All that surrounded me was black.

Black and emptiness all around.

The space was engulfing me; making everything seem bigger even though there was nothing in sight.

I was looking around, trying to see where I can go and how I can escape the emptiness surrounding me. I often found darkness peaceful and comforting, but this wasn't peace; this was loneliness.

I'm moving my arms all the way around me, trying to feel for something, anything to lead me towards the exit of this hollowness.

As I'm moving around, not really sure in which direction or if there is any purpose to my movements at all, I see a sudden white glint. The glint reminds me of a flickering light that keeps going on and off, as if it's giving me a signal. Whether it's a good signal or a warning, I do not know.

Without further hesitation, I start moving towards it, wanting to see it closer, needing to understand what it's telling me.

However, the closer I got to it, the further it was moving away. Feeling my frustration build, I picked up my pace and started to move faster towards the glint. My desperation grew, and it didn't take me long to start running towards the flicker of light; or as I saw it, a flicker of hope and possible answers.

The more I ran, the closer I managed to come to the flicker as it started to get slightly bigger and clearer to see. After a few more steps towards it, I was standing right in front of it. The more I examined the flicker of light, the more it started to adapt the shape of a human being. The single flicker of light became two, spread evenly across what looked to be an emotionless face. Even though there was no nose, or mouth, I somehow knew that this was a face.

As I looked down, I noticed that a body was taking shape beneath the head, stretching towards the ground until it was standing right in front of me. The details weren't there but my subconscious knew that this was a person that was standing in front of me. Why was I seeing this unknown person, I had no idea.

After a few seconds of examination of the person that was standing in front of me, I finally looked up towards the two flicker of lights and noticed that the glints of white were gone, and were now replaced by black, emotionless, hollow eyes.

As if my mind was planning this whole ordeal all along, the memories of my car crash accident all came back to me. I suddenly remembered walking along the path after finishing college. I remembered hearing a screech and seeing a car coming around the corner. I remember being frozen, not being able to move and then jumping into action and away from the car.

And then I remembered the black eyes that were staring into mine, a flicker of recognition shining within them. He was the driver of the car and also the same person I saw a few weeks before that when he was handcuffed and being taken by the police.

The memories have hit me like a boulder, causing me to jerk awake.

I sat up, breathing heavily and covered in a sheen of sweat. What was this dream? Why did all of the memories come back to me now? Or were they not my memories at all?

I tried to slow down my breathing whilst thinking over everything. I looked around and noticed that Sophie was sleeping next to me. We were both in her living room, where we had some wine, snacks and watched movies last night.

We must have both fallen asleep in the lump of blankets and pillows that we had previously arranged. Looking at a sleeping Sophie, her blonde hair was currently in a mess, sprawled across her pillow and some of it was even in her open mouth. There were light snores emitting from her lips, and slight drool dripping down the side of her chin.

Despite all this, she still looked pretty, and yes I am jealous. You ever had a friend that always looked good and attractive, no matter what they wore or what they were doing? It's pretty annoying.

I grabbed my phone from the coffee table that was nearby and looked at the time.

3.56am

Damn it's still really early. Shrugging my shoulders, I put my phone back on the coffee table and laid back down. Didn't take me too long to fall back asleep and forget about my revealing dream for a few more hours.

______________

Waking up in the morning, I felt more refreshed and decided to not look deeper into the dreams I had last night. So what if it was the same man that I saw before? It doesn't mean anything, it was probably just a coincidence.

I definitely won't be mentioning anything to Auntie Olive or Dylan, since I know they will be wanting to go straight to the police with the information. I'm not even sure if what I saw in my dream actually happened. What if my mind was trying to fill in the gaps and just made it all up to make me feel better and more complete?

Yep, definitely not telling anyone about the dream.

"Do you know that you sleep talk?" Sophie voice snapped me out of my reverie. I didn't even realise that she was awake.

"Yeah, so I've been told" I replied, stretching my sore muscles. I felt my muscles pulling and stretching slightly from one end to the other; from my fingers all the way to the tips of my toes.

"Yeah you've said something about panda's needing hand socks" even though I had my eyes closed as I was stretching, I could clearly hear the giggle that was about to escape Sophie's lips.

"Alright, enough of the bullying. So I talk in my sleep sometimes, so what? The things I talk about might be serious issues and we just don't know it yet" I argued, wanting nothing more than to change the subject.

"Of course they are, and that is exactly why I have made a donation to making pandas some hand socks just this morning" this time she couldn't hold it back anymore and burst out laughing. And I don't just mean a few giggle or chuckles, but a full-blown booming laugh that echoed between the walls of her living room.

I tried to wait it out, hoping for her to stop her laughing fit soon but to no avail. A good 5 minutes has passed and she was still laughing at my expense, or maybe it was at her own joke; I had no idea.

"Okay haha very funny Soph" I said, sounding a little bit like a grumpy child whose toy was taken away from them.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry it was just too funny not to laugh. Anyways, let's get ready to grab some breakfast and then head to classes" she clapped her hands and stood up, heading toward her bedroom.

After getting ready and borrowing some clothes from Sophie, we headed out.

We stumbled upon a new café near where Sophie lives and ordered some breakfast along with a cup of coffee.

After we finished, we realised it was already nearly 11am, meaning that we were running late for our first class. We quickly rushed out of the café and started walking quickly towards college. Luckily, Sophie's apartment wasn't too far away so we were hoping we'd get there on time. I've already missed out on enough classes since my accident, so I really don't need to add to my already big pile of essays and papers that I have to catch up on.

As we were coming up to the front of the main building, we both breathed out a sigh of relief. We were going to make it on time.

However, a sight of something, or more specifically someone, had stopped me in my tracks as we were about to head through the main building.

Just a few feet away from us, under one of the trees that was gracing the area by the main entrance of our college, stood Cyrus.

But it wasn't the sight of Cyrus that has stopped me from going to my class. No, it was the person that was standing with Cyrus underneath the tree.

It looked like they were arguing, like they weren't happy to see each other. As I continued to observe them the rough hand gestures and raised voices faded and were replaced with gentler exchanges. A hand on the other person's shoulder, a smile exchanged between the two people.

At this point, Sophie hasn't even realised that I've stopped walking and was already out of my sight, well on her way to our class.

Eventually, the two people hugged; a long and content hug as if it was representing their relationship becoming better and stronger.

What finally made me turn away and carry on walking to my class were the black, hollow eyes that looked up into mine over Cyrus' shoulder.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Please vote and comment, I'd love to know what you think of the story so far :)

Until next time xxx