15. Dylan #2
Washed-out figures populate the tableau like ghosts. There’s Mom eating a tray of Christmas cookies on the couch while tending to a baby Patrick, a much younger Tommy tearing into a gift, Dad dressed in his favorite fuzzy robe handing out presents after checking the names on them, and…me.
Despite knowing this is a dream, it’s surreal seeing an eight-year-old version of myself. I watch dazedly as the scene plays out, time quickening and slowing so that certain parts pass in a blur while others advance in real time.
When I see the complex LEGO set I’m working on—a recreation of the Millennium Falcon I later learned my parents had found for a steal at a yard sale—the memory comes back to me with a jolt.
It had been one of the best presents I’d ever received…
until Tommy ruined it. Sure enough, a faded version of my brother approaches and ‘accidentally’ kicks the half-built spaceship, sending pieces flying.
A hint of the devastation I’d felt back then flickers through me as I watch my dejected younger self.
But the vision doesn’t end there. Dad yells at Tommy, forcing him to help gather the scattered LEGO bricks.
Then, he helps me rebuild. Instead of following the guide, we forge our own fantastical creation. Even Tommy eventually joins in.
That had been an awesome day, even if the memory’s somewhat bittersweet now, knowing how things end up.
Quietly, I shut the door and move on to the next, then the next.
Each door opens onto a different scene snapshotted from my life.
Some good, some bad, but each a moment that for whatever reason left a deep impression on me.
In one, I’m sitting with Tommy and Patrick, watching with rapt awe while Dad strums an old rock song on his guitar and Mom sings along.
In another, I’m sobbing into Mom’s side while a vet puts our sick dog Sir Gallant to sleep.
I’d been heartbroken for weeks after that, but it had also been what first planted the seed of one day becoming a vet myself.
I’ve just shut the door on a memory of myself from near the beginning of high school freaking out over my first crush on a boy when the hallway around me suddenly shudders. Deep cracks ricochet along the walls, spreading like black vines along the floor and ceiling.
Dread clogs my throat. It’s like the cafeteria all over again. A sense of wrongness permeates the space, infecting the dream like a cancerous rot.
I briefly consider attempting again to influence what’s happening or force myself awake.
Then, a more violent tremble rocks the corridor, and I settle for running instead.
Plaster rains down around me while the floor bucks beneath my feet like the back of some terrible beast attempting to hurl me aside.
I barely keep my balance as I careen onward, clouds of dust obscuring my sight.
My feet land on something soft and springy, and I slow uncertainly, looking around as the dust clears. The crumbling hallway is gone, leaving me outside the building on the grass. In the near distance, I spy the picnic table and oak tree where Ash and I used to eat lunch.
Unsure what else to do, I start toward the familiar landmark. Halfway there, another faded memory materializes around me. Horror grips me when I realize it’s the day I came out to my dad.
Not wanting to relive his disappointment and disgust, I attempt to shove past the scene, but it shimmers and reforms ahead of me, shifting to a few days later when I’d come home from school and discovered his guitar and the rest of his belongings gone.
It had been as if every last vestige of him had been stripped away and ripped out of our lives.
Like he’d never even existed at all.
Blinking back tears, I look past the faded tableau to the picnic table and spy another figure now seated there, dressed in a familiar leather jacket.
“Ash!” I cry, running across the grass.
Ash doesn’t reply. As I draw nearer, I realize he’s staring straight ahead, his green eyes wide with terror. I slow and follow the direction of his gaze, sucking in a breath. He’s witnessing a washed-out memory of his own.
A young teen with ruffled black hair who must be Ash steps into a ghostly bedroom and freezes.
A woman lies sprawled there atop the bed, face-down and unmoving.
Young Ash rushes to her, shaking her with increasing desperation.
When she still doesn’t move, he buries his face in her back, cradling her lifeless body in his arms while he sobs.
Even as I remind myself this is nothing but a dream—a messed-up projection of my own psyche—my heart breaks for this imagined version of Ash. How closely does what I’m seeing align with the real Ash’s tragic past, and how much of it is fiction conjured by my own mind?
Real or not, I approach the Ash watching the vision and rest a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” I say softly.
At my touch, Ash jerks and looks up, surprised. “Dylan? What the hell are you doing here? I didn’t conjure you.”
Conjure me? “I’m…not sure,” I say. “All I know is I’ve been having the weirdest dream.”
Ash’s entire body goes rigid. His eyes bulge like they’re about to pop out of his skull. “You’re really here?” he breathes. “Oh, fuck.”
The faded image of the woman in bed flickers before winking out of existence. An instant later, another tremor like the one I’d experienced back in the hallway rocks the earth. I catch myself on the edge of the picnic table, frowning at Ash.
“What do you mean, ‘I’m really here?’ Ash, what’s going on?”
He shakes his head mutely as he curls in on himself, cradling his head in his hands. “This can’t be happening,” he murmurs, rocking gently back and forth. “It can’t be. Not again.”
The light around us dims, and I glance up to find the impenetrable darkness from the cafeteria has returned, encircling us like a pack of ravenous hounds.
This is only a dream, I remind myself, but the thought does little to soothe my pounding heart.
Whatever is happening here feels too real, too important, to be merely my imagination.
Ash gives a muffled half-sob. I huddle closer, wrapping an arm around him to draw his trembling body against my side. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
“You don’t understand!” Ash wails. “I can’t control it! I can’t break us out!”
The skittering shadows creep closer. The ground shakes. The light fades.
I ignore it all, focused only on the wounded boy beside me. I might not understand what the hell is happening here, but I understand his pain. And that, at least, I might be able to help with.
Tentatively, I reach out and grip his hand. His shaking fingers tighten around mine.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Whatever’s going on, I trust you, Ash. Just breathe with me, okay?”
I take a deep breath, holding it in for a handful of seconds before exhaling.
Relief floods me when I feel Ash doing the same.
Gradually, his shaky breaths even out, his racing pulse slowing.
I sneak a peek at the area around us to see the ground stilling, the ravenous darkness retreating.
Soon enough, it’s just Ash and me holding each other on the picnic bench beneath the oak tree.
Ash’s eyes slip closed on a long exhale. As they do, a penumbra of blinding light suddenly erupts from his skin in a kaleidoscopic vortex of color. In a flash, I’m awake, my arms instinctively flailing as I sit up on the floor in his bedroom with a groan.
A loud thud draws my attention to the bed. I turn to see Ash scrambling across the room to the opposite corner as far away from me as he can get.
I stare at him, noting his panicked expression and heaving chest. Most dreams begin to fade the instant you wake up. This one, however, remains fresh in my mind, the details crisp.
That’s because it wasn’t a dream.
“I think,” I say carefully, never taking my eyes off Ash in case he tries to bolt, “that we need to talk.”