The Alphabet Superset: Week 7: Guilt-Induced Nightmare

Reference Link: https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/153646328-man-falling-through-dark-void

    Most people view sleep as a luxury. A time to relax and escape the world. A time when the mind visits a realm of fantasy and wonder. A time when one can be free from even the strictest laws of reality if they wish. For most people, sleep is an escape, a treasure, or even an adventure.

    But for some, sleep is as bad as being awake. Sometimes, sleep is even worse than reality. Sometimes, it is a door waiting to open, unleashing the worst elements of your imagination and past into your defenseless dreamscape. Sometimes, the breaking of the laws of reality makes these terrors inescapable. For some, sleep is the worst fate the day can hold.

    Bryce had had nightmares for years. Or he should say, he had had the same one for years. This nightmare led to several unhealthy addictions. He put off working until late at night so he had a reason to stay awake. He always had some form of caffeinated drink on hand, like coffee, energy drinks, or even soda. He was a pretty avid gamer on top of it all, playing online games all night when he didn't have work to do. To the outside world, he appeared to be an average teenager. Only he knew the truth and he did everything he could to try to ignore it.

    Sadly, sleep is an inevitable beast. If you do not surrender to it willingly, it will take you by force when it sees fit. Bryce regularly fell asleep during the day. The library, the back of the cafeteria, outdoor common places. He even fell asleep during classes, often being awoken by another student trying to help him avoid trouble. Usually, these sleep sessions were brief and dreamless.

    But after saving Joshuah, things got even worse. The nightmare had grown worse, leading to Bryce sleeping even less. What's worse is that his daytime sleeping grew more frequent and longer lasting, meaning the dreams were now invading during the day as well.

    His eyes were now constantly heavy and the bags beneath them never faded. He downed so much caffeine that his heart felt like it would pound out of his chest. He moved and thought slower, leading to his rankings in games and his grades dropping. His tardiness also began to rise.

    But things came to a head one afternoon when he and Joshuah were studying at the library. He knew when he got there that he was on the edge of crashing. The library seemed to sense it too. After it gave him and Joshuah a private place to study, it was as if the ambient noise died down and the room got just a little warmer. The room they were given had a couch and an extra chair even though there were only the two of them. Bryce hardly noticed any of this in his exhausted state, however.

    The thing about sleep is that unless you are trying, you never know when it's going to start. Bryce was alert one moment, albeit fighting to keep his eyes open. The next, he was surrounded by darkness. Bryce knew what was next, but he looked down anyway. Sure enough, he saw Kyle. Or rather, Kyle's soul. 

    What did you do?

    Kyle opens his eyes and looks at Bryce. Then he smiles cheerfully and gives him a small wave.

    This is your fault.

    Kyle reaches out a hand and Bryce reaches for it. But it is just out of his reach. The sound of a heart monitor fills the void around him. Voices cut through the darkness.

    You killed my boy.

    Kyle begins to sink into the darkness, just like Joshuah did. Bryce begs, pleads, and cries as he reaches further. The heart monitor flatlines. Footsteps fill the void. A woman's anguished cries fill the room. Bryce feels himself violently pulled back as an angry male voice blocks out all other noise.

    Get away from my boy, you freak!

    Bryce gasps as he quickly rises up, trying to catch his breath as adrenaline races through his system. He is back in the library, but it's different. The room feels off somehow. It's cooler and darker. A faint mist is fading from around the couch he is on. The books on the shelves nearby begin to shudder, shaking off a thin layer of frost that seemed to coat them.

    Bryce looks to Joshuah. Joshuah has turned to face him. He has a hand over his chest and is trying to calm down with deep breaths. Before he can say anything, Joshuah speaks up.

    "What happened? You fell asleep and then the room started to get dark and cold. At the same time, it's like I can feel your emotions. Panic, grief, self-loathing. What were you dreaming about?" Joshuah's concern is apparent in every word. Bryce felt bad about scaring his friend, but had no interest in discussing the nightmare just yet.

    "What do you mean you can feel it?"

    "I mean that I can feel your emotions. It's like you were broadcasting them directly into my head. I can tell they aren't mine because my body isn't reacting to them, but I can still feel them."

    "Weird, I wonder if it has something to do with the fight the other day."

    "Maybe, now stop dodging the question, what were you dreaming about?"

    "I... I was dreaming of an old friend."

    Joshuah doesn't say anything but continues to look at Bryce expectantly, clearly not satisfied with the cryptic answer. Bryce keeps quiet and Joshuah sighs in defeat before turning back to his books.

    "Look, I'm sorry about snapping like that. You just scared me is all. Whatever it is is deep and hurts a lot and I shouldn't be nosey about it. I'm sorry." Joshuah says calmly, trying to ease the situation.

