Young Writers Society

A.N. This chapter features midway through my story so it may seam a little confusing but the main idea is that the narrator finds herself in an uncanny situation and with people she hasn't seen for a long time. The back story is the character is living in an apocalyptic future with surviving friends and this whole scene is just a dream she experiences during that time

Sleeping Suicides

"How do you define the thread between a dream and reality? When you die? Or when the dead return to life? Because you never notice there was something strange, until you are awake; so until then, one must simply live through their nightmares and die a thousand deaths"

Crimson beads were my eyes as I could feel them itch and dry with the sore irritation from the air’s strict slaps. Intertwining with my figures, tearing dew dropped reeds of grass wove themselves around my hands, as if to hold me back with their gentle tugs. I had set my mind aside and continued gliding through the field, without a thought, without a care. The washing greens of the trees and unripe corn waved in sync to the winds whistle and the clouds did their best impression of a summer sky. And as I did so the snapshots of past moments and suppressed memories sparked my vision, in their randomised order but of which made perfect sense to my deluded self at the time. And so I held my breath and did not feel the need to release it. Centre marked the field with a wide conker tree, its branches stretched far like the arms of god as its leaves seamed too proud to be picked up by the breeze, instead stood waiting in its superior might. Sitting quite still upon the thick branch, only some feet off the floor, I could see that Wolfgang was holding his breath too. Wolfgang was here. Sitting on that great branch, back to me, but why? I stopped somewhat of seven meters from them, though his back was turned with no reaction, he knew I was there.

“Quizzical am I not, to find you here?” I called out but Wolfgang remained motionless.

“I have to say I miss you, though I can’t remember why? If I came here to find you, then Ramona Ramone must have sent me. I think” I was speaking my thoughts aloud. “Show a smile? Wolfgang? “Still he continued to hold his breath. “Say, have you seen mother?”

I let the wind carry me closer, though Wolfgang’s back and statue form sent shivers through me, while I hoped it was in factWolfgang. His front remained out of site but the boy lifted his left arm and pointed to the east, then gently lowered it back to his side. The east; where before I had only noticed sky and the continuous row of identical trees, actually was the back garden of my home. A door between two trees stepped through and there lay acres of a kings palace gardens. It was my home, with the rotted cottage of love and brick behind me, but the extensions of Versailles’s fountain and statue scattered fields of marble, glitter and excellence. It was a mirage behind my tattered cottage of polished marble and trimmed emerald shrubs, mazes, and gold-leaf statues. Besides this new decor, I recognised it as my home and nothing more at the time. And there, again, without question I was sprinting through the empty grounds, just for the thrill of feeling royal yet liberated. My heart pounded as I flew and dived like an eagle in twilight, until I reached my back door. Mother stood frail and white with shaken eyes. With oceanic glimmers that where enough to destroy my peace of mind, I then knew then that everything would soon end in tragedy.

“I cannot find Delphi or Mathew?” Her voice was enough to alarm me with their indefinite danger, although I knew my younger siblings could not be far, I assumed the worst. The way I always do.

“Delphi! Mathew!” My calls echoed loader than the last each time, breaking the peace of Versailles’s gardens which now became the mark of demonic possessions and haunting terrors. I froze to watch a marble statue grind its mouth against the sculptor’s wishes, and smiled at me. Next to the house, the old station platform waited, now just a mound of earth where old bricks bordered the edge, alongside mother’s lavender. The sun was beginning to set and amber streaks bled through the picture, allowing me to see clearer. Mother, confused and scared like a child was clinging to my shirt, though unaware of what I could see. Delphi and Mathew, hand in hand, walked up the platform to where I could see them finally, yet I did not move. “Mathew!” my mother’s voice did not catch my attention, she was too far away. I felt my eyes throb as they widened and twist beyond their strength as my feet cemented into the earth, I was a tree: powerless and frozen and suddenly I felt the urgency to breathe again. My brother and sister could hear me but just like Wolfgang, they gave me no response. They stopped at the edge of the bricked outline and I knew then what they would do. I felt my heart implode. The earth began to blur.

And it was then I could hear it. Enter the echoed groans of the Mindless Zombies in my head as I watched.

There was nothing in my power to stop them so I watched, in an agonising torture of disbelief. Behind and beneath the platform awaited the grinning teeth and rapid eyes of a crowd of forming, foaming, Mindless. The jaws clicked together with each step my siblings took. And like that, no expression, realisation, consciousness, humanity and I choked. I choked as I watched my brother and sister walk off the platform, in only a few seconds, to their death. My mother was still out of site. So I was alone.

“Where are they?” again like a child, my mother looked as if she would cry so I covered her eyes to blind her from our tragedy. And like the snap of fingers, breakage of bones, the night hit the sky with deathly black and blues. Taking my mother’s hand in mine, the other still shielding her eyes from the sight I wished I could fix or forget. I took her in the house, shaking, stiff as if I had been struck by lightning.

“Where are they Aurelia? Aurelia please?” My mother begged. But crying was my default to let her know the worst was possible and yet it happened. Protesting though, still too confused and afraid to overpower me, I hugged her before leaving her in her room, closing the door, I locked it. The dust on the floor was thicker, as though no one had set foot in the house in decades. Wallpaper which was clam blue was now a new shade of grey and mould with fur hung damp and tearing at the corners and panels. Falling onto the floor against the door, I ignored the figure at the end of the hall. I collapsed into my arms, I knew Wolfgang had been there for a while now. He bent down to me, clutching me tight, the way he would never have held me before. He didn’t have to say anything because there was nothing say. I hated him for prophesising this nightmare, but the events foretold were not his work. It was mine. It was of my insecurity and denial.

Refusing to let go of him I opened my eyes to see Wolfgang take from his dark blazer, a penknife.

“Wolfgang? Please, Wolfgang I need you?” And yet no one was to listen, for my words were only the blanks and breathes between the dialogues which were refused to be heard. Wolfgang lay dead, quiet, lying like a widowed swan that died of a broken heart, his chest resembled a pirate’s treasure chest as he bled a thousand rubies, onto the wooden floorboards of that house. And how it ended was as predicted. Expressionless and out of tears my head fell back against the door as I too was killed off. The only way I can be: I remembered, they were all already dead. So none of this had happened...

The Mindless were still out there waiting and Ramona Ramone didn’t know Wolfgang even existed? I remembered it all and there it was. The realisation hit me with the swarming seas of horror and wishes of death striking me right then and there.

Looking at Wolfgang’s lifeless body bleed, staining my hands and clothes I listened to the groaning mindless outside, my mother on the other side of the door and the haunted faces of my siblings.

This was the first of the repetitive nightmare. These were the sleeping suicides. The nightmares I believed a thousand times over as I watched them die a thousand deaths. I knew I couldn't tell anyone. Besides... it wouldn’t bring them back to me...

So every day I feared reality, while each night I was more afraid of my own mind and to fall asleep.