dream state | frank

After months of a relative peace the nightmares had been getting worse. Three mornings – and by mornings it was a matter of the sun barely being a cold grey streak at the edge of the horizon – this week, Frank had torn himself out of them to stumble out into the yard. Sweat drying on feverish skin until the cold bit hard enough to drive him inside. Shaking fingers clutching cigarettes or clinging to the chalky pills he choked down dry or chased with exactly what he wasn’t meant to take them with. Bitterness lingering in his throat, lending a raspy edge to his voice as Kit, or Katja, had appeared, pale eyes snagging on the shadows that cut deep and dark under his eyes. Worry unspoken as he’d bounced up to pour coffee or offer a breakfast that would only be shuffled around the plate.

Frank sank back in his chair in the tiny office he’d retreated to once classes had let out. He’d managed a half smile as his ‘Worlds of World War I’ class had filed out, it had been faint though, the lines that seemed carved deeper ever time he looked in the mirror settling back. Sniffing now to try and shift the gritty burn that rose from the back of his throat up to his eyes Frank flipped back the wax paper wrapping the sandwich Katja had tossed him that morning when he’d emerged into the kitchen. ” Para evitar que te queme el estómago. Cometelo.” He looked up from the toasted bread with its fringe of melted cheese to the opaque brown bottle on the corner of the desk. She’d known.

She wasn’t wrong either. As the headache that had come with last night’s dream sank fresh teeth into the rigid muscles of his neck Frank reached for the bottle again. Even a year ago the pain that followed him out of those nightmares would’ve had him at the hospital, dread rolling thick through his head as the MRI machine clanged and crashed around him. The only fear then that he’d torn something open as he’d thrown himself out of those nightmares with a holler and a fight that did no more against the phantom flames as it had the real ones. This wasn’t a relapse though, it was so much worse and there was no escaping it.

Death. Everywhere in this town.

Eyes fluttering shut Frank twisted the top off the bottle, fumbled two of the painkillers out and tossed them into his mouth. The bitterness that bloomed on his tongue as he crunched down on the pills set his stomach to roiling but he didn’t care. Minutes later the relief was rushing in, that hazy white cloud that filtered through his mind and the stiff, aching muscles. The sounds of students and other staff clattering down the hallway outside his office melted away, leaving nothing but that staticky buzz that was as close as it seemed to come to peace now to seep in.

Maybe even if he’d been conscious he wouldn’t have cared about that slow trip upstairs. Blank faces he couldn’t have pinpointed even with a gun to his head later drifting by, his own a mask that reflected the comatose state of the man in the stiffness of bearded cheeks and flat hazel irises. One female voice cut out after him but there wasn’t so much as a twitch.

A broad palm caught the door to the humanities block as it swung open, booted feet leaving a trail through the dusk damp glass as Frank trailed straight across it. The world might’ve been teetering on that plum and gold edge of night but he saw none of it. His mask reflected back at him in the glass of the building’s big front doors, a sharp hiss of voices hitting hard enough to have him flinching as the doors swung shut behind him. Frank gripped the stair rail, starting up them slowly. Noise rattled down from above barely audible at first but as he heard the squeak of shoes above something cracked and he took off up them.

Breath sawed in and out of his lungs, hazel eyes going wild as he clattered over a wet floor sign. Frank caught the door, flapping lightly as it was on its hinges. Fingers closing around its cold edge the world snapped back into focus like a blind had been flung up in his brain. That sunset dark beyond the parapet of the roof, nobody in sight but somehow that was worse. Dread pooled greasy in his stomach, threatening to bring the burning rush of the Percocet rushing back up.

He inched out, boots sliding along the stone floor like it would give way beneath him. Fingers slid over the brick of the building, nails snagging on it. His brain screamed at him to reverse, to rush back down those stairs but like he’d been twice before Frank was now caught in a tide he couldn’t escape. Eyes blurring with the burn of exhaustion and fear stared at the uniformed janitor – Phil? Paul? something like it – clutching at a kid like that scrappy body was somehow gonna give strength to his own. He’d watched enough men die, had stared the spectre of it in the mirror the first time they’d let him out of his bed in Bethesda. Death wrought in shades of grey, blue and yellow, the cold sweat he’d been sure was a precursor to a roasting in hell slicking your skin.

The kid yelped, the janitor’s hand clutching at him, snaring at throat and collarbone before in one shocking instant the janitor was tumbling away. Frank stumbled forward, boots rattling against the parapet when he hit, like he was about to go after the man. The stone top of it catching him sharp in the stomach then scraping skin as he dropped to his knees, hand thrown out into the air, fingers spread towards the crumpled figure laid out on the ground. The scream tore out of him, as loud as it had been when Theo had died not a quarter mile from him and he’d been drawn out to the girl in the woods. Death announced with a cry that would echo campus wide.

Frank sank down, leaning back against the parapet with the voices clear but quiet in his head now. Forget the wailing woman, death had unlocked something in him the night he’d lost Theo and he’d become the wailing man. Head tipped back against the cold brick he stared up at the kid, brows knotting. Third period … ”F-fionn. What … what were you doing up h-here? How did you …” In this town he needed to stop asking the question – his brother had died and come back, he’d started to herald death and his niece had gone from new born to a teenager overnight. For Christ’s sake, his best friend was a werewolf.

”Hey.” The word emerged on a ragged exhalation. Frank began to shove himself to his feet, a hand extending to the kid. ”Fionn. Fionn, are you OK?” That stutter that gripped him melting away faced with someone who was in the same state he’d been in that first time. Paralysed, the horrors of the world suddenly stealing everything except that last look at a nightmare.

Tagged: FIONN WARD * Word Count: 1222 (sorry!)