Prescient

Chapter 2

I knew it was only a dream—I've had plenty like it before—but that didn't stop part of my subconscious mind thinking it was real. This curse connected me to the woman, after all. In this dream, I was her. The victim.

My coercing sub-conscience tricked me into thinking this was happening to me and not to her, making my blood pump frantically through my body. The sweat was seeping through my pores. It was that part of my mind making me feel physical pain as the man took his fists to her—to me—repeatedly.

I begged him to stop, yet I knew he wouldn't. This was worse than any time before because I dared try to leave him and he caught me—he caught her. Now she needed to be punished.

I woke up screaming his name.

A name I didn't know.

I had never seen the man or woman before, however I knew that somewhere, a man by the name of which I screamed, had just murdered his wife. Eventually, it would be confirmed for me by a news report or an article in the paper.

It was only 4 AM, however, I headed to the bathroom to shower—to wash away the invisible blood stains the dream seemed to have left on me. There was no way I would be able to go back to sleep after that.

I was used to it though. Lack of sleep caused by countless, horrible dreams such as this one was a normal part of my pathetic life.

I stumbled down the hallway in the darkness, knowing my way around this crumby flat without needing light to see by. Reaching the bathroom I fumbled at the wall for the light switch, flicked it, and illuminated the room with a blinding glare that made me flinch at its brightness. I was slightly hung-over. I almost always was. Just another charming part of my personality.

I slipped out of my clothes on my way over to the shower above my tub, letting them join about a week's worth of washing still scattered across the bathroom floor. Turning only the hot tap on, I sat in the deep, clawfoot bath, letting the scolding water flow from the showerhead above and wash over my body which physically ached as if I had been physically assaulted, not just in my dream.

As I closed my eyes, resting my head on my knees with my arms wrapped around my legs to hold myself together, I could practically see the ghostly blood of that other woman washing off me. My skin crawled as if the touch of his hands were all over me.

Something deep inside my fractured mind wanted to cry, yet that something was deep inside for a reason. I was so used to these horrid experiences I had pushed that part of my humanity so far within myself I just couldn't cry about it any longer. I was numb to it.

It didn't seem like I was in the shower long but it must have been a while because soon the water ran cold and I had no choice but to drag myself out of there lest I freeze.

Dried, dressed, and sitting at my dinner table with my last dribble of bourbon in front of me I scanned the room for my television remote. Most mornings I did drink coffee like a normal person but waking from a dream as violent and nasty as the one I'd been privy to this night, I needed something a little stronger.

I spied the remote on my kitchen bench and got up to fetch it.

That's when I saw her for the first time.

Just out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the outline of a girl standing right there in my tiny living room but when I spun around to face her, she was gone. I knew she had been there. I was as sober as I ever could be and the hot shower ensured I was awake enough to not be suffering post-sleep hallucinations. She was there.

Something seemed to drop out the bottom of my stomach as a knot twisted its way from my gut up through my chest, sending chilling tingles all across my skin.