Faded Encounters

by Elsy Green

  They are taking her because I’m a Genesis, even if I did do this, they would never arrest me. I’m above the law, I’m above everything.

  “You can’t do this! She killed them! She killed them! It was all her fault!” she screams and kicks as they drag her away. I follow at a distance, a swarm of men still keeping me at bay as they throw her into their reinforced vehicle like a wild animal.

  “I’ll get you out. I’ll help I promise! I’ll fix this Ryss.” I call out to her, pushing against the men in front of me.

  “Don’t you dare talk to me ever again. I hate you Riella, I hate you with everything inside of me. I’ll figure out a way to end your life if it’s the last thing I do!”

  The world around me disappears and I startle from my desk in biology class. Every set of eyes is on me, the entire room eerily quiet as they stare at me with bewilderment. Another dream. Another dream in another class. I don’t even want to know what I blurted out before I woke up. I sigh and rub my eyes in frustration.

  “Allie, thanks for joining us. Seems you’ve managed to last a total of five minutes today before nodding off. I guess my curriculum just isn’t as exciting as it used to be.” Ms. Fay crosses her arms over her chest impatiently as she stares me down waiting for my excuse.

  “I’m sorry.” I straighten in my chair not even trying to find an excuse. I don’t have one, not anymore. She sighs and rolls her eyes before changing gears.

  “Like I was saying, before I was interrupted by another one of Allie’s outbursts,” she gives me a pointed stare, “we have a new student joining us. His name is Ethan Miller, why don’t you stand up and introduce yourself.” She motions to the back of the room and everyone turns in their seat except me.

  I’m not really interested in the new kid. He’s just going to be like all the rest of the stereotypical teenagers here. Finding his clique and falling in line with their drone ways. Instead I doodle down a few notes form my latest dream. Sophie, Nadia, Theo, Ryss-blonde, tall and beautiful, death…

  “Hi, my name is Ethan,” the new kids starts. Every single hair on the back of my neck shoots straight up. My entire body frozen in shock, my heart drumming wildly in my chest as I recognize his voice. I would know that voice anywhere. Slowly I turn around to confirm my suspicious, praying I’m wrong.

  “My dad and I just moved down here from upstate. Happy to be here.” He takes a seat in his chair and I let out a slow, shallow breath. I’m not wrong. I’m completely right. Turquoise eyes, long black eyelashes, light dirty blonde hair, strong jaw, insanely handsome.

  “Jaxon?” I breath out his name in disbelief. He turns to me with a crinkle in his brow, his eyes narrowing on me like he’s trying to figure out who I am. And for the briefest moment I swear he recognizes me. Realizing his mistake he shakes his head and turns back to Ms. Fay with a puzzled look.

  “Allie?” Ms. Fay sighs as she attempts to get my attention back to the front of the class. I ignore her, staring at Jaxon with disbelief. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. Grabbing my bag, I rush from the classroom and out of the school.

  I’m still dreaming and I need to wake up.

  C.06

  I burst through my bedroom door dropping my bag on the floor as I race to my desk. It’s covered in books I checked out on reincarnation, lucid dreaming, dream psychology, doppelgangers, and various other topics that are supposed to help me cope with my weird reality. I fumble through the stack of books, knocking them over onto the floor as I frantically search for the book I’m looking for. Not even for one second thinking about how this is possible in my dream state. I don’t care. I just need answers.

  I sigh when I find the book I was looking for. Lucid Dreaming. It’s a book on everything you would ever need to know about dreams, why we have them, what they mean, and how to stop them if they become to real. With trembling hands, I flip open the book to the page I left bookmarked in case of a time like this. My fingers graze across the words as I skim through the section on how to wake up from a dream, my eyes searching for any sort of answer.

  “Okay, visualize the dream and it’s objects with as much close up detail as possible, explore your surroundings. If you are truly dreaming, your mind will be able to determine what is real and what is dreamland.” I groan and flip to the next page. “I already know I’m in dreamland how do I wake up?”

