He’s so fucking peaceful when he sleeps. It’s like he’s someone else.
But we’re all someone else when we’re dreaming.
Back home, it was said that nightmares bore the weight of the guilty. That those who sinned faced those sins in their dreams. When I was younger, myself and those in my age bracket dreamt of the same man like a shared hallucination of someone or something that couldn’t possibly exist. Magnus warned it was a demon clawing at us in a desperate attempt to drag us to the depths ofhell. He forced us to search inward, to tackle our sins because the only way a demon is let in is if someone chooses to let them in. That was the crux of our years-long devotion to the church as if the literal wool had been pulled over our eyes. I later found a macabre story book in Magnus’ basement depicting the exact man all us kids saw in our dreams. It had been read to us in the church when we were little. Our minds soaked in the horror, but the memory faded away, only to resurface in our dreams.
I don’t dream of that demon anymore.
I dream of other monsters, like Magnus coming back from the grave to make me pay for what I did to him. It’s been days, but the nightmares make it feel like a lifetime. The walls are closing in on me and I know there’s no escaping what I’ve done. So, I’ll enjoy my final days.
There are two kids splashing in the pool. Their mother lounges in a chair just out of reach of the splash zone while the father is taking a call on the other side of the deck. We didn’t have a pool back home, so I learned to swim in the river. Magnus said they were endless pits of shame, that bodies were meant to be covered at all times except when bathing. I once asked if he fucked with his clothes on. For my transgression, I spent a week in the hole, a dark room with steel bars welded to appear as a makeshift jail cell. Spent a lot of time in that place over the course of the last year.
Working the night shift hasn’t allowed me muchtime to take in the light of day. Had a good tan going the first few weeks after my grand escape, but it’s faded now. With a pair of shades over my eyes, I try to enjoy the hot afternoon sun. The children treating the pool like a water park makes that difficult, however.
My phone vibrates against my leg. It’s either a notification from a hookup app or an alert that some kid has been kidnapped within a thousand mile radius. I push my shades up to check my notifications. A message from my sister back home:
Senya: I haven’t heard from you in 3 months
Seven: the point of a burner phone is minimal contact
Senya: you’ve made that impossible now
Seven: meaning?
Senya: turn on the news
Senya: don’t they have Tv’s in the real world?
Seven: I know they don’t have them at the compound
Senya: what did you do to magnus
Seven: nothing
Senya: well his body was found in the trunk of his car that was left on the side of the road and burned.
Senya: Silas isn’t saying shit because like everything else, he wants it handled in house
That’s enough of that. I place the phone on the ground beside my pool chair. The walls are most definitely closing in. I try to shake away any thoughts of Magnus, the car, or even that fucking cult back home.Try to live in the here and now, but then my mind goes to Noah in the hotel room. He was still fast asleep when I left him earlier. Dude’s a vampire or something. Seems allergic to the sun but yet, he’s got a soft glow to him like there’s some Italian in his blood.
A splash of water lands on my face from a kid launching himself into the pool. I’m pulled away from thoughts of Noah to thoughts of what it’d be like to go to prison for killing a child. Not really, but lord do I fucking hate children.
Lord… What does that word even mean? Spent so long believing in the one and only god that I don’t know what it’s like to believe in anything else. The god I knew doesn’t exist. Not sure any other god can exist either.
My phone continues to rumble, the vibrations knocking against my leg.
I pull my shades back over my eyes and try to enjoy the soft caress of the hot sun on the bare skin of my chest, but it’s hard to find peace when I’m surrounded by the echoes of children’s glee and laughter. Never had that myself. Never had the chance to experience what being a kid was supposed to be like. To be young, ignorant, and innocent again? I’d give anything.
Their voices are like ghosts of the innocence that was stolen from me.
Once the vibrations stop, I check my phone again.
Senya: I don’t care what you did to him
Senya: I care that you don’t get caught which means you need to get as far away from there as possible
Senya: it’s not just the police
Senya: Silas is sending the Ravens to find you
