Dream Trap || ONC 2021

Chapter Six: Adapting

Matt was on the floor, his hands on Lisa. He was trying to hold her down. Lisa's legs thrashed around on the floor. There was loud rip, and the sleeping bag gave away from the lower part. Lisa coughed up. Matt got up, Jenny woke up.

'What happe-' her eyes fell on Lisa, 'No!'

Matt was running for his car. Then noticed that the car was fully covered in snow.

'Damn you, asshole!' he shouted. He went up to his car and started the dig with his hands. Hot tears came in his eyes. All he could think was, Not Lisa, Not Lisa, oh hell no if something happens to her. . .

Jenny was looking at Lisa, she was lifting her head up but that didn't look like a voluntary action because her head was bending backwards, her front neck full stretched. Then she started shaking. Jenny screamed. Baby Rose woke up.

'Matt! Matt!' Jenny cried for him.

Then Lisa opened her eyes. Everything stopped. Then slowly blood began to come out of Lisa's mouth, but Lisa didn't move. Jenny screamed her head off when she saw it. She ran towards Matt.

Jack was still out, about 5 blocks away from their shelter but he heard the scream. He began to run back, it hurt.

Matt came into the house. Jenny held back herself. Matt crashed on the floor.

It was over.

Lisa coughed again,

'Wh-'

'Ssh, it's okay. It's alright.' said Matt. Jack arrived back to Jenny.

Soon it was all calmed down. Matt wouldn't leave Lisa alone, his paranoia had reached its peak. But it was kind of a necessity too because Lisa had mark of red lines on her throat. When asked by Matt, she had given them the strangest tale.

'I was a samurai, a lady samurai and this monk comes to me and says to go somewhere where I could be at peace while practicing meditation, so I go to the beach and meditate but after I'm done I go back and see that the whole scenario has changed, there are no people there and then as if. . . supernatural ' she looked at Matt, but he was listening too attentively, 'I get pushed back and I could feel it, you know, like a in real life. Then I draw my sword just to believe that I am still in a dream, but you see once something happens to disturb the course of our dream, we change to another one, this wasn't like this. It felt real, and I see this thing, womanish figure but she is all black like the night, I could see stars inside her. And she draws her sword but it's not a fair fight. I try to attack, and she ducks it and drives her katana at the back of my throat. Then she lifts me up with it. That's the end, then I felt this pull, but I resisted it, after what Jack said. . .'

There was an awe and sorrow in the group. Lisa's breathing was still ragged at times and she would throw out blood. The situation was as such that nobody knew what to do. All they could do was sit down and look out for each other. Too unreal to be real, simply fictitious. Utter nonsense. That's what it was.

Jack had changed his bandages with the help of Jenny and Matt tried to ease Lisa out of it. Baby Rose sat on her own, she had her own world to think of. In her world nothing made sense except when mommy put food in her stomach, she didn't know how it felt to be worried or horrified. In a way, she didn't have any complex feelings. She simply crawled over the place without anyone noticing her.

'Oh Rose, come here.' Lisa said, Matt had given her some aspirin for the pains, and she was told not to do anything. Meanwhile, Jack and Matt raised couple of questions.

Jack asked them, 'Why is that I cannot remember my horrific dream, but she can?'

They looked at him, puzzled and distorted.

Matt raised one more question, 'And what is happening to us? And why only one at a time? I mean three of us slept but only Lisa gets the weird dreams.'

Lisa could answer a part of that question, 'All I know is that we are getting very weird dreams which isn't something natural.'

Matt looked at her, well she is right, he thought, even if it meant something very much opposite of what his belief was. But at least one of the questions was tackled with. So Matt began to follow the thread, asking,

'But why?' Nobody knows the answer to that. But they had to do something didn't they?

'Whatever it is that we are facing, we have to end it. End it very soon.' spoke Jack,

Everyone looked at him, they all nodded their heads. Jack then asked, what was their plan. To which Matt had replied, if it disturbs our dreams then maybe we have to dream about it.

'But that's dangerous, isn't it? I mean look what it did to me and Lisa. What if we just try to head back where we came from on our foot.' said Jack,

There was a thinking period to this, baby Rose was giggling to herself. Then she rolled over her mother's lap. Jenny didn't want to say much into this.

Soon it was dark, and the night came back with its one white eye, looking over everything. They didn't have their lunch, so they gobbled down most of their supplies. Then as they sat down, it was time to sleep but did want to do that? Hell no.

'What about sleeping?' asked Jenny,

Nobody answered, who knows when they would have their sweet dreams turned into nightmares. But Jack was tired of being outside.

'Hey Jacky, you were outside for a while what did you see?' asked Matt,

'Nothing, all the houses were empty and didn't open, I peeked through the window but nothing.' responded Jack with a sigh of dissatisfaction.

'Do you think our parents would be worried?' asked Lisa,

Everyone nodded. They all knew what they were doing, trying to delay their sleep because they feared to sleep now. Then Jack began to hum to himself, Matt picked the lyrics,

'Smile. . .thought your heart is aching. . . Smile even though it's breaking. . . When there are clouds in the sky. . . You'll get by. . . Smile. . .'

Lisa nodded to the tune and Jenny joined in. Somewhere deep inside them, they knew they were trapped, by what? Or why? They didn't know. But humans are adaptive by nature and so they began to adapt around this new environment surrounding them.