The Dreamer

Chapter 26

Sarah trashed in bed; every time she started slipping away, her mother's face appeared in her dreams, at times angry, at times crying, regardless, Sarah woke up instantly in a panic.

"Damn it, I need to sleep," she said while looking at the time. She had barely been in bed for two hours.

She felt tempted to ingest sleep aids, but it would be no different than being medicated, which at any cost she would avoid. She sat on the bed and looked outside her window; the streets were deserted. She pinched herself to see if she was indeed awake. Nowadays, the lines between being asleep and awake had been blurred.

"I need to sleep," she said, and stubbornly laid back down and closed her eyes.

Within minutes, she had drifted away again. This time she didn't see her mother. However she found herself in her childhood home. I am dreaming, she though. I am in my apartment, besides this house was taken by the bank and most likely somebody else owns it.

She proved herself by walking up the stairs and heading into her room. The room was different than the last time she had slept there. Her posters were gone; her mirror was different; in fact, all her furniture was different. The bed was facing the window instead of the wall. Besides that... Oh God, She saw a little boy sleeping in her bed. She took a step back and bumped into the wall. She put her hand on the paper texture and felt her skin touching the design.

Something is different. She was dreaming, but she was there, there. The boy started moving and making soft noises and Sarah chose to tiptoe out of the room. The next room used to be Sophie's. She opened it gently, and saw another boy, a teenager in the bed. Like her own room, everything was different. A guitar rested against the wall. There was an entertainment center that hadn't been there before. The wall was covered with license plates. There was however someone else in the room. Sarah wasn't sure, but it looked like a woman. She stood in front of the window looking outside. Sarah didn't need to see her face to know she was filled with grief. The shape turned to face her.

Sarah stood perplexed, her throat dry and her eyes wide. The young girl stared with a pleasant smile. She spoke with a whisper, Sally?

Sarah gasped. She hadn't been called that in twenty years, and the last person who called that had been Sophie. The usual energy that Sophie irradiated filled the room. Sarah could fell once again the warmness of her heart. The room still looked the same way she had found it, but now Sarah could see that at the same time, the room Sophie had inhabited was there as well.

Sally, you need to let it go, the spectral image said as she took a step closer towards Sarah.

Sarah muffled a yelp and took a sharp step back bumping hard into the wall, making the teenager jump from the bed.

The next instant she is sitting down in the middle of the road, outside of her house. The lights in Sophie's bedroom are on, the lights in the next bedroom come on, and lastly the lights in the master bedroom. Sarah doesn't see Sophie anymore in the window. Grasping her heart, Sarah screams and cries. It was her. Sarah's sounded the same, a low whisper resembling her calmness of heart, although she could be loud when she was excited about something. The room felt warm as she used to feel. Sarah hugged herself, and bent forward resting her forehead in the pavement. The tears didn't stop streaming. She hadn't dreamed with her dead sister; she had seen her and felt her presence.

She sat back straight and looked at the house, the lights were out again. The house looked different, dead. The garden was dead and rotting, and so the walls seemed to rote too. She stood up and noticed there were many cars around her that had crashed, some were totaled, and others had big and small bumps. They simply surrounded her. She could hear the engines of some still working; the lights were on for few. Inside, the airbags had exploded for a couple of them. One of the cars was overturned. Her stomach dropped as she recognized her dad's car.