    Bryce is hesitant for a moment but realizes that sooner or later, he is going to have to talk to Joshuah about this. After all, it isn't fair to surprise Joshuah with further episodes without some kind of warning.

    "About ten years ago, I had a friend named Kyle. We used to hang out all the time. We were constantly running around outside, making the streets of our neighborhood our playground. There wasn't a part of it we hadn't explored." Bryce took a deep breath. He stared at the floor as he spoke, lost in the memories. Joshuah looks up from his work but keeps quiet. He can feel the toll these memories are taking on Bryce and doesn't want to waste the effort.

    "The sun was going down and the driver didn't see us. Kyle wasn't paying much attention either, swerving around the stripped lines in the middle of the road on his skates. It was the latest trick he had learned and he wanted to show off. They both noticed each other at the last second and tried to avoid each other, but it was too late." As he talks, Bryce absentmindedly plays the scene out with his hands, showing the way his friend moved with one hand while using the other hand for the car. The hands graze against each other even as Bryce angles them away from each other.

    "My family followed the ambulance to the hospital. My parents tried to reach Kyle's while I waited for my friend to get out of surgery. The surgery finished, but the doctors weren't hopeful. Our parents were almost always hovering near the room. The whole time, I could feel... something. Like a tug that drew me to Kyle constantly." Bryce pulls on the front of his shirt as if to emphasize his point. "At some point, they all left to get coffee and I stayed in the room. The tug started getting stronger. I remember putting a hand on Kyle's chest."

    "Then you saw the void?" Joshuah asked, remembering when Bryce saved his own life not too long ago.

    Bryce nods. "Not that I knew what I was seeing really. I just knew that I saw Kyle lying down. Except this time, he was back to his normal self and his body was fine. I tried to reach out to him, just like I did you. But I guess my magic wasn't strong enough. Kyle started to sink away from me."

    "Kyle's dad stormed in and pulled me away. He was pissed and screaming at me. Said his son wasn't a toy for me to play with. That I didn't have the right to take him away like that. He was holding my arm so tight that it felt like it was gonna break. I begged him to let me go.

    "That was the first and only time I saw my dad truly angry. He shoved Kyle's dad off me. They screamed at each other as nurses tried to separate them. Kyle's mom just kept crying. That screaming crying like what you see in movies. I covered my ears and my mom got me out of there."

    "I guess there was a funeral, but I wasn't allowed to go. It was later that I found out it was because Kyle's parents truly believed that I killed their son. You see, they had learned what my family's magic was years ago. They used to not care, I guess because we had never practiced it in front of them. But after seeing me use my magic on their son, they must've changed their minds about us. I wish I could tell them the truth. That we could just sit down and talk." Bryce put his hands on his head in frustration for a moment. Then he dropped them down, slumping as if in defeat. 

    "But they moved after the funeral. Everyone said I should just leave them alone. But I have to apologize. Tell them I am sorry for not saving their son that day. I should've been stronger. If I had just tried a little harder, I could've reached him. If I had paid attention to the tug, I could've gotten to him sooner when things were better. He might've been closer. He would still be here and we would still be friends."

    "Hey!" Joshuah says firmly, snapping his fingers. Bryce is pulled from his spiraling train of thought and looks at him. "You did nothing wrong. What you are talking about is beyond the abilities of any five-year-old anywhere. Even if your parents had taught you what the tug was, you probably wouldn't have recognized it. You were lucky to save me because my injuries were light and you were there when it happened. You also have years of extra knowledge now than you did back then. Depending on how you look at it, the only reason you could save me is because of what you learned back then.

    "That supposed to make me feel better?" Bryce asked with a glare.

    "No, nothing I can say will make you feel better about what happened back then. It was a sucky situation all around and death is hard, if not impossible, to recover from. But I am trying to stop you from making it worse by beating yourself up. You don't deserve to have anyone treat you like that situation was your fault, especially yourself." Joshuah rises from his seat as he talks and makes his way over to the couch. He sits next to Bryce and makes eye contact with him.

    "You are not Kyle, who was playing in the street. You are not the driver who wasn't paying attention. You are not Kyle's parents who took their grief out the first innocent kid they saw. You're Bryce. You're the guy who tried to save a kid's life at the age of five with powers you barely understood because you knew that it was the right thing to do. You are the guy who responded to Kyle's death by trying to get stronger. You are the guy who saved my life even though you had every reason not to. Okay?"

    Bryce's eyes teared up. He broke eye contact and looked at the floor, words failing him. Joshuah put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't need a magical connection to tell that Bryce's mind was probably all over the place. So he sat quietly and waited for the storm to pass. Grief doesn't pass in a day after all.