary, I should know.
He had been kind, if stern.
In my half-asleep state, I wonder idly if he does counseling anywhere, or if it's only at the hospital. I should find out.
Need to go back to sleep. I've got work in the morning.
YOU ARE READING
The Nightmares of Under-London
خيال (فانتازيا)Eighteen-year-old Eden discovers her mother has lied to her for as long as she's been alive: her father is not dead. He's alive, and somewhere in London. The main problem? Not only is her father not dead, he's also not human.