  I scan the next passage, my eyes darting back and forth over the words, desperate for an answer. For some reason I’m terrified of not waking up, all of the sudden I’m overwhelmed with the thought of being trapped in a dream. The thought sends horrifying chills down my spine, the kind you get when you’ve just remembered something terribly petrifying. Except I don’t know what I’m remembering, it’s like an awareness of something I’m not quite sure I’m truly aware of.

  A feeling I’ve had before, a feeling of being trapped. My mind is screaming at me to release it, my insides churning with uneasiness. Something isn’t right, I have to wake up. I blow out a breath and try to not focus on that. I need to focus on the words that are getting blurrier and blurrier by the second.

  “Establish if you are really asleep, look at your hands, flip them over and study them. Look at the lines, your nail beds, the color of your nails. Did you have them painted? Are you wearing any rings? Can you move your fingers? Can you tell the difference? Ask yourself if you are dreaming. Then look around to make sure you actually know all the people you’re with. If anything seems amiss, tell yourself to fly.” I scowl at the page. “To fly really?” I rub my eyes and let out a sigh, I’ll try anything at this point.

  I place my hands in front of my face, turning them over a couple of times as I examine them. They look normal enough. Skin, lines, and fingernails, no paint, no rings. I guess maybe when I wake up, I should do something to my nails to distinguish them. Help me know for certain if I’m awake or not.

  “Okay, look around my room, what seems amiss?” I close my eyes and then open them again, taking in every inch of my room. Everything seems perfectly in place, just like I had it this morning before I left for school, that is if I ever left for school. Maybe I’m awake then, maybe this was all just some weird fog that overcame me. I shake my head still unsettled. No, something is off, I can sense it. I can feel my body aching to wake up.

  “Okay, okay, think. What is amiss?” JAXON! Jaxon is amiss. It said look at the people you are with. I’m not with anyone now but I was. The kid from my class, Ethan or Jaxon. He didn’t fit and I knew it. Blowing out a breath I close my eyes and do the next step. I know I’m asleep, now I just have to prove to my brain I am.

  “FLY!” I face my hands towards the ground imagining they are rockets pushing me off the ground and into the sky. I’m soaring through the sky, the wind in my face and hair, proving to my brain that I’m asleep. Only when I open my eyes, I’m exactly where I was ten seconds ago, not in the sky. Screaming in frustration, I turn back to the book almost tearing the page as I flip it over.

  “Meditate?” I groan as I read the next section. Of course it’s meditation! The only thing that seems to open and now apparently close the door to my dreamland. I moan as I impatiently scan the instructions. “Lie down on your bed or get in a comfortable seated position on your floor. Imagine waking up. Imagine you are home and awake. Surrounded by your own things, and the people you love. Let your mind relax and rest, don’t think of anything else. Just think of waking up and home. Concentrate everything you have on waking up.”

  I shake my head and blow out a breath. I guess I don’t have anything to lose. I’ll either wake up or possibly go deeper into this dream. A small tremble runs down my spine and I shake it off. I don’t have time to think, I just need to act. Climbing onto my bed I shake out the jitters that fill my body and get comfortable.

  I close my eyes and take in a few deep breaths imagining I’m awake. I imagine I’m at my home with Sophie, my mother, and my father. We are eating takeout and laughing about some previous event we
just attended together. Yeah right, that’s never happened. I shake my head and try again, clearing my mind once more.

  I take in a deep breath and imagine home. I breath in a big gulp of fresh air. It seems different, fresh, clean, almost green, like I can breathe in the pine trees nearby. There is fresh bread in the oven, with just a hint of sulfate in the air. It’s always there, a constant reminder of where I come from. A smile spreads across my face and my body relaxes against the bed, my muscles sinking into the plush white comforter that’s covering my comfy bed. The ends come up and wrap around me, cocooning me in it’s soft, lush, inviting fabric. I breath it all in, letting it pull me in deeper and deeper into the bed until suddenly, I’m lost.

