It was the same feeling every night for almost 20 years. The smell of smoke, the trouble to catch a breath, the heat. Park Chung-Ho opened his eyes like always and saw the fire everywhere around him. The sound of the flames eating the room was deafening.
He knew perfectly that the fire colors on the wall would start to be challenged by a glowing blue coming from the firefighters. In fact, this nightmare would soon be over.
Park Chung-Ho never saw the firefighters himself; he just learned later that he was rescued in the fire that burnt his house down and killed his parents. He was a baby at that time. It was strange how well he remembered that night.
It wasn't possible that the trauma made this nightmare so vivid and his memory this strong and detailed, but still, he was having this nightmare over and over again.
Almost every night, and even though dreaming of fire should carry his problems away, it happened that this was the very dream that was the cause of his anxiety.
Park Chung-Ho assumed it was a nightmare based on the memory of this event. Or maybe it was based on what he learned later, when the story was detailed to him. It didn't matter much what this nightmare was based upon; it was there, it was scary, and it was testing. And every time he would have this nightmare, he would wake up still breathing hard and his sheets sweaty, as if he endured the nightmare FOR REAL.
Over the years, he noticed that this nightmare was always the same, and lately, he tried to stay the longest possible in it to see what would happen and catch every detail possible. He had difficulties breathing the further he dived into the smoke. He already saw all the details of the room, but he hadn't explored the corridor on his right. It seemed there was something behind the flames, or someone. But this seemed dangerous. He had to cross the fire, and he didn't know if the smoke wouldn't be more suffocating there. He placed himself in front of the door frame. The blue glow on the walls wasn't reflecting in the corridor. Maybe it was all darkness there. He jumped across the flames and ended up in a dark passage. He couldn't see an ending through the heavy smoke. He felt like something was watching him. Like, there was something uncanny going on.
"WAKE UP"
That was his thought, the order he issued every time he wanted to get out of his nightmare. He suddenly sat in his bed, breathing heavily, his eyes wide open. Knowing this nightmare perfectly couldn't help the reactions it provoked in him. It was way too vivid, way too real. His breath was cooling slowly, and he could stand up. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. He never liked the messy and sweaty hair he had when he would break out of this nightmare. Black hair, brown eyes, and very pale skin. This wasn't his natural skin color; the nightmare really impacted him deeply. More than he would have thought. Was it because of this sensation of being observed right after he jumped through the flames and in the corridor? He checked his watch. He only slept 3 hours, and he wasn't confident in trying to sleep again by himself. He would need a sleeping pill to lower the chances of going back into this nightmare.
"Regular ones or my own craft ?" he thought. "I still get 4 hours if I sleep now."
He opened his apothecary desk and drew out 3 green leaves and a root of some plant. He cut it all and placed it in a mix to grind everything; he poured some water and drank it all. He lay down in his bed again and closed his eyes.
Strangely, he started to think about Aislinn Nòttdottir, a girl of his year. Why was she surfacing in his mind at this very moment?
They were classmates, but it seemed like they had seen each other for some time already.
And yes, she was beautiful, with her long blond hair and deep green eyes. He focused on her eyes, and it seemed that those eyes saw him. At first, he felt a strange feeling, and he knew this feeling very well, as he had felt it for quite some time in his dreams: he was being observed.
But here, in this sleep, in this dream, there was nothing. Everything was dark, but the feeling was there.
"How is this even possible?"
And then the feeling stopped; only the dark stayed.
He couldn't say how long he slept, but the smell of burning came back, the heat, and this feeling of exhaustion and incapacity to breathe. He was back in this nightmare.
"Another fail," he thought.
"Wake up, you're late."
This wasn't him thinking, but a light voice speaking to him. He turned to the right, where the voice came from. He just had the luck to see 2 eyes looking at him through the flames before he fell from his bed.
His head hit the bedside table, and he woke. Suffocating from the smoke and sweating from the heat, he even had some burnt marks on his legs and arms. It was slight, but it still was there. It took him a bit longer than usual to totally shake off this bad night, just to realize that he got up later than he wanted.
He kept his head down as he apologized to the professor and looked for a chair in the room. She was there, and like the others, she was looking at him. Their eyes met, but he looked away instantly and took a chair on the other side of the room. Why was she making him feel so uncomfortable this morning? He couldn't explain it. He focused his attention on the course until it was time for lunch.
