Me and My Imagination: Chapter 2, The Nightmare

My Sister and I attend Lillywood Academy, a private school in Hartford which we both love because of its accelerated pace of learning. Of course most of the time not spent in the classroom is spent with each other. I’m sure the other children think that we are odd and we often see them stare our direction in the halls. However, we simply don’t care. Occasionally someone feeling particularly brazen would approach us with questions.

“Why do you spend so much time together?” they would ask.

“Because we like spending time together,” my sister would answer.

“Well don’t you ever get tired of being around each other or get in fights?” someone else would ask.

“No, not really,” I would reply. Which was true, my sister and I hardly ever fought. Not like normal siblings anyway. We never teased each other or annoyed each other or bickered with each other. Occasionally you could find us engaged in a healthy debate, but it was never about anything trivial, and we certainly never resorted to physical violence. I’m sure that sounds incredibly pretentious, but that's just the way we are. I’m sure if someone did manage to get us into a physical fight, we would lose very badly. Neither of us are particularly strong, or athletic, or muscular. We’re forced to avoid conflict by trying to deescalate the situation with our words. On this particular day of school, we were attempting to do just that.

We were approached by the school’s “popular kids.” Everyone in school knew who they were for better or worse. They were like because of their looks, or because someone thought they were funny, or because they were on a sports team. They were disliked because people thought they were judgemental, or possibly cruel. My sister and I fell into the later category.

They enjoyed gossip and texting in class, not unlike many other people their age. Even though everyone in school was rich, they still thought that their wealth meant that they were better, and surprisingly most of the school allowed the to think this way. They would let themselves be bullied, or be talked badly about in some way or another. Of course at this age it didn’t take much for them to damage someone’s self esteem. Despite their manipulative tactics, they were still well liked for the most part, likely because their parents allowed them to throw huge rambunctious parties while they were away on business. Since this particular day happened to be a Monday, they were likely still a little groggy from this past weekend’s debauchery, and wanted to pick on someone to lift their spirits.

My sister and I sat alone at our usual lunch table when they came over to us. They pulled up four chairs and sat down with us.

“Why do you two hate fun so much?” A girl named Karen asked.

“We don’t hate fun,” I replied. Karen glared back at me.

“It really seems like you two hate fun,” a boy named Matt said. “I’ve never seen you at a party or anything.”

“We don’t think parties are fun,” my sister calmly stated. “Kindly leave us alone.” Although my sister meant no malice by her statement, you could tell that the popular children took offense.

“Excuse me?” A girl named Charlie said. “I would consider that rather rude.”

“No offense,” my sister replied. “But I don’t give a damn what you think.” Charlie crinkled her nose in disgust.

“You see?” a boy named Tyler butted in. “Stuff like that is the reason that you two freaks don’t have any friends.” A victorious look spread across his face as he waited praise from his fellow harassers. Neither my sister nor I replied to the comment and his look of glee slowly faded. Finally the group decided to leave.

I reached the trunk of the tree that held our tree house and began to climb up. Once inside, I can my sister exchange a few words with the chef and than walk out the door, looking for me I presumed. “Good morning,” she said as she climbed up. I smiled back but didn't say anything. She had a blank expression on her face which I knew meant something was bothering her.

“What's wrong?” I asked. Her expression changed to one of curiosity.

“Nothing,” she replied. “What makes you think something is wrong?”

“Please. I can tell when something is troubling you,” I told her. “Tell me what it is.”

“It's nothing,” she said again. I could tell she was lying but didn't push any further.

“The popular kids didn’t get to you did they?” I asked, referring what happened at school yesterday.

“Please,” my sister scoffed. “You know how they don’t mean anything to me.” I went over and sat next to her. She rested her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. We sat in silent for a few minutes. I wished we could sit like this for hours.

“I had that dream again,” my sister said, finally breaking the silence. I held her tighter.

My sister has had this recurring dream countless times over the years, and it's always exactly the same. It starts with her sitting in a chair in the middle of a bare room. On the opposite end of the room is a door. Figures start walking towards her from behind. She runs for the door but the room stretches to keep the door out of reach. The figures began catching up to her, they're just outside of grabbing distance at this point. Eventually the room stops expanding and she is able to go through the door. As soon as she does this, she wakes up.

This dream has terrified her for months. Sometimes I can hear her wake up screaming from across the hall and I always go over to comfort her. She cries in my arms until she falls back asleep.

It started out very infrequently, once or twice every few months. Lately it's been happening a several times a month, and this was the second occurrence this week.

“Let me know if I can do anything to help,” I said finally.

“It's weird,” she replied. “It doesn't really scare me anymore.” She looked up at me. I could see her bright green eyes twinkling even in the dimly lit tree house. “Nothing really scares me anymore.”

“I'm worried about you,” I told her. She looked at me like I offended her.

“Don't be,” she replied. “I can take care of myself.” She pulled herself away from me and stood up. “I bet breakfast is just about ready,” she said. We climbed out of the tree house and walked back to the house in silence.