Fire in the Sky

Fire in the Sky

“It’s you!” The voice said behind me and I resisted the almost insurmountable urge to turn around. “Hey! You ginger.”

Okay, now I knew he was talking about me and he was going to get an earful for using that slur. I was not being dramatic Mom, the use of the term ginger when hurled at a person with red hair was derogatory. I didn’t have to take something like that laying down. I didn’t have to smile and batt my red lashes and wait for them to comment on how freckled my skin was or ask if I had a soul or not. Please.

This was not the twentieth century anymore. I wasn’t going to smile and take it like generations of redheads before me. I was going to tell this guy to screw off. I drew in a breath and spun around the glare already in my eyes and the words already on my lips.

Our eyes met and every single thought fled my brain all at once.

He was the guy in my dream. Not the guy of my dreams mind you. Don’t get any ideas of how his dark chocolate hair and caramel skin made my heart fill with song or something equally as ridiculous. It wasn’t like his brown eyes captured my soul and wouldn’t let go. It was like this, this was the guy I had been dreaming about for three weeks now. These were really weird dreams too, like scary weird, where you wake up in the middle of the night and have to go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face to convince yourself that it wasn’t real.

We stared at each other and the world faded away for a moment as both recognition and shock passed between us.

“I’ve been dreaming about you.” Even his voice was familiar now. It pricked along my spine and I fidgeted. The spell between us broke and I had to remind myself that I was awake and that I was safe, well as safe as a single woman traveling alone home from a bar in Boston could be.

In the end I said the only sensible thing, “Oh is that the best you can come up with? I must have heard that line a million times.”

The guy jerked backwards, hurt pulling his lips down and flashing through his eyes. “I didn’t mean…”

“Look, I just got off work and I am not looking to head back to another bar or to your apartment to do whatever it is you think girls like me should be doing with guys like you. So just leave me alone.” I turned away from the man, my heart was pounding too loudly in my chest.

I was awake. I was safe.

I began walking away.

“Hey wait!” He grabbed out for my arm and I jerked my elbow hard my fingers clutching my keyring hard where my small can of mace hung. I spun around to face him, mace raised.

“Don’t.” I warned and he stumbled back a few steps, hands raised. I risked a glance around to the other people walking down the street. I didn’t expect much from the drunks singing off key in the far ally, but surely someone was watching? It was dark sure, but the lamps were lit on this street. I wasn’t stupid enough to walk down any dark streets in the middle of the night. If I was mugged I would never hear the end of it from Mom. She thought I was too soft for the city, that I should have chosen the local community college. She liked her narrow life, I needed something more.

None of the pedestrians even glanced my way. It was like they couldn’t see me at all.

Fear slithered into my stomach and coiled there as I turned my gaze back to the man from my dreams. “What the hell do you want?”

He dropped his hands and then ran them through his dark hair making it stand up like a madman. I’d seen him do this before, in the dreams. “What am I doing? What are you doing? Look ginger…”

“Don’t call me that.” I retorted angrily, “it’s a slur.”

“A slur?” The guy said and I puffed up my chest.

“Yeah, you know an insult. A derogatory comment.”

“I know what slur means.” He muttered.

I rolled my eyes, “Well obviously if you did you would use it.”

“I’m Mexican-American I’ve heard plenty of slurs.” His eyes darkened and my lips twisted.

“We’re getting off topic. Who are you and what is it you want from me?” I swung the conversation around and the man sighed.

“Okay, let’s start over shall we. My name is Bastion and I have been dreaming about you…but not in any sort of sexual way. That’s not a line or anything, I mean you have literally been in my dreams and they’ve been like…nightmares.”

“Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special.” I mumbled and Bastion flushed scarlet.

“That’s not what I mean…” I held up my hand to stop him and let the mace can dangle to the bottom of my keyring.

“I’m Poppy. I’ve been dreaming about you too.”

“Oh thank God.” Bastion exhaled, the words exploding out of him, “I thought I was going insane. I mean my roommate almost had me convinced and…” he trailed off looking at me, “You really don’t know what’s going on any more than I do, do you?”

I shook my head and then looked down at the ground. I scuffed the toe of my sneaker against the sidewalk. When I looked up to Bastion’s face again it was drawn up into a frown.

“Do you go to school around here?” He asked slowly and my walls went back up, sarcasm sliding back into place as the little smile Mom hated twisted onto my lips.

“What? Do you think I should be in elementary school or something?”

“No, it’s just I’m a nursing student at UMass and I was looking to do some research in the library, but getting you on campus would be tricky if you didn’t have a university id.” Bastion explained and I narrowed my eyes at him. It was hard to picture him as a nurse. He worked out and not just like once or twice a month so he could say he belonged to a gym, he worked out enough that I could see the outline of abs through the fabric of his t-shirt. He looked like a guy who should have been in my major.

