Forked Roads Back

80 - ARCHIE

I WAKE UP SHAKING uncontrollably.

Trying to breathe, I slap at myself all over, trying to shake off the nightmare. It's been months since I've had one, and this one was so much worse than I'd ever had before.

Sweat is dripping down my back and face as I try to push the cruel images out of my head. I close my eyes, try to slow my breathing, holding my hand over my heart as I feel it start to calm.

I sit up, running my hand through my hair. This one was worse... but in a horrifying new way.

It started off as normal as my dreams can be... The usual terror, the screaming, the sound of metal on metal, the grating the sound of whirring machinery around us. I dream of the tumbling, the weightlessness I remember when the car was wheeling, the pain as my body was pierced by flying pieces of debris and scrap metal. I dreamed I died all over again.

I would have been able to pull myself out of it, after years of practice, if it hadn't evolved.

I dreamed of what happened afterwards, even though Matt never would have seen it. I dreamed of the tearful conversations flash past my eyes, as I tossed and turned, having no idea if they were real or not. I prayed they weren't.

I saw the effort Tessa went to to try and help me. I could see how helpless she felt, wondering why she wasn't able to get through to me. The day I came back from the hospital, I remember how angry she was with me, pushing me, shouting at me to let her in. She was losing patience with me, wondering why I was being as detached as I was, and whether it was something she had done. At the time I didn't know it, but in my dream I wanted to reach out and touch her, tell her that it was entirely me, and that she just had to wait. I would come back to her... and all she had to do was wait.

But as I thought that, the dream changed again.

I started to see life as if I had never existed. It was my friends, my family, all the people I hold dear to me living their lives. Only there was a difference.

That first day of school. I saw Tessa's face as the three new girls entered the classroom. I saw how she took no interest, no welcoming, toothless smile, no bright eyes, just an uninterested expression as she mocked the teacher behind her back.

It keeps going. Tessa in classes at school, her and Matt arguing, her and Andy arguing... her and Callum together, as if she hadn't been able to see through what an idiot he was. I was shouting at her to snap out of it but she couldn't hear me. No one could.

As the dream went on, I suddenly realised that I was in a parallel universe, where my parents had decided not to have me, and it scared me that so much was different, just because of one person.

Clutching at any kind of silver lining, the fact that Matt was still alive, it was completely overshadowed by the fact that he wasn't playing football. Instead, he was overweight, unhappy, and by the end of the dream, he seemed to be an out of work drunk, spending his days picking fights with people, rather than embracing his potential.

The same happened for Tessa. As the dream sped through all these different scenes, I tried to wake up, to try and tell myself that none of this was real, that it would all be okay if I could just open my eyes. But I couldn't. The dream had me trapped, and I just had to wait and endure what it was showing me, waiting as this horrible, parallel life flashed in front of my eyes.

After Matt and Tessa, it took me to my dad. It took me to a reality where he took his frustrations on my mum, and on Millie. It was heart-breaking so see how close to breaking point she was, and more than once I called out to her, trying to tell her that I was here, that it wasn't real. She had no one to depend on, and she was all alone as Dad came after her again and again, and I watch as she does what I did to avoid suspicion. She pretends to be sick for PE, hides herself in layers of clothing, and doesn't let anyone near her.