Life Is A Nightmare

Chapter Eight: What I Remember

(Jayden)

I wait for sleep to claim me but when it does I want to wake up. I feel my heart pounding in my chest as I feel myself fall to the floor and my breath is stripped from me. 

As I struggle to open my eyes and see something the darkness fades and I see Vivian. She's standing over me with her once full of life eyes a dark contrast to what I see now. "Why did you take us here Jayden?" she asks, grinning as I notice the blood dripping down onto me from her wounds.

Every part of me wants to shut my eyes tight. I want to avoid what's going on. I don't want to face her like I used to every single night in a form of a nightmare. "I didn't bring you here." I hear myself answer without thinking.

"Yes, you did." she kneels down next to me. "You brought me here to kill me Jayden."

"No..." No this isn't real. None of this is real. None of this is what happened. I didn't hurt her. I didn't kill Vivian like everyone says. I couldn't have when I remember seeing her. I remember opening my eyes and seeing the scarecrow standing over me. "He did."

"You let it happen." she says disappearing before my eyes.

Screams echo in the empty darkened house I don't feel safe in. Screaming for help, screaming for it to end and I don't want to hear it. I want to escape but I'm unable to move. Unable to do anything laying on the floor as Vivian reappears standing next to me. 

She smiles wide with a knife in her hand. "What are you doing?" fear runs through me. 

"You let him kill me Jayden!" she screams piercing the knife into her stomach. "You let him do this!!"

Over and over I watch her stab herself and there is nothing I can do but watch. Watch and wish I could stop her, stop her death from happening but I can't. I can't do anything. 

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I wake up in a sweat sitting up on the bed as my heart pounds. It was just a nightmare. Just another dream. I tell myself but the dream itself stays in my head. 

I knew what was happening wasn't real as I started to drift to sleep. None of it was real but knowing that didn't change anything. I was still trapped saying and thinking thoughts I haven't thought in years. 

I try to shake the thoughts away as I lay back down and stare at the ceiling in the dark as the rain pours outside. I hate thunderstorms just as much as I hate slipping back into the past I haven't been able to avoid since Gavin visited. 

I was fine a month ago living here. I was fine with Jordan the one person I can rely on. I could talk to him and dream about what I knew wasn't going to happen but I had some form of happiness in it. I let go of the person dressed up as a scarecrow I know Gavin couldn't have seen.

There is no scarecrow because the scarecrow doesn't exist. He never did. He was a figment of my imagination as my brain played tricks on me. I made him up to take the fall for what I did to Vivian. I wanted to believe it was him and not me. I told everyone there was to tell about him, the detectives, my dad, and Dr. Chamberlain but it wasn't true.

I didn't face the truth until after I was sent here and I had no way to escape it. I had to talk about it. I needed to let go and that's why Gavin bringing up something he might have read or heard our dad say is torturing me further. Pulling me back and swallowing me whole again as he continues to have this need to keep digging through the past for something I can't understand.

What is he getting out of this? What more does he want? Why did he visit and tell me he seen something no one else can see?

There is no one out there. No one followed me and no one is following him, yet why is he forcing me to go back to the past to consider it? Why is his visit from yesterday giving me nightmares and keeping me up?