"You had a nighmare again, didn't you?" My uncle said on the other side of the table, his mouth stuffed with fried eggs and his eyes fixated on his plate with breakfast. He really had something for fried eggs, like a fetish, if you will. He was a man of simplicity, with a strong hate for overcomplicated patterns and unnessecary details. His face was wrinkled and boring, and his eyewhites bloodshot as if someone had been spraying schampoo into his pupils. In contrast to his graying black hair, his eyes were a light shade of amber. Much like my eyes, actually.
"Yeah. I did." I responded, serving as a reason for waking up surprisingly early. Nightmares like this one happened somewhat frequently. The answer as to why was unknown to me, and I wasn't caring enough to find out why.
"You really have to do something about them. You know what-" I interrupted my uncle before he could utter more of his superstitions.
"I know that you believe my parents died because of similar nightmares, and I undersand that you're worried you'll face the same fate now." I stared him firmly in his eyes, with an attempt to look somewhat angry. "Shut up, you're lying to yourself, change the subject because this is creeping the hell out of me." I said, my tone judgingly strict. I wasn't sure if it was insulting or not, but I didn't care much about that. The important part was that I got my message to sink in.
It didn't.
"Esme, I don't think you really understand the-" He was once again interrupted, but not by me. Frank must've been one of the only people in the world to still have a home phone, and now was one of the few times someone actually called it. He walked up to it, answering. I heard someone speak on the other side of it but I couldn't identify the voice.
"Why would..." He said, but was quickly interrupted. "Alright. Fine. I'll be there." He said as he hung up and walked towards the front door, taking a jacket that was laying around on the floor, collecting dust.
"Where are you going?" I asked him, curious rather than worried.
"The police station. There's some guy who wants to exchange words with me." He responded, his tone not implying lie nor joke.
"Why the police station?" It was somewhat weird, having my uncle go to his former place of work to talk to some random person.
"Apparently he was apprehended for breaking and entering, in belief that it was my residence." He said, seemingly not taking it seriously.
"That's... Interesting." I said. In reality, it sounded like the person in question was an extremist or something. Maybe my uncle had debts to pay him? Probably not, as he managed to pay off all his debts after being fired from his job. Of course, he was being paid less than the average hobo now, but he wasn't losing money.
Frank closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the house. Always when I was, I felt like I was the owner of the house. The house's mistress, if you'd call it that.
Clouds were gathering outside, casting a shadow over England. It was probably going to rain soon, so I was glad I wasn't the one who needed to go downtown.
Do you want to know who it is? I heard a cold, hard, rattling voice in my mind. I violently turned around in belief someone was behind me, but no one was there. Ultimately, the momentum I built up while turning threw me to the floor, and I ended up with a bruise on my left shoulder. Groaning, I held a hand towards it to nullify the pain.
Then I remembered the cause of my fall. A voice. "Who- where are you?" I asked out of thin air.
No matter. It said, in a somewhat desperate attempt to avoid the topic.
"Yes matter!" I responded, angrily and fiercely.
I am a piece of your subconscious. A speaker from the depths of your mind. It explained, not sounding very trustworthy.
"If you're a part of me, then why can't I shut you up?" I was confused, and angry with myself for being confused.
I'm your subconcious. I was here from your birth, and I will be until your death. I'll always be a part of you, as you are a part of me. Its statements were much confusing. My own subconsciousness had a consciousness all its own?
"I'm pretty sure the back of one's mind doesn't usually speak to one." I argued.
Think about it. You have one friend, an uncle who barely cares about you, and two dead parents. It's logical for the part of you that isn't restrained by yourself would start talking. It didn't convince me. It was stupid.
"Yep. It's very logical for one's subconscious to start independently talking." I responded. "Now shut up and leave my head."
Silence.
I attempted to stand up, but I couldn't. It was as if my arms were restrained to the floor by some invisible hands, except I felt no grip around them. I panicked, and in a frenzy scraped my wrists to the point of intense bleeding.
Then, I passed out.
Frank was following an officer, who judging by the tag on his chest went by the name Carl. They were in a narrow corridor, continously walking past thick iron doors on each side.
Carl stopped. "This is it." He opened the door beside him to reveal a sleeping man, older than Frank, but not older than fifty. Perhaps a decade older than him, as Frank was in his late thirties.
"This is the guy who wanted to talk to me?" He asked Carl, and the officer nodded in confirmation.
