Law of Fives

Sia fidgeted nervously, dark circles under her honey-gold eyes, lack of sleep dulling her golden-brown face. Her ebon hair, tied up in a sloppy bun, lacked the shine it usually had.

“Sia, are you okay?”, someone asked. “Do you need someone to talk to?”

She stared at her monitor, the work in front of her making no sense. The feeling that someone was standing next to her was sudden, causing her to jump. “Oh! Hi—hi Jace. Did you need something?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” he said, “about you.” He was slender, with pale olive skin that never saw the sun, his hair a pile of medium brown curls atop a fade. There was something about his shape or the way he carried himself that made him seem taller than his five-feet-eight.

“I, uh…I think I’ll be okay,” Sia said. “I just need some coffee.”

“Boss,” Jace said, crouching near her chair, “there’s something wrong. If you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me. For now, though, I’ll finish up the end-of-month reports and get them in to finance. You should go home and get some rest.”

“I—I guess you’re right. I’m not well.” Sia ran her hands down her legs, realizing with a small bit of horror that she was at work, at her desk, wearing her flannel pajamas. She looked at Jace, in his pressed shirt and casual slacks. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She took the back door out of the office, down the stairs rather than be seen in the elevator in her current state. Four stories down, eight flights of steps, she exited the side door where Jace stood, holding her purse.

“I figured you might need this,” he said with a smile.

Sia took the purse with a partially suppressed grimace. “Sorry, thanks.”

Jace winked. “No problem. If you need anything, give me a call; I’ll do whatever I can.”

#

After an interminable bus ride home, Sia fell on her disheveled bed, next to the work outfit she’d laid out earlier in the morning and forgot to put on. Her eyelids heavy, she started to drift off. With a jerk, she sat up and shook her head. She wasn’t ready to see it again.

To keep herself awake, she put away the clothes she’d laid out, made the bed, and started a pot of coffee. She turned on the TV to the annoying daytime talk shows and turned the volume up. That would keep her awake while she cleaned.

By the time the coffee pot was empty and the apartment spotless, Sia was moving in a daze. The staged fights of the talk shows were long over, and a sleepy, calm show about home repair had been on for a while.

She considered making another pot of coffee, but her insides were already protesting. Instead, she sat in the corner chair; the one that was there for looks as it was far too uncomfortable to be sat in.

#

It was starting again. The sky turned dark, heavy clouds blocking out the sun. A bright streak illuminated the clouds from above, followed by an ear-shattering boom.

The streak broke through the clouds, a glowing ball of light that lit up the sky like the sun before it exploded in the city center. The shockwave rolled over her with the rumbling sound of thunder times a thousand. A cloud of dust and ash rose above the ruined buildings, even as thousands of shards of glass and metal rained down around her.

As quickly as it began, it ended, and she found herself at her desk. Jace was there, and a shadowy figure dumped scalding coffee down his back. His yelp of pain woke her.

#

Sia was stiff and sore from sleeping in the hard, uncomfortable chair. The TV was showing an infomercial for a “miracle” cleaning product, the volume still loud.

She turned off the TV and checked the time; 1:04 A.M., still hours to go before the next day. As much as she didn’t want to sleep again, her body won out, and she stretched out on her bed, trying to loosen the knots in her back.

#

She woke early the next morning, took a long shower, dried her hair and spent thirty minutes brushing it to its usual luster. The coffee pot sat unused as she dressed in a smart skirt and blouse.

Sia was the first in the office. Not surprising as she was nearly an hour early. She went through her emails from the previous day; most of them were “Get well soon” messages.

By the time the rest of the office was in, she was in her groove, getting caught up on the work she’d missed the previous day. The rational part of her brain chided her for thinking that just because she dreamt a thing it would come true.

Sia had almost convinced herself that her dreams don’t come true, when Jace approached. His face brightened when he saw her.

“You look great today! Feeling better?”

“I remembered to dress today,” she said with an embarrassed chuckle. “What’s up?”

“Can you open the link I sent you?” Jace asked. “I have a question about that account.”

She opened the account, and Jace bent over to point at the account’s usage totals. “The month-over-month doesn’t line up with the billing,” he said, pointing. “See here?”

Sia looked behind him and saw Sarah, one of the finance techs carrying a coffee cup coming towards them. She grabbed Jace’s arm. “Don’t move,” she said.

Sarah walked behind them. “Morning,” she said as she went by.

Sia let go, and Jace stood. “What was that about?” he asked.

“In my dream, you got scalding hot coffee down your back.” She shuddered. “It would have happened if I hadn’t stopped you.”

“Thanks for saving me?” He smiled, but something about it seemed off. “Does this happen often? I mean, dreams coming true?”

Sia shook her head. “It feels like it just started a couple weeks ago. I started having a recurring nightmare, and then I’d have some dream about something mundane and then the other thing would happen the next day.”

“Exactly the way you dreamt it?”

“Not exactly,” she said, “but close enough.”

“And I suppose,” he said, “that you’ve been trying not to sleep, in order to skip the nightmare.”

Sia nodded. She locked her computer and leaned back. “It caught up to me yesterday and I couldn’t stay awake any longer. That’s how I knew you were about to get burned just now.”

“Let’s go for a walk and you can tell me about the nightmare that’s keeping you up.”

They walked to the park a block away from the office and sat on a bench while she told him the entire story. He listened, nodding at the appropriate moments.

“Do you sleep with the TV on?” he asked.

“Only if I fall asleep watching the late-night news,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have gotten burned this morning,” he said.

“If you had stood up, you would’ve bumped into Sarah, and she would’ve spilled on you.”

“And it would’ve really sucked,” he said. “Her morning beverage is kombucha with turmeric.” He shuddered. “It’s gross and it smells terrible.”

“It wasn’t hot coffee?”

Jace shook his head. “And your nightmare isn’t coming true, either.” He fiddled with his phone, then handed it to her. “Press play.”

She started the video. It was her nightmare, in exact detail, right up to the shower of glass and metal. The screen went black, then the words, “Coming to theaters in July. Not yet rated.”

“It’s a…movie?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “but the trailer is only showing online or late-late night. There’s other trailers online that are longer, but that’s the one you’ve been seeing.”

“But the city…it’s…”

“It’s set here,” he said. He pointed to his right.

Sia saw the same view as the nightmare, the trailer. “I—I’m relieved, but at the same time…it’s just so strange.”

“I can understand,” he said. “You said the other dreams were mundane things that happened the next day?”

Sia nodded. “Yeah.”

“Tell me more about the ones that come true,” he said.

“Well, the first was that I was about to cross the street at the office, but a delivery van ran the red. If I hadn’t waited, I’d have been flattened.”

“And that happened?” he asked.

“Well, it was a big truck, but pretty much.”

“Pretty common at that corner. Any others?”

She told him about a few other dreams that came true…mostly.

“Have you heard of the Law of Fives?”

“No, what’s that?”

He gestured around them. “How many fives can you find around here?”

She looked around. “There’s one on that building address, and one on that license plate. Not seeing any others.”

He looked around for a moment. “How many ducks are on the pond?”

“Oh, five.”

“The box truck over there, what are the numbers?”

“One one three…oh, that adds to five.”

“How many more cars parked on the other side of the road than this side on this block?”

“Six on that side, one on this, that’s five…this is weird,” she said.

“The Law of Fives basically breaks down to, if you go looking hard enough for fives, you’ll find them everywhere.”

She felt a wash of embarrassment. “Confirmation bias. It’s how people keep believing in horoscopes and fortune tellers.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Fooling ourselves from time to time is part of being human.”