THE QUADRET

01

Daniel's POV

September 1, 2018

Quadret City, New York

I wake up for the fifth time this week from the same nightmare that leaves my mouth dry, and my hands shaking. My whole body is covered with a thin layer of sweat from the panic and shock that I felt just a few moments ago. I remember staring out the window of a small car, probably something along the lines of an old Volkswagen. I noticed cars passing by me unnecessarily fast- not because they were going way too fast, but because we were. I knew there were more people in the car with me as I could hear someone talking on the phone but I couldn't understand the exact words. I felt a sense of panic and horror growing rapidly inside my head as the car continued to move faster and faster. As soon as it made a right into a street called "Kafter St," I closed my eyes because tears started to escape. It was as if I knew what was going to happen next.

When the car finally crashed, my whole body jerked forward from the impact. I heard a blood curling scream from outside and instantly knew that we had hit someone. The vehicle jerked to a stop and I heard the driver leave. I slowly opened my eyes and touched my forehead only to feel the warm liquid slowly dripping down the side of my head. I was bleeding. I desperately looked around me, crying, trying to find someone to help me, but the only other person with me was a boy on the other side of the car. It seemed as if he had hit his head on the window and lost conscience. I slowly turned his head to face me but shock quickly took over my body as I soon realized who I was looking at.

And that feeling of shock is what I was left to deal with as I sat up in my bed at 4 am with my hands curled into a hard fist. But as I overcame the shock and panic following my nightmare, I was welcomed with another feeling I hated to experience: anger. I could never remember the face of the boy sitting next to me, no matter how hard I tried, and that made me angry at the whole situation. It made the whole nightmare seem meaningless somehow. I lay awake for countless hours at night trying to remember him, but all my attempts proved worthless.

Unlike most of my dreams that I can usually control and twist around so it would always work in my favor, I could never pull the strings on this one. I feel trapped in my own head, unable to change a single thing; even though I know it's just a dream. It's as if... as if it was real life. It leaves me feeling emotions that I try so hard to block. I usually don't even have to try, as I have seen what happens to those who let their emotions control their actions.

Ashley Brace jumped off the fifth floor of the only hotel here in Quadret City. To me, it didn't seem like such a big deal as deaths were as common as rainy days for me, but everyone else seemed to be majorly impacted by the loss of one irrelevant human life that probably wouldn't matter to them after about a week or so. I do feel sorry for Brace, not for whatever happened in her life to push her off the building, but for not being able to control her emotions and letting them control her instead. I did not know her, but I have witnessed, first hand, enough heartbreaks and events to know what happens when we overdose on the hard drugs known as human emotions. It fills me with regret that so many of us, like Brace, don't, and instead, embrace them with open arms.

Where I live, shots are fired daily, and I mean literal ones. School shootings don't really surprise us anymore, even though I consider myself lucky as my school hasn't been a victim to that kind of a bloodbath yet. Most of the kids here don't even have two parents, or even one, to look up to as a role model. The cops have pretty much given up on us by now. I know our life isn't the best, but over time, we chose to get over it and deal with the cards dealt to us. In ways, it has strengthened us, we have experienced more tragedies than most people our age should have. But being strong and being numb are two different things. When you have been beaten up so many times that your senses stop functioning, you don't really have to be strong in order to endure it.