Nightmare Part 2

I looked around the room, my bedroom. How had I got transferred here? My heavy panting shocked me. Wait, I was wet with sweat. My heart raced. Am I alive? I fell backward into bed.

Oh, thank God! It was just a nightmare. I let out a deep breath. I never wanted to fall asleep again. Freezing, I thought about that. In a way, it was unavoidable, but even now, my time on earth was wasting away.

Time passes by faster than I realized. This was something even I had better not forget. Still, I blinked and tried to remember what happened back then.

The memory of the dream I had was foggy at first, but I remembered exactly what happened after some thought. Yes, I was there in this house. No one saw me. It was like I had not existed to them.

It was like I was gone, dead even. Was that the aftermath of my death? The future I was looking toward? I breathed out. My sister and everyone will not see me again. Things would have been different. I would not be here with my family.

That was the future that was going to happen. I leaned up and looked at my open palm. That was not what I wanted to happen.

There had to be some way to prevent it, right? It was a thought, but should I be wasting time trying to figure this curse out? I already wasted enough time sleeping. Which I had to do. It was not like I had a choice there.

I looked around and considered my options. My window showed me a darkened landscape. Rowan was probably sleeping, so should have my sister and Joel.

My eyes came to the book which rested on the table next to me. In the dream, the book was mysteriously missing. It was right in front of me right now and my curiosity pulled me towards it.

My hands shook as they crept closer to the book. A pounding heart had me hesitant, but I anxiously took up the diary. I felt like I missed something in the diary earlier.

Something clicked in my mind. Did Nial not have a dream too? I frowned. No, it was a vision, and it was a pleasant one compared to my disorienting nightmare.

Maybe I missed something, and I humored myself by rereading the diary. I combed the words, the overall text. Everything he wrote felt like it was a new story altogether.

Then I saw that small detail I missed before. In Nial's diary, he details in his dream how he spotted a flower that bloomed on the purple mountain. How the flower, painted in purple, opened its mouth slowly, and the sun seemed to shine brighter on that day. Then I realized that the day he wrote about this flower was on the twenty-second day of the fourth month.

I scratched my eyebrow. Maybe I glossed over that detail that seemed insignificant as I was reading it, but it planted itself into my subconscious.

There was no running from the fact that we were in the fourth month. Spring was alive and kicking the proverbial cold air back into the environs of the rocky lands that surrounded us.

What day was it? My energy ran low with this splitting headache that was waking up in me.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember. Was today the fifteenth or the sixteenth? I wasn't sure. But seven days from the fifteenth was the twenty-two and if the sixteenth is the first day, the seventh day was the twenty-second, so either way, it was is coming up. Could this flower have held the answers?

Nothing beaten by a trial, but failure. I wasn't sure what magical powers that flower held. What was I supposed to do with it when I got there, whether I supposed to pick it, eat it, lay next to it, wear it? I had no clue. All I knew was that it was the only clue I had to figure it out.

So, my decision was clear. I was going to make my trek to the purple mountain and find that flower.

I wanted to go right now if it wasn't so dark out. Doubts started to swirl around in my head. I could have died while I was up there and then I wouldn't get to say bye to anyone.

Leaving now would not work. That dream rubbed me in the worst of manners.

To think I would not be around anymore. The thought sickened me, but it reminded me I had a responsibility to make my last days among my family count.

I had a clue, but I was not sure if it would have turned out any better than how I was right now. With nothing in my hands, to make this go away, I had to try something.

I decided to plan my week ahead. Time had to be spent tomorrow with my sister, the next day with my best friends, the other day with my grandma. How many days were those?

I counted out loud, "One, two, three… three days!" Then I'd have three more days left? I will figure out what to do next when the time comes on the next day. The day after was when I was going to start my trek to the mountain, so that I can watch the flower bloom. If I died while I was there, I can say I spent time with the people I loved.

I was still afraid of death as I laid my head back down. The excitement swelled in me and I was overcome with it for the days ahead.

The only was that each day was a day closer to death, but I also could not have waited to spend time with the ones I loved.

That was my goal now. I blinked and wondered what would have happened after I died.