A/N: published 1/10/17, edited 1/11/17 3:50 PM

~ * ~

New Stone Age was only one song into their set and we were already drenched in sweat. The venue was packed with people dancing and the air conditioning couldn't work fast enough to keep us all cool. Marie and Theresa kept dancing together and making out, leaving me to be the third wheel, but in such a big crowd it didn't really matter. I turned around to listen to something Marie was saying, and when I turned back the band was gone.

I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was just sweaty and dehydrated, and then the crowd was gone too. An eerie quiet fell over the building, which had been bursting with noise just moments before. A pigeon chirped, flying through a hole in the ceiling, where moonlight streamed through and illuminated the empty venue.

I was breathing heavily, starting to panic a bit. I knew I was just imagining things again. I walked cautiously across the floor, wondering how real these illusions actually seemed. I bent down and touched the floor, feeling real dust on my fingertips.

When I stood up, I was back in the crowd, but on the opposite side of the dancefloor. When I had moved in my imagining, I moved in real life as well. I made my way back over to Marie and Theresa, still trying to get my bearings.

"Hey! Where did you go?" Marie shouted over the music.

"Nowhere," I yelled back, hoping that it was the truth. When I looked down at my hands, however, they were still covered in dust.

I didn't have time to dwell on it, because just then I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a familiar voice. "Anita?"

I turned to see Victor, dressed much more casually than he had been the previous night. I smiled, genuinely glad to see him. "Hey, stranger. Come here often?"

He snorted. "Very funny. You tried."

I shrugged and held out a hand. "Wanna dance?"

~ * ~

After the concert, we left Marie and Theresa to their own, very personal, devices, and hopped on a bus. It was nearly 2 AM, so the vehicle was fairly deserted.

We discussed music mostly, what bands we listened to and what kind of art we liked. Victor preferred simple, clean art, with bright colors and neat lines. His music taste was more along the lines of pop than mine. I had always been a rock 'n roll gal, and my art and film tastes were more dark and grungy. It was an odd mix, but it felt like we complimented each other.

Victor cleared his throat nervously and looked down at my hand, enclosed in his. "So... were you planning on heading home?"

"Yeah," I said, "But I don't know. I don't have anything going on tomorrow since it's Sunday."

Victor was silent for a moment, looking at me quietly. "Wanna grab some coffee at my place?"

I hesitated, unsure of what I really wanted, but decided there was no harm in a cup of coffee. "Sure."

He lived downtown, or at least as downtown as Bayton ever got. His apartment was cozy, only made for one person, and his bed was a queen-sized mattress and a box spring on the floor. It was good enough for me.

"Are you thirsty?" He asked as we took off our shoes and jackets. I stared at him. He laughed nervously. "I meant, what do you want to drink?"

"Oh. Um, do you have tea?" I felt awkward all of a sudden, unsure of what to do with myself. I hadn't dated anyone in over eight months, and I felt like I was out of practice.

Victor sighed as he took my hoodie, leaning past me to hang it up on the wall. We were inches apart when he looked down at me and started stumbling across his words. "Can I just...? Well. Sorry, um."

I reached up and put my hands on his shoulders, acutely aware of the height difference between us. Without really thinking about it, I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed him, softly. Moonlight poured through the windows next to us, bathing everything in a silvery light. I felt oddly at peace.

When we pulled apart, he sighed, slowly exhaling. It was like he was calming himself down. "Tea, right?"

We sat on his bed and drank our tea in a comfortable silence. It was quiet, except for the sounds of traffic and crickets chirping coming through the open window. It wasn't awkward, or forced, and I felt at peace around him. I felt like I could trust him.

I leaned against his shoulder and breathed a sigh of contentment, closing my eyes as I felt a cool breeze brush across my face.

My eyes flew open, recognizing that cool breeze. Sure enough, Victor was gone, and I was sitting on a cold hardwood floor in an apartment that looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.

I pulled myself to my feet, now shivering in the brisk night air. There was a dusty University of Bayton Class of '88 sweatshirt hanging on a hook nearby. I reluctantly grabbed it, pulling it over my head only because I had no other choice.

