Chapter 3 | Nightmares and News

"Even if she may not be harmed, but her heart may fail her in so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in her waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams."

-Bram Stoker, Dracula

• • •

She was running through a dark corridor, her legs burning with force as she sprinted, the wood creaking furiously beneath her feet. She didn't know why she was running or what from. All she knew was that she had an urge, a desperate need to get away lest the darkness should consume her.

Blinded by her own tears, she ran wildly paying no heed to where she was going. Suddenly her foot caught into something and she tripped, tumbling down to the ground.

Recovering from her fall, she looked up only to see that all the darkness around her had dissipated, vanished. The wooden hallway was gone to be replaced by a spotless white room.

Her eyes bleakly scavenged for the thing that tripped her, the source of her fall. It took her only seconds, to discern a corpse lying a few meters away from her. It was a girl, her blonde hair sprawled against the white floor, her pallid features were distressed due to agony as her hand cupped the wound on her stomach which was drenched in blood. The crimson seeped through her clothes to the pearly white floor, creating a ghastly image.

The girl heard a strangled scream only to realize that it came from her own throat. She looked at the corpse in front of her with wide eyes, unable to do anything but gape soundlessly.

Suddenly a voice boomed around her. It sounded vaguely familiar, like it belonged to a girl she knew. "I trust you," it said from a distance.

"I trust you..." It was closer this time.

I trust you.

I trust you.

I trust you.

I trust you.

It reverberated through her desolate surroundings, getting louder and louder until she couldn't take it anymore. She covered her ears, desperately fumbling with her feet, reeling backwards. Her back collided with the wall as she slid against it and covered her head with her arms.

"Stop it, please, STOP IT!" She yelled at the top of her lungs but to no avail.

She kept on trying to get away, away from the source of  voice. But how can you escape from something that had no source? No direction, whatsoever. It seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular and yet from everywhere, getting louder and louder.

And just when she thought, she'll crumble against the sheer force of those words, they stopped. There was silence, utter and complete silence. She sighed, getting up from her position and looked around, the corpse had disappeared leaving her alone in the dreary room

Then all of a sudden, she heard a laughter only it wasn't pleasant, it was cruel, sadistic even. What followed laughter were the words, "She trusted you..."

"No. Please no. No..." She screamed, looking around yet again, in anguish while tears rolled down her cheeks. She tried to locate the source of noise. But she found none. She screamed incoherently at the top of her lungs as she slumped to the ground unable to take anymore.

• • •

Mallory's eyes flung open and the familiar white ceiling of her room came into focus. Her white nightshirt was drenched in sweat, as beads of perspiration trickled down her forehead. Her dark brown hair escaped her braid  and clung to the back of her neck. She shot out of her bed, the covers falling to the ground. She breathed heavily taking in her surroundings.

"It was just a dream," she whispered to herself.

Just a dream.

Suddenly, the door of her room flung open to reveal her brother standing there. He looked around with a water bottle in his hand, held up like a baseball bat. "What happened? I heard screaming!"

For a moment, she was dazed as she blinked repeatedly. Finally recovering from the momentous shock, she looked at him and then the bottle in his hand. With an eye roll, she quipped, "What if there was an intruder? What would you do with that bottle?"

"Probably hit his head?" he suggested sheepishly. "Anyway, why did you scream?"

"Just a bad dream," she muttered wiping off the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Again? Didn't they stop? Umm...I mean, never mind." His face softened. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really." She shook her head.

He sat at the foot of her bed, squeezing her hand in reassurance. One of the best things about him was he never pestered her to talk about her dreams or anything that made her remotely uncomfortable. He just let her be, unlike a lot of people.

Mallory smiled at him when he got up and picked up her covers, placing them at the foot of her bed in a heap. He then sat down and ushered her to lay her head in his lap as he gently stroked her hair. For some time they both sat in silence deep in thought when Mallory felt his hand slip from her hair. She looked up to see her brother yawning while his eyes were drooping.

"Hey, Jake?" She called him out.

"Yeah?" He immediately opened his eyes, looking alert.

"Go ahead. Go to sleep. I'm alright." She gave him a small smile.

"Are you sure? I can stay with you, tonight," he suggested.

"I don't think this bed can contain both of us anymore," she grinned.

"Of course, it won't. You gotta cut down your snacks, little sister. You are getting huge," he smirked.

"You...you...Did you just call me fat? Do you have a death wish?" She glared at him, "I am not fat, okay? I am not getting bigger!"

"Sure, whatever you say." He said with a wink.

"Just go. Get out of my room!" She said getting up from his lap and pointing towards the door.

"Geez, that's what you get for being a caring big brother," he shuffled to his feet and grumbled.

"Fine, I am sorry." Mallory muttered. "Thank you so much for sacrificing your beauty sleep for me. I'm good. You can leave now."

"Hey, are you sure?" He asked seriously as he got up from his place.

"Yep," she nodded and gave him thumbs up.

"Alright. You get some sleep too, baby sister." He ruffled her hair and made his way to the door only to look back again.

"Jacob, go ahead. I promise I am okay."

