"L! Lyn! Llyne!"
A voice pierced the fog. Distant yet urgent. Pulling me from the void.
My eyes cracked open, light burning against the fatigue. I blinked a few times before a face came into focus—Iz. Her eyes brimmed with worry, her hands shaking my shoulders.
"Iz?" My voice rasped out as I bolted upright. Air rushed into my lungs like I had been drowning. My hand instinctively went to my forehead, sweat clinging to my skin.
Everything around me felt unreal—warped, like a dream I had yet to wake from.
"You got to breathe, Lil!" Iz's voice rang sharp with panic. I took in my surroundings. The room. The familiar scent of Iz's perfume. Her soft pink bedsheets and posters of boybands clashing with the chaos still unraveling in my mind.
"I'm okay, Iz. Don't worry." I exhaled slowly and pushed myself up to stand, though my limbs felt heavy, like gravity itself had grown stronger.
Iz didn't seem convinced. "I didn't know you have OSA. Why didn't you tell me? I was worried sick." Her voice trembled as tears welled in her eyes.
"OSA?"
"Obstructive Sleep Apnea. It's a sleeping-breathing disorder," Iz explained, the concern in her tone shifting to lecture mode. "OSA appears when the airways become obstructed. People with OSA might snore loudly, waking up choking or gasping for air. They might also have headaches in the morning, trouble focusing, and would feel excessively tired or irritable during the day—like you every day."
The explanation came in waves, but I only caught fragments, my mind still drifting somewhere between dream and reality.
"Uh-huh."
She wasn't having it. "You should take it seriously. It can prove to be fatal if it's not treated. There are various methods to solve it. One of them is—"
"It's not OSA. It's another nightmare." My voice cut through hers like a blade. Her words fell away.
Iz blinked, then frowned. "Oh. Another one? That must be awful."
I rolled my shoulders, tension unwinding like a coiled spring. "Not that bad, even though I already had two today. The first one was not that bad, second; the worst, third; weirded me out."
"Anyways, how long we slept?" I turned the topic, uninterested in reliving the terror just yet.
Iz glanced at the clock beside her. "Only 30 minutes."
I stared at her, shocked. "Only 30 minutes? That felt way longer."
Then—
GrrooowwwwLLLLL~
Both our eyes darted to the source.
My stomach.
"..."
"..."
Iz stared at me like I had grown horns.
"Iz, stop looking at my tummy. It's getting embarrassed."
"What kind of wild demon is living inside you?"
"The type that needs constant feeding or else it'll eat me up whole."
"We better go down and eat dinner before the monster EATS you up!"
Her dramatics earned a snort from me. We descended to the dining room.
What awaited us looked more like a royal feast than dinner. Rows of beautifully plated dishes, steam rising like ritual smoke.
"Why is it that everything you guys do needs to be so extravagant?"
"Is it? I think it's normal."
"Go check your brain."
We settled in. As our chopsticks danced, I noticed something.
"I have never seen your father before except in the newspaper. Doesn't he eat with you?"
Iz chewed with her mouth full. "Noooope."
"I thought you had etiquette class. If your teacher saw this, she would faint."
Iz ignored my sass. "My father is always with his business associates in his office. He rarely spends time with me."
"You must have felt lonely."
"Not really. After all, they always say the more business father has, the more money we have. Besides, I have you and everyone in the house. I don't feel one bit of loneliness."
That hit something in me. Warmth, perhaps.
"Aww... That's sweet."
Iz continued, eyes gleaming. "My father's business associates are super creepy. They have really scary faces and dark, bloody aura. All of them are at least 6 feet tall, too. When I first saw them, I fainted while standing."
"You fainted? Now I'm curious what they look like."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy footsteps echoed above us. Not footsteps. Drums of warning.
"They got loud footsteps."
"They must be out of Father's office."
"How you know? You peeked?"
"Father always soundproofs his office. I tried to eavesdrop several times but failed."
"Wow! You're daring."
"Businesses are always followed by risks."
"Ever heard of the proverb, 'Curiosity killed the cat'?"
Iz gulped and returned to her meal. We didn't talk much until dinner was done.
Later, back in Iz's room, I made myself comfortable on her bed. The softness was luring me to sleep when—
"Waaahhhh!" I yelped as a pencil suddenly appeared inches from my face.
"You trying to kill me with a pencil?!! What have I wronged you?!!"