There were a lot of blockheads in the criminology department.

Just thinking about them now made me want to roll my eyes. So what if I was like five foot two and weighed barely a hundred pounds. So what if guys like Bastion could lift me over his shoulder and run a mile and say it was nothing. They would not be saying that when I graduated top of my class.

“Yeah.” I said finally sass gone, “I go to UMass too.”

“Would you like to go to the library with me?” Bastion asked and I backpedaled quickly. I looked down at my watch.

Three missed texts from Mom and the clock saying it was 11:12pm.

“It’s a little late don’t you think?”

Bastion looked down at his own wrist where an old fashion analog clock glared up at him with faintly glowing green numbers. “Sorry. I just got off clinical and I’ve had like four cups of coffee to starve off sleeping.”

I nodded. I could understand that. I’d been planning on heading home and taking two extra strength melatonin tablets just to knock myself out. Sometimes it even worked.

“Tomorrow.” Bastion breathed, “Would you meet me tomorrow?”

I frowned, tomorrow was Saturday I was scheduled to work lunch shift and I had been planning on doing laundry in the morning, but the thought of finally learning something about these nightmares was tempting.

“Morning.” I said, “I have to be at work by ten or I get fired.”

Bastion nodded absently already pulling out his phone, “7am? We could exchange numbers? You know just in case.”

I bit back another smart remark on how this was just a ploy to get my number. The dreams held me back. Everything in me shied away from anything so mystical. That was Mom’s stuff, stuff she believed in. Dream language and soul connections. I liked facts, things I could prove and control. I was not going to end up like her.

“Poppy?” Bastion prompted and I told him my number. He typed it into his phone and then tapped out a quick message.

My phone buzzed and I looked down at my watch.

“Hi, this is Bastion. Just so you can have my number too.”

I looked back at him, his hand was on the back of his neck showing off the line of muscle that ran his whole side.

Bastion shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, “Well, see you tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow.” I agreed gloomily.

I got there at 6:30 and Bastian was already waiting. He stood up as I strode forward. He was wearing scrubs, dark blue with UMass Boston embroidered above the left breast pocket and a name tag pinned to his right. It read Sabastian Clarke: Nursing.

It was Saturday, but I still felt underdressed in ripped jeans and my UMass hoodie as I slouched over to him. Bastian shifted the weight of his messenger back higher on his shoulder. “Good morning.” He jerked his head towards the library door and I fell into step beside him. He looked tired, one cup of coffee behind me already.

“You have class today?” I asked putting up my hood against the newly forming drizzle.

“Make up clinical. I failed this big test.”

“Oh.”

“I did some independent research last night on mutual dreaming. This whole time I have been trying to find information on strangers in dreams or reoccurring nightmares, but shared dreaming is something else entirely. Apparently it’s caused by one of three things. The first being coincidence, the second some external force and the third being some freak brain convergence thing. I’m probably not explaining it all that well.”

“I’d say it was unlikely to be coincidence. It’s happened more than once.”

Bastion nodded as he pushed open the door and a wave of air conditioning rose goosebumps along my neck. “Stairs or elevator?”

“How many flights?” I countered.

“Two, I’ve already scoped out the science section, it’s on the third floor.”

“Stairs.”

“Okay so no coincidence.” Bastion’s voice echoed up the empty stairwell as we ascended, “But honestly what are the chances that we’d both be sharing the same brain convergence whatever for three weeks?”

“So you’re leaning towards external forces?” My stomach flipped and Bastion was silent for a moment as he pulled open the third floor door and let me through first.

“The devil is in my dreams.” His voice was soft against the back of my neck, but I still shivered. It was only then that I wished I hadn’t trashed the protective amulets Mom had sent me. “Here it is.”

I stared out at the hundreds of books in front of us and sighed.

…

“So that was not helpful.” I told Bastion as we walked back down the stairs after two hours with without so much as a fact between us. The only thing the textbooks had to say was that while cases had been documents of mutual dreaming, there was no concrete evidence that proved the happenings. Bastion winced.

“I’m sorry.”

“I suppose it could be worse.” I said and a smile cracked across Bastion’s face.

“How so?”

“You could have been my sociology professor driven to give me an F for fricken stupid dreams.”

Bastion laughed as we stepped outside into the now steady drizzle.  

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes, “Well see you tonight I guess.”

For a moment Bastion’s expression was puppy dog hopeful, but then fell as realization hit him. “Tonight…in my dreams.”

That night I lay staring at my ceiling while my roommate snored softly in the bed beside mine. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again I was staring into Bastion’s face. He reached out his hand to me as the screams of the monster began to echo around us.

“Shall we?” He asked and I nodded.

“Let’s slay this dream.”