A Descent into Darkness

A Morning Run

I jolt awake to the sound of Veronica's voice. Suddenly, I'm in my bed, the light is on, and Veronica is bent over me. She's shaking me, a frantic look on her face. "Nate, it's okay, it's just me!"

"What...what's going on?" I'm still disoriented by the transition from sleep to a woken state. I move slightly and feel the sheets stained with my own sweat.

"I was coming in to draw genitals on your face, you know, first step in my revenge for this," she motions toward her purple hair, a marker in her hand "but you were freaking out in your sleep. Bad dream? Night terror?"

I sit up in bed and shuffle back against the headboard, taking slow deep breaths. I'm still feeling remnants of the fear I was experiencing in the dream. Which is unusual in itself. Normally, when the woman moving around like a character out of The Evil Within shows up, my mind is able to connect the dots and realize that I'm dreaming, thereby converting the dream to a lucid state. But that didn't happen here. My mind was too panicked to grasp it.

"Nate?" Veronica sounds worried.

"I'm fine. Was just a pretty detailed dream."

And that it was. You know how normally when you wake up from a dream, the memory of the dream is suddenly a lot more blurred than when you were experiencing it? This one is still clear as day in my head. But it wasn't a memory, right? While yes, the first part was a pretty accurate recreation of when I was waiting in the closet, there's no way I was trapped and taunted by Rachel and the dead body of my victim.

Attempted victim. Stop talking like you killed her. You didn't. Right?

I now feel myself dogged with doubt. What if I did something worse that night and am in such extreme denial that I've forgotten? Oh God, what if the dream was right and I am a killer?

"Nate, what are you doing?" Veronica asks as I grab my phone from the nightstand and open the Google search. I intentionally avoided reading the news after the incident. There must have been something that tells me if she's alive or dead.

Markham. Ontario. Homicide. 2019. November. Female. I hit search. The first result is a Markham born woman who was stabbed by her boyfriend in his Toronto apartment that month. Subsequent search results only decrease in relevance from what the incident I'm thinking of.

Okay, that's reassuring. But not definitive.

I add the word, Attempted, to the search. Nothing more relevant appears. I try searching, Attacked in home. Nothing. I move over to the York Region Police website and scroll down news releases from four months ago. Nothing.

I feel the fear building again. Even if an attempted murder is small fry for the media given everything happening in the world today, the police surely would have out a press release or something, right? Unless the woman never called them? Ugh, this is making me sweat even more!

"Nate, that look on your face is scaring me."

I ignore her and instead, check my watch. It's 5:33 in the morning on Saturday. In less than half an hour, an opportunity should present itself to put my mind at ease. I push the covers down and swing my feet off the bed. "I'll be right back. Going out for a quick run."

"What?" Veronica now sounds even more confused. "Nate, we went to bed two hours ago. Don't you want to sleep some more?"

I point toward the marker in her hand. "What, and let you have another chance for revenge? No thank-you."

In truth, I would have gladly walked around with a dick on my forehead all day if it gave me some peace of mind. But the only way to do that will be to see for myself.