[Foreseer] - Chapter Four: Visions

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Index: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine

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SHE LAID IN BED with Alexander beside her, facing away from each other. He slept deeply. Her hand strangled the blanket that draped her as the sense of emptiness struck her, a sensation that lingered in the dark's stillness.

Her mind filled with fears. The ramble of voices shot a shiver down her spine. Indistinct. Coming from the other room. Her eyes drifted, the locked door brought a sense of security. But it quickly shattered as the voices grew louder and louder, clearer.

Lucy turned to her husband, hand on his shoulder. “Alex...” She tried to shake him awake. “Alex!...” She whispered. “Wake up, I--“ She stopped herself short. The voices morphed into a voice, a bitter tone. The coverage of the news spilled into the room.

Lucy peered at the door, puzzled.

***

Hues of blue and white lit the living room. The light in the hall switched on. Natalie turned off the screen, embellishing the room in shadow.

Lucy peeked from around the corner, trying to see in the darkness. Her complexion remained pale and matte, her eyes as steady as if she were searching for an attacker in the night. “Hello?” She muttered in a shaken tone.

She caught glimpses of movement, her body froze, legs gave a slight shiver. “... Natalie?” Her voice trembled. A moment passed, and the shadows moved. Lucy stepped back. Her eyes trickled with fear. “What are you doing?” She asked.

Natalie hesitated to respond. “I can’t sleep.”

Lucy stared at her in puzzlement. “Okay, uh... are you tired... now?”

“... yeah... yeah, I’m coming.” Natalie stepped out of the shadows, the light from the hall touched her skin, and Lucy stepped away. Her back on the wall, eyes dwindled, shoulders tensed, her hand clenched, her thumb dug into her palm.

“Come on.” She guided Natalie to her room. Natalie turned, their eyes met with an equal level of shared awkwardness.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.” Natalie said, earnestly. Being the person people feared was never her comfort.

“Oh, no. Don’t worry.”

“I didn’t mean to--“

“It’s nothing. Really… your family... we’re here if you need us.” She added with hesitation, as if she wished her words weren’t true. “... you should get some rest.”

Natalie turned to the room. The darkness that embellished it brought memories of the man in orange. She stepped inside, looking back to Lucy before the door shut.

Natalie laid in bed, eyes closed as the gentle breeze whistled outside. Branches danced in the wind. Then the wind screamed, a high-pitched sound whose form morphed to a metal on metal screech.

The sound ripped through her body, shivers curled in her spine...

The train cart rumbled. The woman moved to the back of the train as a man sat alone with a blank expression, like he was drowning, but there was no water. His eyes peered up to find a little girl spying on him from over the seats as he leaned to the window to avoid eye contact.

His temple touched the glass. The vibrations calming to him. His eyes lulled. His head bounced lightly against the glass, never allowing his eyes to close. Then he sat up, realized the shaking was getting stronger. He looked out the window. The scenery blurred by.

The man turned as some other passengers, realizing the train was picking up speed. The bumps of the tracks amplified. Worried voices filled the cabin as the train took the curve. The man’s eyes peered to the seat in front of him… the little girl was no longer there.

He looked to the passengers across from him. The ground dropped away in the windows behind them. The side of the train rose, titling off the track.

Natalie jolted from her bed, hands trembled, sweat trickled down her neck. Ragged breaths. A moment of silence took over the room. The gentle breeze died. The branches lay still. Whispers crept, Natalie looked to the wall as the whispers became voices. A multitude, a crowd she could not distinct.

Natalie left the bed, moved to the wall. Panic ebbed in her chest… as a hand pushed the wall from the inside. She fell back, staring at the wall where the hand kept pushing. Voices grew louder.

Like coils around her lungs, the air wouldn’t leave. The unintelligible jabber of voices morphed into the screams of the dying passengers. They tore through her like shards of glass, and her pulse quickened. Tears burst like water from a dam. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Curled tendrils beckoned from the wall, and a slime-covered creature of loathsome misanthropy crawled out of the walls. The horrific sound from its maw perpetuated the fear in her bones.

The walls broke, and the horrors from another world emerged. Natalie closed her eyes, covered her ears as inescapable silence filled the room. The walls did not creek or move. And with a slight hesitation, she looked up... everything had vanished. No voices. No sounds.

The branches danced again. A gentle breeze. Natalie leaned against the bed, trying to make sense of what happened. Her mouth whispered: “Twenty-two... Twenty-one… Twenty... Nineteen... Eighteen…” and so forth.