  “Sweetheart, you’re doing so great!” A younger version of Nadia smiles to me with open arms. I giggle and race to her, my tiny little legs moving rapidly underneath me. I’m younger now, a toddler who hasn’t even experienced much of life yet. Happy as can be as I race towards the woman in front of me.

  Nadia laughs as I reach her, scooping me up into the air and swinging me around like an airplane. I laugh giddily, throwing my head back as I let the cool air touch my skin and breeze through my short hair.

  “What are the two of the most beautiful girls in the world doing?” I look over to see a younger Theo reaching out for me. I go to him willingly wrapping my small arms tightly around his neck. He sighs and pulls his head up so can get a good look at me.

  “Who would have thought we could be this happy?”

  “I didn’t think it was possible after everything we’ve been through. I mean…the thought of her…it was unfathomable.”

  Theo smiles a big smile that reaches all the way to his perfect brown eyes.

  “She has your eyes.” Nadia leans her head on his shoulder as she looks down at me.

  “She does, it’s amazing, I didn’t think she would.”

  “I did, a rich chocolate color such as yours demands to be passed down. Men will lose themselves in those eyes, just as I lost myself in yours.”

  Theo chuckles, his belly rumbling beneath me as he leans over and kisses Nadia on the forehead. “And here I thought you fell for my brains.”

  Nadia laughs. “Well, that came next.”

  I smile at the both of them throwing an arm around Nadia as I hug. Nadia and Theo wrap and arm around me, giving into my demand for a group hug. When we break apart, Theo looks sad and it confuses me, he was just happy seconds before.

  “We have to take her in.” He looks somberly at Nadia. She opens her mouth in quiet protest, but Theo interrupts before she can. “We did this, we created her. We knew there would be risks and we did it anyways. We have to give her a life like this, one filled with loving parents and a warm home. She deserves that much. Besides, I’m afraid if we don’t the consequences will be catastrophic.”

  “Theo, she is just a child.”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t have connections to humanity. Without that she is volatile. Without that she is left a victim of her own makeup, one that is much more sophisticated and powerful than she will ever understand.”

  “And what of the future? When she finds out the truth? What of her state then? It is bound to happen regardless of our actions.”

  “We can’t let it happen.” He sets me down at his feet and pulls Nadia in front of him, placing his hands on her shoulder. “Nadia, we cannot let that happen. We have to do everything in our power to stop something like that. We have to give her something to fall back on.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Nadia puzzles up at him.

  He purses his lips and lets out a long exhale. He turns towards me, his handsome face transforming into a sad smile as he looks down at me. “Change the past.”

  “Theo.” Nadia puts her hands over her mouth in shock.

  “We have no other choice.”

  “We certainly do, we can go to the others we can come up with a plan.”

  “We will go to the others, but I am afraid they will agree with my plan.” Nadia’s bottom lip quivers as she looks down at me. “But—”

  “But nothing, she will still be ours, she will still be with us. Nothing will be different except what we tell them. Come, I’ve already arranged the meeting, they’ll be waiting for us.”

  “ALLIE!” Someone shakes my body violently. “ALLIE!” I shoot up straight and gasp for air. Sophie lets out a sigh of relief and sits back against my headboard next to me. I’m in my bedroom again, sitting on my bed just like I was in my dream before this dream and after the others. I moan and rub a hand down my face hoping it’s all over.

  “Allie, are you alright? You were really out of it.”

  I let out a shaky breath and swallow down turning my hands over in front of me just to make sure I’m really awake. Everything looks fine, my room is normal, Sophie is normal and my hands are normal. I’m finally awake. Relieved I fall back onto my bed and let out long breath.

  “What happened?” Sophie looks down at me with concern.

  “I don’t know. I had some weird dreams that didn’t end. It was like dreams within dreams. I was starting to get worried I’d never wake up.”

  “Dreams within dreams? Allie, how long do you think you’ve been home?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s hard to say when I can’t differentiate my reality from my dreamland.”

  “Reality from dreamland?” She shakes her head confused. “You’ve only been asleep for like twenty, thirty minutes tops. I came to your house after Ms. Fay came looking for you.”