He gave her an unsure look one last time and then reluctantly left.

For quite some time afterwards, Mallory continued to twist and turn. The images from the nightmare kept on invading her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the blonde girl, her words echoing. Finally, she got up and went to the medicine cabinet. A bottle of sleeping pills caught her attention and after much thought, she took out one pill and swallowed it with lots of water.

At last, she slumped in her bed while a wave of drowsiness swept over her. Her limbs felt heavy while she yawned from exhaustion. Soon, the room swirled around her in a whirl pool of colors as she fell into a deep slumber; sleeping dreamlessly for rest of the night.

• • •

"Melly, get up, honey!" Her mother's voice called her out.

Mallory groaned, opening her heavy eyelids with immense effort. As soon as she did, she instantly regretted it. The sunlight from the open blinds blinded her making her bury her head back into the pillow.

"Five more minutes," she croaked, her voice muffled.

"Mallory, we both know what your five minutes mean, so let's just get up before I decide to go get a glass of ice cold water," her mother replied cheerily.

Mallory's immediately shot up, "I am up, I am up!" She recalled her past experiences, remembering that her mother was very well capable of dumping cold water on her only daughter. She was a sadist who loved waking people up.

"Wise choice," Eva winked at her daughter. "Good morning."

"Good Morning." She greeted groggily; she sat with her legs dangling from the edge of the bed while she rubbed her eyes.

"Jake just told me you had a nightmare yesterday. Why didn't you call me?" her mother demanded sitting next to her.

"Because normal people have bad dreams all the time. Besides, you should be focusing on your patients at the hospital and not us."

"You think, Grandma?" Rolling her eyes, Eva continued. "You know, I really think you should go back on your pills?"

"What?" Mallory was horrified. "No. No, mom, just no. You know how I feel about them. Please don't do this..." She panicked.

She couldn't go back to her pills, she never would. Although, she agreed they helped her nerves and sleep, but they had side effects. Those pills masked her emotions making her feel so powerless that she refused to take them ever again. Besides, she could never have the normal life that she so desperately sought, if she'd keep shoving a tablet down her throat everytime she felt the least bit of stress.

"Hey! Relax. Alright," her mother said in a soothing voice while Mallory took deep breaths.

"By the way, you have about fifteen minutes to get ready for school," Eva told her, looking at her cellphone screen. "So get up, lazy. You cannot miss school."

"Actually, I can if my super-awesome mother would write me a note saying I am sick." Her daughter cooed with a yawn.

"Miss Mallory Millington, you cannot possibly fool your super-awesome mother by sweet talking and flattery." She mocked her. "Now get up, be ready and come down in ten minutes."

"What am I getting for lunch?" She asked sweetly fluttering her eyelashes.

"You do realize that I had a twelve hours surgery with no break followed by an hour of reassurances to the relatives and I am so sleep deprived right now that I can fall dead any moment now. And still you want me to cook?"

"Jeez, woman. You could have just said no. I'll just grab an apple or something," she raised her hands in surrender.

Eva smiled, "Although I'm substantially tired, exhausted even, but since I am a wonderful mother, I already packed sandwiches for you."

Mallory rolled her eyes at her mother's drama, "And the mother of the year award goes to, Eva Millington."

"Thank you so much," she bowed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go take a shower and then hibernate for a while."

"And I have to go rot in hell called high school," Mallory scowled. "See ya later." She muttered and went to the bathroom.

While showering, no matter how many times she washed her face, she felt sleepy. With drooping eyes she got ready, picking up the first thing that her hands found. While combing through the tangles in her hair she made a mental note to abjure from taking sleeping pills for rest of her lifetime.

Hurriedly she went downstairs, she picked up the brown lunch back  and tossed it inside her back pack. She looked around for her brother, but couldn't find him. Thus, she took the liberty of grabbing his car keys from the kitchen counter, drove pretty dangerously and finally pulled into the school parking lot, a couple of minutes before first period.

She sprinted towards her locker and saw her best friend leaning against it.

"Hello! Sleepy head. I bet you overslept," he winked at her.

"Oh, my god! No shit, Sherlock. What gave me away? My tangled locks of hair? Drooping eyes? Dashing across the hallway?" she said in mock-horror.

"The fact that you are wearing Winnie-the-pooh pajamas!" he exclaimed and began sniggering.

She looked down to see her yellow pajamas and a plethora of colorful curses left her mouth. "Hey! They are comfortable," she reasoned feebly.

"Yeah, sure." He leaned his head backwards; another peal of laughter racked his body.

"I swear if you don't cut it right now, I will kill you with my bare hands," she said smacking the back of his head in annoyance.

"Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate death threats first thing in the morning, but if you could just spare me until the next period. I have gym and I need to run, so toodles!"

"Fine. Leave me alone to be an object of mockery." She said pouting dramatically.

"Aww, tell them they are comfortable. I'm sure they'll understand," Ben said patting her cheek as he threw his head backwards yet again and laughed wholeheartedly.

"Asshole," Mallory muttered to herself as she headed in the direction of her first class. She was thoroughly irritated as random people sniggered, pointing at her attire. She kept on cursing the yellow bottle of pills under her breath until someone tapped on her shoulder.