"Talk and don't leave any details." She flipped to a fresh page, pencil poised like a scalpel. "I'm trying my best not to throttle you here."
"Oh, right. The promise."
"No delaying. Spill it unless you want my help in that, too...." Her eyes narrowed.
"I guess I'll tell you my dark past."
She raised the pencil like a dagger.
"Joking. Joking. Can't you take a joke?"
"If you want to stay alive, then don't."
"Ouish~ Fine. I'll tell you about my first dream."
And I did. I told her everything. The dark pull. The drowned woman. The suffocating weight.
Iz's pencil flew.
"Lil, looking at your happy face as you describe your first dream. I presume you must have really wanted to stay there."
"Seems that way."
"Were you having trouble sleeping that time or before that?"
"Nope. Not at all, I slept like a baby."
"You were completely relaxed?"
"No one can be more relaxed than me."
Iz tilted her head. "Hmm... I see. You mentioned that something wrapped around your leg?"
"Ya. Why?"
"A tentacle, perhaps."
"Mmm... Maybe? I think there was some suction too."
"Were you surrounded by water perchance?"
My eyes widened. "Why didn't I think of that? I can't swim!"
"That's the first thing you thought about?"
"What else?"
"Why was there a lady under the water? Why were you under the water as well? What is the connection between the dead lady and you? Have you met her before? Why did the monster attack you? Why could you breathe underwater? All those questions?"
"Right. Those questions."
"Do you even know what I just said?"
"Ya-da-ya-da-ya-da... Monster?"
"You're hopeless." But she smiled.
"Let's leave the first dream for now. Tell me the second."
I complied. The classroom. The sleep. The massacre.
Iz froze. "Wait. So the lady in your first dream who was dead appeared in your second dream? She was alive and chopping people down? She also..." She mimicked swinging a scythe.
"That's right. She swung her scythe at my neck."
Iz rubbed her neck. "Now I know why you reacted that way in school. Imagine your neck getting chopped off."
"You're not making me feel better, doc."
"You remembered the man you bumped in Uncle Simon's restaurant?"
"Ya?"
"Was he one of the dead bodies in your second dream?"
"How you know?"
"You did say you have no taste in dead man."
"Oh right, I did."
"So, the third dream?"
"You not going to ask anything more about my second dream?"
"Let me hear all three, then I'll decide."
So I told her about the third. The lingering danger. The little girl. The fear.
"You have psychic powers. And it started in primary? The first experience must have been tough on you."
"Not really. Just some black fog surrounding a room. No biggie."
"That girl you mentioned. She seems idle?"
"Till my third dream, that is. Normally, the little girl stands there and does nothing. Mentioning her really terrifies me."
"She's like a messenger? Or a guardian angel?"
"If that's what a guardian angel looks like, those people on the Internet must be taking drugs."
"Right. You did say she looks more like a ghost in a movie, right?"
"Ya. She does. Exactly like in a movie."
"What if that's not what she looks like?"
"What do you mean, Iz?"
"When you were small, you hated horror shows. It gave you a strong impression. Maybe whoever it is, it's trying to protect you from harm, so it took that form?"
"Protecting me by giving me trauma? That's new."
"It's a human's natural reaction to run away from things that scare them. The fight or flight response."
"But I don't know what I'm supposed to be running from. Let's not forget how she tried to trap me in the dream as well."
"I don't know running from what, but all these years, she never harmed you, right?"
"Right. Only scared me and made me unable to sleep for a few days. Once I closed my eyes and there she was."
"There might be a chance that all three dreams are connected."
"How did you get that?"
"Here's a hypothesis. The first two dreams are connected."
"Ya. The pretty lady was there in both. What about the third dream?"
"Right. For the third dream, the little girl might be protecting you from those events that might happen by trapping you inside your dream."
"You mean if I was trapped in my dream, I'll be in a coma in reality, and no harm will come to me?"
"Might be so."
"Well, she was desperate enough to move and talk."
Iz nodded.
"Of course, there is always a chance that these dreams are just dreams. They might not turn into reality for all you know."
"True."
Iz yawned and looked at the clock. "It's bedtime. Let's sleep, and we'll continue this tomorrow."
"Okaaaayyyyyyy....."
We laid back, silence washing over us. As I closed my eyes, all I could do was hope that tonight—I wouldn't dream at all.