I'm Sorry

Story

The sky was clear, and Dan Cahill was at the beach. He could feel the sand, hot underneath his bare feet. The sun shined on his head, warming his hair until it was hot to the touch. When he closed his eyes, he could feel happiness radiating from this place. Families with little children, playing in cool water, laughing together. He looked over at his sister, who was smiling bigger than he'd ever seen her smile.

All of a sudden, the air turned cold. He shivered as goosebumps rose on his previously hot skin. Amy was gone. The laughter that had filled the air was replaced with the now menacing sound of rushing water. His eyes darted to the ocean, whose waters were now dark and choppy. Dan ran away from the water as fast as he could, his insides churning with fear, but the water surged up the beach too quickly. He felt it licking at his ankles, then his knees, and then he was submerged completely.

Suddenly, shaking him out of a waterlogged daze, a hand desperately shot up from the depths. A rush of bubbles flew up towards Dan's frantically kicking feet. He looked down through the murk just as the familiar hand began to disappear downwards into the dark water. Lester. Dan was consumed with a concoction of panic and guilt so extreme, it sprang him to action before he even had a chance to think. He dove for the hand, his arms pushing him down, down, down, because he had to save Lester, he had to. But the hand was being pulled under faster than Dan could swim, and his lungs were burning. Letting out what little breath he'd had left in a pained, guttural sob that sent bubbles rising to the surface, he turned around and began to swim up.

Slowly, at first, his inability to save Lester once again weighed him down, but as his lungs threatened to burst, he began to move faster and faster, thrashing his legs violently as he swam upwards. The grey ocean above him seemed to stretch, pulling the surface farther and farther from his flailing arms. Without warning, something strong grabbed his ankle tightly, jolting him so hard he inhaled what felt like gallons of saltwater. The hand began to drag him downwards, and Dan had one last thought, lungs on fire, before blacking out. I deserve this.

He woke with a start. His sheets were dampened with a clammy sweat that had formed throughout Dan's twenty-third restless night so far. Dan hadn't had a peaceful night's sleep since he, his sister Amy, and his au pair Nellie had defeated the vespers last month. There were different nightmares, of course. Dreams with Irina, falling into the fire and being consumed by the flames once more. Ones where Isabel or Bae kidnapped him and tortured the serum formula out of him. Or ones like tonight's, with Lester...

Upon the thought of Lester, Dan was so overcome with emotion that he ripped the covers off his body and jumped out of bed. He walked out into the hallway and down the staircase. His fingers anxiously tapped on the elaborately carved handrails as he went down, quelling the guilt rising up in his throat, though only a little. He still wasn't quite used to living in Grace's house. It was so much bigger than their apartment in Boston, and it felt so empty without Grace in it. Although the rebuilt version's meticulous attention to the house's original details made it familiar in shape, it didn't quite feel the same. The lingering smells of his grandmother were gone, replaced by a strange sense that everything was wrong, like a warped dream version of the mansion. No one else seemed to be bothered by it though so Dan kept this thought to himself.

Dan walked into the kitchen, sure to step quietly as not to wake the sleeping cat perched precariously on the counter, his legs dangling off the edge. He turned on the coffee machine. Coffee supposedly stunted your growth, and Dan's own personal opinion was that it tasted like butt, but he needed the extra caffeine to keep him up throughout the day, since he could never really force himself to go back to sleep after the nightmares he had. He checked the clock. 5:48. Nice, he had made it pretty long this time. He wouldn't have to wait as long for Amy to get up.