I slowly crept across the floor, checking all around me and taking in the details. The blackened lightbulbs and electrical wires, the water-stained wallpaper, the broken dishes, the shredded window curtains -- it was like a haunted house, and yet it was still Victor's apartment. In the middle of what had been the living room, there was a fading quilt and piled on top of it was a stack of bones, pure white and stripped of all meat. There were clearly the bones of something big, I hoped not from a human but there was no way to be sure.

I peered out of open windows onto the street below. It looked like an apocalyptic wasteland from a movie: cars were abandoned in the streets, rotting corpses and skeletons lay on the sidewalk, plants were growing into the sidewalk and buildings, and dirt covered every surface. A black bear picked its way down the street a couple blocks down.

I touched my face and realized it was wet with tears again. These visions were miserable and lonely and I couldn't figure out why my imagination kept coming up with them.

I turned away from the windows, and suddenly the pile of bones was gone. The lights were back on, and Victor was standing in the doorway to the bedroom looking very confused.

"Anita? Are you crying?" I sniffed, nodding and trying not to break down. Victor rushed over to me, embracing me as I sobbed. "What happened?" He asked. "It was like you were in a trance, you walked out here and stared out the window and wouldn't respond to anything I said. And where did you get that sweatshirt?"

I looked down and realized I was still wearing the Class of '88 pullover from my vision, and that was when I began to suspect it might have been more than a figment of my imagination.

"I - I'm sorry, Victor, I have to go." I hastily gathered up my things and gave him a quick kiss before running out of the building into the heavy night air.

~ * ~

I leaned my head back on the glass of the bus window, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. I was still wearing the sweatshirt I had found, and I was almost scared to look down at it and be forced to acknowledge the scary truth that my visions might actually be transporting me physically.

I felt the bus lurch to a stop and opened my eyes to find the bus deserted. Dust covered the floor and seats, and the windows were so filthy I couldn't even see out of them. It looked as though the bus had been abandoned for a very long time.

I sat still, hoping the vision would pass and I would be back on the familiar clean bus moving down the road. When two minutes passed and nothing happened, I began to panic. Keep it together, Anita, I thought. It was just a vision, right?

Picking my way across the messy bus, I made my way out onto the street. I was glad I had kept the sweatshirt, as there was the same cold breeze whistling down the street. I realized how eerily quiet it was, like a ghost town. It was the same town I knew, the same streets and buildings, but it was completely abandoned. I heard some wild animals howling in the distance and it sent a chill down my spine -- one that wasn't connected to the cold.

The street and sidewalk were littered with debris and the foul smell of decay hung heavy on the air. The bus I had just exited was leaning into a nearby building, its tires shredded and clearly unusable. The sky above me was crystal clear, the stars shining brightly now that all the light pollution from the city was gone.

I realized I was only about a mile from my house. I wasn't sure what I would find when I got there, but I had to do something other than sitting around and waiting to somehow get back to my own reality.

As I rounded a corner, I froze in my tracks. About five yards away from me were two wild animals feasting on what looked like a human carcass. I couldn't tell what kind of animals they were; they didn't look like anything I'd seen before. Hulking and half-covered in patchy fur matted with dirt and blood, they had long incisors, yellow eyes, and facial features that looked almost... human. They didn't have long snouts like most mammals, but noses that jutted out over bloody, snarling mouths.

I backtracked carefully, trying not to make any noise, but I stepped on a piece of glass and it cracked under my feet. The beasts perked up and looked at me. My mind frantically searched for any information on how to deal with hungry, bloodthirsty animals. If I ran, it was certain that they would chase me, but standing still seemed foolish too.

The beasts didn't give me much of a choice, growling and bounding towards me. The bigger one was about the size of a small car.

I had never been much of a runner, had never really had the motivation, but these animals gave me some damn motivation. I ran in the opposite direction, faster than I ever had before, down the familiar streets of my hometown. It was disconcerting being able to recognize the streets and main features of the city, but having them be so drastically altered from what I knew.

No matter how fast I ran, the beasts were still gaining on me. I knew I didn't have much of a chance, my only hope being that I exited this reality before they could catch up to me. Rounding another corner I slipped in a puddle and slammed to the pavement.

I looked down and realized the puddle I had slipped in was dark, wet blood, coming from under the doors of a nearby car.

The bigger beast had caught up to me in no time, and I saw it crouch down about five feet away from me, then launch itself into the air like a cat going after a mouse. I screamed and covered my head with my arms, certain that this was the end.