He found a bench under a tree, the perfect place to eat. He pulled his lunchbox out of his bag and was ready to eat when he heard a voice near him.
"Seems like someone didn't have enough sleep last night, right?"
It was her. Why was she here? Why was she talking to him?
"What?" No other answer could express his surprise better.
"You were late today. It's not the first time of the year, but you missed some important info."
"What kind of information?"
"We have to team up for the next exam."
"Don't worry, I won't be late anymore; I won't put your exams in danger."
"Unlike your head," she smiled.
"Oh, this... Well... I guess it happens, right?"
"How did you manage to hurt yourself like this? Did you fight or what?"
"I could tell you an amazing story where I saved puppies, but I just hit my head on my bedside table."
Aislinn burst into laughter.
"You're kidding me, right?"
They both laughed and briefly discussed the upcoming examinations before they headed to their rooms.
He spent several hours working on his sleeping pill.
He would try another mix. He managed to formulate something that made him sleep after all. But it was probably too powerful, and his dream came back instantly. Something wasn't good enough, and he'll have to change the measures.
He took his new pill and lay down on his bed.
The fire, the heat, the smoke.
"Here we go again." He said it out loud.
"Like so many nights, right?"
He heard this light voice again.
"What the fuck is going on?" There was a twist in the Nightmare. This wasn't what he had lived so many times before.
"Wake up," he thought, but nothing happened. "Wake up!" Still nothing. What was going on?
This never happened before, and the heat was going higher; the air was becoming thicker and thicker. He knew that this situation was making him a bit anxious and that this wouldn't help the breathing. But he also knew that this was just a dream. He tried to relax and thought.
"It's just a dream, you know it perfectly; nothing will happen, just calm down and wait for it to disappear like every time." He pictured the dream. He knew how everything would go. But something wasn't like every time. First of all, he was unable to wake up like he usually did. And there also was this voice he had never heard. And it spoke again.
"No, this isn't JUST a dream. This is a nightmare, and you won't get out of it easily."
This was a dark and resounding voice. It seemed like a man, but he wasn't sure if it was human. One thing was certain: this voice meant DANGER. He had to wake up by any means.
The first voice echoed again. Light and bright, but it was pressing this time.
"You're too deep in the dream; you can't go out this way."
He looked to his right at the wall of flames and saw the eyes just behind it.
They were here, gazing at him. The light voice echoed in the dream.
"Follow me; you must get out as soon as possible."
He got up and stared at the wall of flames.
"Hurry up and come through this fire. We need to get you out of this NOW !"
He knew this was possible, as he had already done it before. He closed his eyes, crouched to take a good breath with the least smoke possible, and then he jumped as far as possible. This was the same dark corridor he had already seen before. He could still feel the heat behind him, but there was no fire in front of him, just a little less smoke. He could almost breathe normally again. Someone placed her hand on his wrist.
"Follow me," she said.
He listened to her, and they started to run in this dark corridor. Far away, there seemed to be some light.
"We must get there, but believe me, you need to never look behind."
"Like Orpheus?"
"Yeah, something like that indeed."
They rushed the fastest they could. But he could hear something chasing them. The sound of their footsteps was echoing in the corridor, but what was following them and seemed like it was floating. It was as if the wind was blowing. He felt this thing was getting closer and closer.
They were almost at the end of this path; he could see that this light came from a garden. That was at that moment that he felt it. 2 hands on his shoulders, slowing him, and the voice echoing again
"TURN TO ME!"
His steps were harder and harder to make.
There was a sound behind him, the breath of someone or something.
It felt like going slower and slower, like he was trying to run in a kind of mud that was getting thicker and thicker.
He was exhausted, he couldn't go further, and the garden was just one meter away.
"Keep going forward!" As she entered the garden, he saw her and recognized Aislinn instantly. What was she doing in his dream?
"Don't look back," he thought.
But he was pulled in his back, and he was exhausted; he couldn't endure it anymore. He closed his eyes as he felt himself being dragged in the dark mist. He fell backwards and thought he needed to face what was blocking him. He opened his eyes as Aislinn was screaming.
"Noooooooooooo !"
Her voice seemed to be getting further and further. He looked into the darkness and so 2 yellow eyes staring back at him. And the voice echoed in his head, and it was scarier than ever as he felt 2 hands pulling him to the darkness.
"I GOT YOU!"