Indigo

“A dream?”

“Nightmare.”

“But if you can’t remember it then how do you know that it’s a nightmare?”

“Because when I wake, the memory fades but the terror stays. It lingers with me. Clawing at my chest. An inescapable quiet torment that leaves my body shivering and drenched in sweat. Leaving no memory of my tormentor. Leaving nothing but a single word.”

“What word?”

“Indigo!”

“As in the color?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

“I get the feeling you aren’t telling me everything. I think you know or at least have some idea what must be causing these nightmares.”

“It’s… complicated.”

“Well Mathew, I have found that whenever people say something is complicated it often means they are trying to hide something. And that something more often than not turns out to be the problem. So let’s start there.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“I see. Okay last time you mentioned a sister. Could you perhaps tell me a little more about her?”

“Well there is not much to say. She’s dead.”

“And how did she die?”

“She killed herself.”

“I have a feeling there is more…”

“I nearly did too…”

“May I ask why…?”

“I don’t remember. All I know is there was something we felt we desperately wanted to know and once we did. We wished we didn’t.”

“And this thing you wanted to find out, I’m guessing it’s got something to do with this word you keep remembering…uhmm… violet was it?”

“Indigo…”

“Ah, yes. Indigo.”

“I think so, because the word is always spoken in the voice of my sister.”

“Tissue?”

“Sorry?”

“You are crying, so thought I’d offer you a tissue.”

“Oh, thank you. I hadn’t even noticed.”

“How often does that happen?”

“More often than I’d like to admit. Every time I remember her, which has been nearly every day since the day she died. Which is yet another reason why I decided to come here today.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about the incident that led to her death?”

“I…. no… yes…maybe…I don’t.”

“Would you like to try something with me? A little technique I picked up that might help you remember a little bit more of happened.”

“You mean like hypnosis?”

“Well something like that.”

“Does that stuff even work?”

“Well it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“…okay.”

“Alright. Lay down on the couch. Good. Now close your eyes. I want you to take yourself back to your fondest memory of your sister. Try to picture it as vividly as you can. The feeling, the sounds, the tastes, the smells and every single part of the scenery. Can you picture it?”

“Yes. I can see it all. I can feel it. The sun of my face. The wind rolling up my skin. The smell of grass as we ran around in circles playing make believe that we are knights fighting dragons. I can hear the birds in the trees. My sister’s laugh. I can picture all of it.”

“Good. Now I want you to dig a little deeper. A memory that’s buried. A lost adventure. Can you see it?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“We are visiting the family home. My sister wants us to explore. So now we are searching through the room’s one at a time. She’s making a mess and I’m scolding her for it. She doesn’t seem to care. She drags me to the next room. We are standing outside Uncle Ted’s old room. The one granny told us is strictly off limits. She wants us to go in but I’m scared. She’s opened the door and now she’s going in. she wants me to follow her but I don’t want to…”

“Why are you scared?”

“Because I don’t want to die.”

"How do you know you are going to die?"

"Because I know she wouldn't want us to find it..."

"find what?"

"..... Indigo..."

“But you can’t let your sister go in alone. You must protect her right?”

“Yes.”

“So follow her inside. Keep her safe.”

“I’ll try. She is holding an old photo album. She is flipping through the pages. Some of the pictures have red crosses on their eyes. We don’t know why but it’s creepy. She wants to investigate. I tell her no but she continues to search through the room. She finds a journal under the mattress. ”

“What’s in it?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary at first. A few poems. Short stories. That kind of thing. But half way through there starts to be only one sentence written over and over until the end.”

“What sentence?”

“Forget what you saw, it was just a bad dream. Sister looks a little scared to now but now I’m curious too. Our mum walks in yelling ‘WHY ARE YOU IN HERE? YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE!’. Now she is dragging us out of the room.”

“Who do you think she was talking about?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know…I don’t…”

“Okay clam down. Breathe. What happened next?”

“It's late at night but I can hear my sister knocking on my bedroom door. She has a flash light. We going down into the basement. There is so much junk. We are going through it all one by one. We found more diaries and journals. Like the one before. The writers of each seem to all have found something, something terrible. We found old newspaper articles. So many deaths.”

“Whose deaths?”

“Family members. The ones who wrote the journals and diaries. They all killed themselves.”

“Why?”

“Because of what they found.”

“What did they find?”

“So many deaths... So many… we are next…”

“Breathe… It’s okay, you are safe here. What else do you see?”

“A picture. A very old picture.”

“Whose picture?”

“She is going to find us…she is going to kill us!”

“Easy…Easy…Okay you can open your eyes now.”

“Sorry…”

“It’s okay. Just a few more questions and you can leave.”

“Okay…"

“Do you remember my name?”

“Well… that’s a little odd but… I can’t seem to recall it.”

“Okay do you remember how you got here?”

“Yes. I used the bus.”

“And where did you drop off?”

“….i don’t know. Wait what’s happening?”

“Final question. What was in the box?”

“What box?”

“The one you are your sister found buried in the backyard of the family home.”

“Indigo!”

“Yes. I see its coming back now.”

“The box was indigo…. There was a map, next to the picture.…”

“Of who?”

“….what is this…?”

“OF WHO?!”

“You…”

“And what did you find after you followed the map to my little box?”

“Stay away from me… don’t come any closer….you… you… DEMON!”

“Why don’t you put the knife down, so we can talk?”

“We let you into our home! You’ve met my wife. My kids. We ate your food. OH MY God! You birthed me. I have your blood flowing inside of me… How could anyone do such a thing?”

“What was in the box Mathew?”

“I can’t…no one can ever know…”

“Mathew! Damn and there goes another one. Cleaning the blood off the carpet is always such hustle. Why do they never do this outside?”