will they won't they

3, nightmare

— When you hold my hand,
is it just by chance —

December 12, 1995

A WEEK LATER AND I STILL COULDN'T WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT.
I didn't want to believe it. I just wish I could go back in time and prevent everything from happening. If only I made more of an effort to stop them from going. Then they would still be here with me. I know I can't blame myself for it but I can't help it. I just wish I could wake up and everything would be okay again. If only I could fall asleep. I've been running on zero sleep due to the fact that I wake up every night screaming and crying over the same nightmare. My mom would rush in and coax me back to sleep.

The same nightmare every night.

"Avery, How do we sound?" Luke asked after the boys finished running the same song for the fourth time. 

"As good as it was the first three times. You know you guys don't need to ask my opinion on every run, you guys always sound amazing." I replied placing my hands in my lap. Luke shrugged smiling at me. "We like hearing your input," Reggie told me setting down his bass giving me a wink. 

"Let's go again for good measure," Luke spoke nodding to Reggie to pick back up his bass. Reggie huffed lifting the strap back over him. "Dude, we've run it like 10 times," Bobby complained. "One more time, okay?" Luke told him. "You got it, boss," Alex spoke and clapped his drum sticks together.

"1, 2,3!"

As they played the song I began nodding along as I normally do. But all of a sudden a gust of wind came up from the floor blowing around everything in the room as if there was a tornado or something. The guys stopped playing and dropped their instruments. The five of us looked at each other in fear.

A black pit emerged from the ground sucking all the flown around objects in it. The boys and I grabbed on to things to keep ourselves from sinking in. I then noticed I was the only thing steady in the room while the three boys were holding on for dear life. Luke slipped from his holding screaming as he flew towards the hole. Alex reached out to him but Luke was too far out of reach and was swallowed by the black pit.

"Luke!" I screamed scared out of my mind.

Alex was next. He lost grip on the window sill he was holding on to and followed Luke down the endless black hole. I looked up at Reggie who was gripping onto the door handle for dear life. I could read the fear in his eyes and I knew he could read it in mine. "Reg?" I called out to him. "Avery... They're gone... I don't want to go too."

This conversation was too familiar. "Then don't go, Reg. I need you."

"I'm so sorry." He whispered but loud enough for me to hear over the screaming pit that was separating us from each other. "Don't Apologize," I said softly. The tears flowing down my face were blinding my vision.

"I... I love you peaches."

His grip slipped from the door handle and the black pit began to swallow him but I quickly grabbed his hand holding it tightly as the rest of his body hung down in the endless darkness. 

"Reggie, please don't go."

Before either of us could say another word, he slipped from my hands and was swallowed by the dark black pit. I stood there staring down at the blackness catching my breath before suddenly a large black figure emerged from the pit. I gasped in fear looking over at Bobby who was standing there not holding on to anything because the wind wasn't picking him up. "Avery?" He spoke. Suddenly the large black figure grabbed ahold of me pulling me down the endless rabbit hole of nothing.