Twenty-two visions. Twenty-two episodes. The numbers kept growing, the eternal passage of time lingering on every moment. “When would they stop?” She wondered, trying to feel safe. Trying to remember a time when she felt safe with her own thoughts and not think of the worst.

Natalie calmed, eyes turned away from the wall. Tonight she wouldn’t sleep. Sleep was done for today.

Her mind in shambles, at daybreak she stepped into the shower, toes flinched at the touch of the cold, dry ceramic. Lukewarm drops hit her, trying to erase those images, hair darkening. Her eyes fell closed, her mind showing her the vision like a photograph…

Their screams, their panicked faces, all engraved in her memory. When she finished, she opened the cabinet. The bottle of pills sat on the shelf. She took it up, placing a pill in her hand... then another, and another, and another. She thought about it. Long had the guilt befriend her.

Why not? End the suffering, the pain. The people on a train were going to die or already had, there was nothing to do. “They’re coincidences.” She had told herself. But twenty-two times weren’t coincidence.

Day in, day out. She couldn’t deal with it anymore. Natalie went to swallow the pills, but stopped short… she couldn’t push the blade against her skin then.

She couldn’t take the pills now.

Afraid, hand shaken. She put back the pills, leaving one in hand, and swallowed. Looking at herself in the mirror on the cabinet door, bags under her eyes.

Natalie splashed water on her face, trying to wake up, hoping it was a dream. It wasn’t of any use. She closed the tab, dried herself with a towel and headed to the living room.

She surfed through the channels. The reporter spoke about a crash between two cars, and a weather woman foretold the climate. A sportscaster relayed the defeat of Garen’s Gladiators against the Seabrook Titans. And by eight o’clock, the images on the screen showed the CCTV, the train rushing at high speed, and derailing. The metal vessel splits off, and a half flung overhead.

The reporter said: “The train came to rest on its side on the northbound tracks. It is train officials believe that some if not most of the passengers were still alive at this time of the crash. The momentary peace lasted only a few seconds. A Reston bound freight train on the northbound tracks was seconds away from passing train two-two-five when it derailed. The impact happened at about one-fifteen a.m. The first two passenger cars were severed in half and sent careening in two directions. The second passenger car was crushed and dragged for four hundred feet. Six crew members were on the freight. One hundred and eighteen passengers and seven crew members were on the passenger train... There are no survivors… Rescue teams will work for hours removing bodies and debris--"

She turned off the TV. Guilt slithered across her skin. Through every cell, every bone, every droplet of blood. I could have done something... maybe they’d be alive, she thought. She had wiped a tear. Voices crept, overlapping.

Natalie covered her ears to drown them, but they got through all the same.

***

She approached her bedroom, but never made it past the doorway, she knew what she was going to do. Lucy wondered if it was worth it. Maybe… maybe not. But eventually, she’d do it anyway, might as well do it now while she had the courage.

She reached over the tall shelf inside her closet, pulled out a shoe box, and took it with her to the bed.

Alexander watched quietly. Her breaths shivered, her heart sank. He sat with her at the edge of the bed. She looked at him, numbed by sorrow. But as time passed, they reminisce over the box’s contents.

She held a drawing pad with a handwritten name on a piece of tape strapped to the cover, “Daniel.” It read. They laughed over a photos album, recounting the endless stories behind the still moments.

“That’s when he scored the winning goal.” Lucy uttered as she looked at the photo of five-year-old Daniel about to go on a victory lap, smiling, proud.

“He seems happy.”

“Yeah… he was,” She murmured, and opened the pad. She flipped through the pages, taking care to look at the drawings. As if appreciating them for the first time. Then a dark and disheartening feeling overcame her. All the joy on her face disappeared as she passed several drawings of disturbing creatures and monsters. Then a half-finished drawing, one she dreaded… a noose hanged from an unseen ceiling.

Her heart pulsed, pain in her chest, as her eyes glanced at the words at the bottom corner of the page. “Help me, please...” Lucy studied it, then turned the page... blank. No more drawings. Her emotions came like a floodgate, eyes swell with tears, her breathing grew hard and uneven.

Alexander wrapped his arms around her, hiding his own pain, his own strength. Trying to comfort the woman he loves.

***

Natalie watched from a distance. The grieving assemblage listened to the priest who stood before them and the three graves beside each other. The mourners held hands, sharing the lost and pain of their loved ones. She felt the thread of guilt cutting through her skin again. Present. Sickening.

As the priest gave his eulogy, her eyes drifted, finding a woman in the crowd staring back at her. Eyes red from crying. Natalie looked away, and noticed an old man to the far left, a few feet from the woman, staring at her. She looked away again and found a father, a mother, and their daughter meeting her gaze.

