Silhouettes

Dreams

I : Dreams

Adam Stevens shot up in bed, sweat lining his forehead and edges of his slightly feminine face. The princess-queen in his dream was all too real for his liking, and her voice – her childish, deadly voice – still echoed, laughing, in his head. He shuddered. Her immature tones as she ordered the death of a woman and her family, who were much older than her, were not going to be easy to forget for a while. Swinging out of bed, he looked at the worn clock on his bedside table and groaned. It was half past five in the morning. He wasn’t due at work until eight, so his plans were intending on a lie-in.

Now that I’m up, I might as well make myself a coffee, he thought grudgingly while throwing on his dark red dressing gown.

Groggily, he dragged his feet across the carpeted floor to shuffle from his bedroom to the kitchen across the hall. He lived in a comfortable, plain flat by himself in central London, which was all he needed to write his articles. He was happy there – anything was better than living in the slums, if he had to go back he’d be alone this time.

Hitting the switch on the kettle violently as he passed it, he retrieved his favourite Star Wars mug from the cupboard, along with the sugar and instant coffee packet from the shelf above. The fridge was opened with the hand which wasn’t carrying the mug, sugar pot and coffee, milk taken from the fridge and the door kicked shut. He dropped everything on the kitchen top surface in relief and stretched his arms, yawning.

The kettle was still boiling excruciatingly slowly, so he paced around his flat for a minute before glancing at the previous day’s newspaper, discarded on the table. Another rush of pride swept through him when he saw his name on the front page, ‘written and edited by Adam Stevens, editor’. It had been a long while before he had made the front page with his own article, accompanied by endless sleepless nights and weeks of gathering information from so many different sources – books, the Internet, people – it was ridiculous.

He walked through the hallway to go and collect the post he had failed to pick up the day before – he had dragged himself in from work and collapsed onto the bed without noticing the envelopes on the floor. He went down the stairs to the front door, picked up the lonely, dusty post and started to shuffle through them as he retreated back upstairs. He hardly bothered to even read what was on the front, knowing what they were just from the handwriting. Bills, more bills, a letter from his mother (who was currently on holiday in Spain despite her old age), adverts and others he couldn’t be bothered with.

Ripping the unwanted adverts and other letters – including his mother’s one – and throwing the remains into the bin, he heard the squeal of the kettle as it finished boiling. Adam picked up the vibrating kettle and poured the hot water into the mug, watching his coffee begin to take form. Humming to himself, he finished making the coffee with three spoons of sugar and a dash of milk, took the coffee to the sofa, then, putting the mug on the floor first, threw himself onto the sofa.

He would have turned on the TV, but knowing nothing would be on at the ridiculous hour of the morning, he settled for staring at the blank screen and replaying his dream in his head and onto the screen, while sipping his coffee thoughtfully.

The place itself, he decided, didn’t look like a place existing on Earth, despite all of the castles and crappy weather in most places. The people looked human enough, the same as me and other guys and girls. But there was just an inhuman quality about it… like it isn’t as real as it wants me to think… maybe there’s something on it on the Internet…

He jumped up, downed his coffee in one and ran towards his bedroom to get changed. It was half past six now, he hadn’t realised how quickly time had gone while he was immersed in his thoughts.