"I'll wake him," he said, following it up with the most hilarious and probably not very appropriate wake-up speech Frank had ever heard. And with a somewhat sadistic teenager in his house, that was saying quite a lot. It will not be retold here, as it contained extensive swearing and very inappropriate insults.
"Do you always treat prisoners like that?" Frank said, shocked after hearing the officer's words. He had a newfound respect for the man and his extensive vocabulary.
"Not usually, no." Carl responded with a grin. He seemed to have enjoyed it.
The prisoner sat up, slowly but surely. He opened his eyes, revealing a deep purple iris. "Frank Barlow. Honour to meet you." He said upon laying eyes on the man. Frank wasn't confused that the prisoner knew his name, as he had been the one to take extreme measures in an attempt to find him.
"And you are?" Frank responded, seemingly unbeknownst to the man's apparent selfish grin.
"I am your demise." He said, then out of nowhere came a dagger into his hand. It penetrated Frank's chest, and warm red blood was dripping down to the stone floor.
This will happen unless you act upon it. I heard the voice again. It rang through my mind. What did I just see? I tried to stand up again, but realised I was sitting on an old and uncomfortable chair. The kitchen table was in front of me, in all its plain wood glory. My uncle's wrinkled face was a few meters in front of me, in all its wrinkled glory. I must've zoned out, as Frank's eyes were somewhat shocked. "Esme? You there?" He said. I nodded slowly.
"What happened? You just went kinda... stale for a few minutes. Didn't even blink." He sounded slightly amused when he said the last thing, as if it was merely a joke.
"I... Don't know. Honestly." I said. Not five minutes ago, I'd talked to my own subconcious and seen my uncle get murdered by a prisoner using a knife that appeared out of thin air. I'd say my response was pretty truthful.
Frank raised an eyebrow, but then left the topic as he didn't know how to counter my response. "Anyway, as I was saying, I had similar dreams before my parents died. When I heard you had weird dreams, five years ago, I wasn't concerned about it." He sighed. "Now... You're having these dreams again." Looking me in the eyes with a stern gaze, he said after yet another, significantly deeper sigh. "Guess who's your guardian now."
"So.... You're implying that just because I'm having weird dreams, you're going to die?" Frank was full of superstitions. I didn't trust him much in what he said.
"Precisely." He said, eyes closed.
I couldn't help but laugh. Tirelessly hammering my hand onto the table laughing like a mad scientist at some superstitious assumptions based on a coincidence was both terapeuthic and insane. I felt satisfied yet disrespectful with my laughter, the former outweighing the latter.
When my horrendous result of irritating and satisfying frenzy repeadetly adjusting my vocal chords to make a rythm of noises automatically interpreted in the human brain cells as laughter was over I spoke with a grin. "You honestly believe a stupid and somewhat tragic coincidence is going to convince me that you're going to die?"
Frank looked at me as if the answer was obvious and I was just dumb. A clear 'yes', then. As predictable, Frank opened his mouth to say the aforementioned word, but I didn't allow it.
"Just because the same thing happens twice it doean't mean it'll happen thrice." I said, angily. I was about to start furiously ranting again, and I would pester those around me. That included uncle Frank and my hamster Coal, whose cage had been placed in a cupboard for him not to escape. No, seriously, he was dubbed 'the greatest escapee ever', by almost every visitor we had. So essentially my cousins and my one friend Reece.
"You have been living in angst and depression after your parents' death, and when your sister died, who also happened to be my mother, and her husband suffered the same fate, you started to connect bad dreams to death. You shut up with that superstitious shit now. Get over it! It's not gonna happen!" I was, as mentioned, furious. Mad, if you'd go as far as to call it that. Rants like these usually had me quite literally out of my mind. "Get your shit together!" I resumed my insulting, direspective, and furious scolding as if I was a teacher grounding a naughty child. "You obviously aren't smart enough to separate coincidences from tragic events." I finished in a cold tone. I was angry, to say the least. I needed to cool off.
And so I turned my back on my uncle, walking towards the house's front door. I pulled on a raincoat, due to the intense consistent pattering on the streets outside. Just perfect.
And when I walked out, feeling the rain pattering on my coat, rinning down my back to the ground, where it embraced the earth to create new life, I heard it again. The cold, rattling voice in my regretful and furious mind.
You know your uncle will die. You just won't admit it. I ignored it. It felt better that way.
