What Memory Remains

Chapter 4

In restless dreams, a road stretches on forever in front of Zenapharr and he is alive with fear. The road is the only thing there, inky blackness all around it. Something is chasing him, so he runs but never gets anywhere. Fire soon begins raining down on him and all he can do is run, dodging the searing flames. Accompanied by this is a sea of disembodied faces, contorted and disfigured, some known and some unknown, and they angrily pursue him. They never let up and slowly catch up to him. Just as they are about to touch him, they disappear and so does the road.

Surrounded by a jet-black nothingness, he is somehow still standing on some invisible sheet. It’s disorienting as he is neither here nor there. He tries to walk straight for a moment or two, and feels sick from not going anywhere when he sees a small speck of something in the distance and he trudges on. Finally, the scene comes into view and he sees an alleyway. The moonlight dances on the pavement, reflecting the scene of two bodies. One is a middle-aged man, lying on his stomach atop a pool of blood. The other is a young boy, no older than eight or nine. He lies on his back in a similar fashion, and Zenapharr stops in his tracks.

Immense guilt starts to drown him, and he turns to get away but not before he is frozen in place. In horror, he watches as the deceased boy sits up and stares intently into Zenapharr. He raises one arm in accusation at Zenapharr. No words are exchanged, but the message is clear.

            “You did this,” the boy’s voice reverberates in Zenapharr’s head.

            “No! I—I didn’t.”

            “When will it stop? Look at what you’ve done!”

            “It was accident! I wasn’t trying to…”

            “There’s blood on your hands, Zenapharr.”

Wide-eyed, Zenapharr looks down at his hands to see they are drenched in blood, so much that it’s dripping onto the pavement in small streams. For the first time that he could remember, the blood didn’t fill him with joy. Not only that, it made him feel true guilt.

            “No, no!” Zenapharr cries. He falls to the ground and curls into a fetal position. Soon, the blood begins moving of its own accord, coming alive and begins to cover him. As much as he struggles and claws at his hands, the blood does not cease to envelope him.

            “Stop it! Stop, ahhh!” The blood begins to cover him wholly, entering his mouth, his ears, his eyes, then everything fades to black.

            “That is quite the dream,” a soothing female voice adds. Zenapharr is quiet for a moment, feeling the realness of the dread in his mind. He felt odd, telling something so personal and strange. This was the first time he’d ever told anyone this dream that had haunted him.

The voice was that of Dr. Ellen Monroe, the psychiatrist assigned to him, to which he had been confiding to for the past week. Much to his surprise, he actually felt…relieved in a strange way. It never occurred to him how much talking to someone organized his thoughts, and began to make sense of all that was going on.

            “How long have you been having this dream?” She asked, pushing her glasses up on her petite nose as she scribbled some notes down on her clipboard.

            “About six months ago.” Zenapharr said flatly, feeling exhausted.

            “I see. Do these dreams scare you out of your own sleep? Keep you awake at night?”