"Look I know I am wearing​ -- oh, it's you," She remarked, turning around to see the last person she wanted to meet on a bad day.

"Now, what do you want," she muttered to herself.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" He said.

"You already are talking. Aren't you?" she hissed. "Anyway, are you sure you want to talk to a girl like me? What led to the sudden change of mind? Did you hit your head?" She knocked on his forehead.

"Well, I realised that my behaviour yesterday was a little inappropriate." He said ignoring what she said.

"A little?" she sniggered.

"I think I shouldn't have called you a slut..."

"You think?" She raised an eyebrow.

"And I feel really guilty..."

"Can you hurry up and get over with your apology, I have a class to reach to." She muttered as the bell rang. She cursed under her breath, "Perfect, just perfect. Look what you did!"

"Can you stop that? You are not exactly helping," he said, clearly pissed of.

"Fine, I'll shut up. Just get this over with."

She knew she was acting like a brat, but she couldn't help it. It was Andrew's fault, really. He was the one who was rude to her the previous day. And she was just giving him a taste of his own medicine. It was either that or she just loved annoying that guy in general.

"All I am saying is I am sorry. And I will try to make sure it doesn't happen again," he finally apologized.

"Oh, glad to hear it," she whispered, dramatically blowing at her nails. Since, she was already late, a few more minutes won't hurt.

"Really? That's what you say? I just gave you a lecture and all you say is 'oh'?" he snarled through gritted teeth.

"What do you expect?" she said with a shrug.

"Something like 'I forgive you'?"

"Really? You call me names, apologize haughtily and expect me to forgive you. I am sorry sweetie, but I don't give a damn about you."

"Very well then," he remarked before walking away.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she looked at his back. Bitterly, she thought, some people needed to mind their attitude. She had just known him for a day and she already hated him. He got on her nerves. Shrugging, she resumed her walk to the classroom.

She finally arrived at her Chemistry class, ten minutes late.

"Why are you late Ms. Millington?" her teacher demanded as soon as Mallory entered in the class.

"I was stuck in traffic." She responded.

Her teacher gave her a disapproving look and said, "Take your seat."

She sighed. Thankfully, Mrs. Mathews didn't notice her comical attire but that didn't mean her fellow classmates didn't either. They were practically laughing by the time she reached her seat.

"Grow up people!" she quietly retorted to a couple of guys on the back seat.

Fifteen minutes of lecture about elements killed her. Well, mentally, at least.

• • •

At the end of the school day the bell rings. The long high pitched noise has a certain intrigue factor to it. It's one if the only things which is hated and loved simultaneously. The queen bees, the popular cliques, the jocks and  the ones whose life revolves around the eight hours of school seldom like to leave their Utopia and hence despise the sound. While, there are those too who can't wait to go back home. For, them the tedious sound is nothing short of music.

Mallory, more than often fell in the second category. After enduring a few more hours of Mathematics, Biology, Physical Education et cetera, she was parking her brother's car in their garage.

"Why did you steal my car?" Jake demanded as soon as she set foot inside the house.

"I was getting late!" she explained defensively.

"Yeah, right. Getting late? Steal someone's car! I almost went to the police station to report a robbery!" He squalled snatching the keys from her hands. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check my baby of any injuries."

"Jacob Millington, you need a psychiatrist." She patted her brother's cheek.

"Don't touch me. I don't talk to robbers," he retorted and stomped off to garage. She shook her head dramatically.

Once, she made it to her bedroom, she switched on her laptop and typed in her email ID. As she scrolled down the list of spams, she found the much awaited message. She clicked it open. It read:

Dear Mallory,

Hello! I am glad to know you are back in town. How have you been?

So, as you already know that presently I am in Hawaii for a vacation. I would be back in a few weeks. And I would like to see you when I return.

Now, I wanted to tell you that I contacted Detective Todd. Remember, the one leading the investigation of your case? He does sound hopeful, but I cannot make any promises. Let's just keep our fingers crossed.

By the way, if you face any kind of problem, you know where to find me. Goodbye for now. See you soon. I will keep you updated.

Yours,

Will Johnson.

P.S. How is your mom? Still beautiful than ever. ;) Tell her I said 'Hi'.

She read the e-mail and smiled. Then re-read it. It definitely wasn't the good news she was expecting from Sheriff Johnson, but at least it was a beginning. Over the past few years, Sheriff Will Johnson had helped her a lot. And she had come to develop a strange liking and respect for the man.

Ever since she'd lost Emily, life had been a roller coaster ride. But, now everything was going back to normal, which made her happy. She wouldn't back out. Not now. She would be strong. She would get over the past. At least, that's what she hoped.

With all the positive thoughts running in her mind, she laid down. Amidst the whirlpool, she closed her eyes. Thanking the last remains of the sleeping pills in her system, Mallory drifted off to dreamland effortlessly.

• • •

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Hello readers,

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What do you think of this one? Did you like that little dream in the beginning? What about Sheriff Johnson's mail?

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-Ridhima ☺