One. Edmund.

Every now and again, I have the same nightmare. It happened a long time ago, but just the sight of all that water is enough to wake me up screaming. I could almost see myself flailing and splashing the surface of the water with my hands and gulped down and choked on all of it. The rapids violently thrusting against me and forcing my head underneath.

And then I wake up.

And I feel stupid for being scared.

But here's the catch- that never happened to me. Not once.

So I don't know where this deep set fear of drowning in rapids came from, but I know it's not for nothing because when my dear old mother was still alive, she told me to wait for- no- rather to anticipate dreams of water.

And if I do have one, then I should be ready.

"Ready for what?" I remember asking her.

"You'll know when the time is right, my sweet child." Was her vague reply.

And that's how we left it. So now here I am, waiting for the 'right time' that my mother was talking about. However, because I never really got told about what it was, I live in a sort of untold fear- anxious about whether it's going to be good or bad. 

I try to stay awake for as long as I can, because it's in my greatest efforts to refrain from revisiting that dream. But inevitably, I fall back asleep at some point in to a short-but-sweet slumber, only to scare myself back awake again.

The vicious cycle continues.

A hellish time of fear, drowning in complete darkness. Fear of the unknown clouding over my thoughts like a thick fog- making me unable to breathe at all

That's how it works; Sleep, nightmare, wake up, errands, stay awake for as long as I can and then, ironically, fall back to sleep and have the nightmare all over again. Although it petrifies me enough to startle me awake, this routine has become quite tedious over time.

The worst side of this dream, is that it doesn't just come when I attempt to sleep for a sufficient amount of time at night- it happens anywhere and anytime (as long as I've dozed off).

And as it so happens, while I was potting some bluebells in the flowerbed outside the front of my house, I nodded off.And at this point, to no one's surprise- the nightmare came again.The thrashing swirls of water all around me, forcing my head under and flooding my lungs...

But I got shaken awake and woke up with a start. This was the first time I didn't experience the entirety of the dream.

When I opened my eyes, there was a rather pale man with jet black, shoulder-length hair, sharp yellow eyes towering over me, sporting a long, midnight-blue cloak. He crouched down until he was eye level with me and offered his left hand to assist me in getting up. It was bound in a tight, black leather glove with an insignia on the back that kind of looked like a sun.

"Nightmare of water?" The stranger asked, tilting his head to the right just a touch. His voice was deep and velvety, with the slightest trace of hoarseness lining it.

I was shocked, but those eyes compelled me to give him the straight truth- nothing more and nothing less.

"Yes, but why do you ask?" I gasped out of confusion and tried to get up, but it was like an invisible force was being emitted from his eyes, holding me down firmly.

"Pardon our intrusion, but you're going to have to come with us, sir." With this he stood up, but kept his arm outstretched for me. 

"'Sir?' What exactly did I mean to these fellows?" I thought, bewildered. Then, as if by magic, two bulky, intimidating men emerged from the trees surrounding my house and started to stride smartly over to a cautiously hidden back van between said trees.

Was this what my mother told me to be ready for? What she told me to 'anticipate'?

All I knew at that moment was that I had to follow them. It didn't matter that they looked like dangerous thugs at that moment in time, I just felt a strange compulsion to get into that van and let them take me wherever they wanted me to go. Call it intuition, I guess.

I took the hand of the pale man and strangely enough, the moment I did, I felt relaxed. I wasn't nervous at all- I suddenly trusted these guys like I knew them all my life. I followed the pale-skinned gentleman to the van and sat in the back seat- he sat across from me. As we started moving, I looked out of the window to the left of me and took one last glance at the home I had lived in since I was born.

"Get some rest sir. I'll wake you up when we get there." The pale man stated monotonously while watching me.

I suddenly felt my eyelids getting heavy when the last deep-red tile of my roof disappeared into the thick leaves of the trees, and for the first time since my mother passed, I slept peacefully.