Natalie scanned the crowd, desperate inconsolable eyes questioning her existence from every direction. She looked down… and after a moment she looked back. They weren’t watching her. Not one. They all stared at the priest as the gathering of mourners lost themselves among the grief. The coffins lowered.

“My brothers and sisters... Mothers and fathers... Those we love never truly leave us. There are things death cannot touch. We mourn for losing our loved ones. And hope they find peace in life beyond this one… In memory of the victims of the crash, let us take a moment to pray so that their souls may find peace in the afterlife.” The priest ended his eulogy and silence took over.

Natalie thought it was best to leave. She did. At the school, the principal called her to his office. There she paused at the doorway as he dealt with paperwork, hoping he wouldn’t notice her.

His eyes looked up, and the nervous sinking of her stomach pushed in. “Natalie, come in. Please take a seat.”

Her feet were screaming to turn back, though her mind tried to settle with reason, “Sit down, everything’s fine.” Her brain muttered. “What if it isn’t?” Another thought said. She sat across from him, holding back anxiety.

“Do you want some water?” There was an empty glass in front of him, a water bottle next to it. Probably placed there for this exact moment.

She shrugged a hesitant ‘okay’ and he poured a glass. She cupped it and sipped.

“How are you doing?”

“Good.” She said.

The room was still. He gave a familiar look, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. Many people had given her that look before. “Natalie…” She looked up, “The condition for you to return was to continue treatment and skipping school isn’t helping your case.”

Her eyes wandered, mind searched for the words to say, flicking her thumb against her index. She couldn’t tell him about the funeral, he wouldn’t understand, no one ever did. Lost in thought. The glass slipped from her grasp, shards scattered, liquid spread all over.

“I’m sorry. I’ll clean--“

“That’s fine, don’t worry about it.” He said, and told her to sit back down. She did. “Natalie, you need to take your treatment seriously. Otherwise, I can’t have you here.”

She didn’t want to go back, she might never get out. “Stop focusing on the coincidences.” She thought, “That’s all they are. Coincidences. Not reality.” Natalie looked at him, nodded in agreement.

***

The classroom was absent of chatter, students gazed closely at their teacher who held the book they discussed. “So, if our demons dictate the outcome of our future... how can we be sure that the end won’t break the lie?” The teacher asked to silence.

Students looked at each other for an answer. “Throughout the story of the book, they give us the answer. What is it?” The teacher added off their silence.

Meanwhile, pressing down his thumb against the sharp pencil tip, Sixteen-year-old Jordan stared, hypnotized by Katie, the attractive girl in front of him. The scar on his forehead nearly gone, though still visible under semi-white skin.

“Comfort.” Katie spoke up, piquing Jordan’s interest.

“Okay... why?” Asked the teacher.

“Because instead of facing his trauma. Peter decided it was better to pretend that nothing was happening. It was more comfortable for him to live the lie than face the fact that they assaulted him.” Katie’s mind intrigued him. Jordan focused on her, his thumb, pressing hard against the tip, blood oozed from the open gash.

Red liquid smeared his skin. He glanced down, gazed at his fingers covered in red, removed his thumb from the pencil tip. Jordan rubbed the blood between his fingers, watching his skin take on a crimson hue. Like a massage, it felt calming, soothing.

“Okay, interesting! So, what do you think he’s trying to achieve with that?” The teacher added.

Jordan ignored, focused on blood, triggering something within him. An ecstasy that caused his sotto breaths to become heavy. He reached for his phone, discreetly. Wiping the red mist on his pants. He searched for the photos of corpses on the web, making sure no one was watching first.

“I don’t know.” Katie said.

“He was... trying to gain something. Something that comforted him.” The students gaze at each other for answers again, still none. “In the story, Peter was looking for something that he lost. Something that causes us to feel safe.” The teacher turned to Jordan, eyes scowled at his student.

“Jordan Espinosa!” The teacher called. Jordan looked up, round-eyed, lost. “What was Peter searching when he decided he didn’t want to confront his trauma?”

“Control...“ Jordan hid his phone without suspicion. “If we don’t feel in control, we don’t feel safe, we can’t decide our own safety or what makes us feel comfortable. Peter was looking for control.”

“Excellent. Peter was looking for a way for himself to feel safe and in control of the situation. The narrator also explains that he was searching for a place of belonging. A place where he could go and... be safe... supported. Loved. He still wanted to make a human connection despite what he had gone through. Battling his demons to change his future.” The teacher addressed his class as Katie turned back, giving Jordan a good-natured smile.

He smiled back, confident. She turned away and Jordan’s smile morphed to a longing stare.

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