  I turn to her in shock. “What do you mean when Ms. Fay came looking for me?”

  “She was looking for you, she said you fell asleep in her class and then ran out of the room looking ill when the new boy introduced himself. She wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “No.” I sit up and shake my head. “No. That’s not possible. That was a dream.”

  “It wasn’t. Maybe you had a dream in her class but you were awake when you came home.” I jump off my bed and race to the bathroom.

  “Allie where are you going? We have to talk about this? You’re getting worse, you can’t just leave school like that.”

  I fumble with the knobs on the faucet turning them as cold as they can get. I push my hands into the running water and splash my face with the freezing cold water.

  “Allie? What are you doing? Did you hear me? What did you see?”

  “No. No. No. No.” I mumble to myself. I’m in another dream, this can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. I grab handfuls of water frantically throwing them on my face and body begging myself to wake up.

  “Allie!” Sophie tugs on my arm and I rip it from her grasp going back to manically splashing my face. It has to work; the cold will wake me up or I’ll notice it’s not really cold and my brain will realize I’m still asleep.

  “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

  “STOP IT! ALLIE STOP IT!” Sophie pulls me away from the sink pinning my arms against my back with surprising great strength. I breath in deep ragged breaths hunched over as I watch the cold-water drip from my face and onto the ground with precise accuracy.

  “You are awake. You fell asleep at school, you woke up, got spooked and ran.” I swallow down the lump in my throat as I watch another drop fall from my dark damp hair and onto the tile floor. I look up into the mirror in front of me watching myself heave deep heavy breaths as Sophie hugs me tightly from behind.

  I look at myself in the mirror examining my unrecognizable reflection. I look like a lunatic with my brown eyes dilated to the max, my skin an ugly pale color, and my lips blue from the cold water. I go limp against Sophie and she helps me to the ground. Deep, uncontrollable sobs take over my now freezing cold body.

  “I’m awake Sophie.” I collapse into her lap.

  “I know honey.” She places her arms around me and tries to warm me up. “I’m here.”

  I fall into her arms and let out a blubbering so
b. “It’s getting worse Sophie, I can’t tell the dreams from reality. I feel like I’m losing myself. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  “I know.” She rubs my arms comfortingly. “Tell me what you saw so I can help you. Let me help you figure it out.”

  I nod into her chest taking in a deep breath as I try to process it myself. I have to tell her, regardless of how crazy it sounds. I need her help.

  “The new boy, Ethan Miller, he’s Jaxon. Jaxon from my dreams.”

  C.07

  I stare down at the hot chocolate Sophie has made me. it doesn’t taste right, for some reason nothing tastes right. It’s like I woke up from my last dream with a mouthful of that grass I was racing through. My tongue is dry, my taste buds desensitized and I’m finding it harder and harder to convince myself that I’m actually awake right now.

  Sophie thinks it’s PTSD from sleep deprivation mixed with my lucid dreams. She thinks I’m experiencing some kind of trauma from everything I’ve seen and the fact that I feel trapped in these dreams without a shred of control. I don’t know what I think. She has some valid points, I am sleep deprived and I do feel trapped, but I don’t feel like I’ve been through anything traumatic enough to give me nightmares. I mean at least I don’t think I have.

  The dreams are weird and sometimes terrifying, but not for the reason you would think. I’ve had nightmares before, I’ve even woken up terrified in the dark after a scary movie, but this is different. Every time I dream of these characters, Riella and Jaxon, I get this overwhelming feeling like somehow, I’m connected to them, like somehow, I’m going to end up trapped in my dream forever. Destined to live my life out as her. Which might not be so bad…but it’s not my life. It’s hers.

  That’s why it’s alarming, because no matter how I look at it, I’m Allie, not Riella and the sooner I get my subconscious to accept that the better. Still, even I as I lecture myself on the subject something unsettles within me. A knot churns in the pit of my stomach and I know without a doubt that I’m looking at this all wrong. I’m not thinking clearing.