Cursed like Cassandra

Springing upright in bed, Audrie woke from her dream with a strangled, painful scream. Her skin sizzled with sweat, tinged a burning pink, as she desperately tried to find the lamp switch. Her whole body was lit up on pure energy. She was shaking, adrenaline and panic firing through her from one nerve ending to the other. 

Even with the bedroom lamp on, her eyes couldn’t adjust to where she was. Her bedroom, her boyfriend in bed beside her, their dog at the foot of the bed, both gawking at her, one trying to calm her down. “I saw it again, I saw it again,” she choked through tears that cascaded down her cheeks like hot lava. 

She saw herself dying. 

“Why don’t we start from the beginning, again?” suggested Dr. Rhodes, leaning back in his tan colored armchair, crossing his leg over the other and watching her intently. “From the first time you had the nightmare?” 

“It’s not a nightmare,” Audrie stated monotonously, her expression showing no further reaction to the statement. 

“Right, my apologies, your…premonition,” he corrected, the word coated with skepticism. 

By now, Audrie knew that his slip of the tongue was deliberate, he was trying to get a reaction from her, however, she’d repeated this session a hundred times over. With him, with the last handful of psychiatrists, with both her guardians. No one wanted to believe that she had predicted her own death. Why would they? It was morbid. A young woman in perfect health shouldn’t be talking about her own death, especially when everyone insists she has so much to live for. It was also highly unbelievable that she could look into the future, that she saw things happening days, weeks, months, sometimes years, before they happened.

The first premonition came to her when she was a child. She dreamed of a family friend, a fisherman, going out to sea but his boat capsized. She was only four and she’d been told at the time it was only a nightmare, so she believed that it was just a nightmare. But as she got older, as they became more and more frequent, it became increasingly hard to believe all of these awful things she saw were just nightmares. Especially when they started to come true in her waking life. Nightmares weren’t supposed to come true, but premonitions could. 

“It always starts in my bedroom,” began Audrie as she bent her thumbnail, breaking it away from the fingertip. “Lying in bed, it’s dark outside, the curtains are wide open. We never sleep with the curtains open.” It seemed odd to everyone that she could recount these fine details, like scents in the air or the curtains being open or how much light was in the room at the time of the premonition. “There’s someone at the window, they’re tapping on it and trying to wake us up. But we live on the third floor of our apartment building.”

Dr. Rhodes jotted down what she was saying, although she’d told him the same thing every time. Well, her tone changed. 

At first, she’s desperate to be believed. Then she starts to get frustrated because they think she’s insane. And ultimately, she just starts to disassociate with the retelling, reciting it like it was a grocery list or a homework assignment she didn’t really want to do. 

“I turn to my boyfriend but he’s not there, his side hasn’t been slept on. His pillows are on my side. When he stays with his parents, I use his pillows to sleep easier,” she explained, as she’d explained the last time during the retelling. He prevented the premonitions somehow. He was a human safety blanket and she wasn’t sure what she’d do without him to ward them off at this point. “That’s when I smell the smoke.” Audrie’s tone shifted to something eerie, Dr. Rhodes lifted his head to look at her and examine her change in demeanor. “Smells like… Bonfire. But like someone’s thrown rubber into it. The smoke billows under the bedroom door, I can hear frantic barking in the other room. The person at the window starts furiously beating at the glass. By the time I realize that he’s a firefighter, the door cracks and flames burst into the room. They spread over the floor. In a second, the bed is alight, the covers…” Audrie paused and glanced down at her shaking hands, beads of sweat forming on her brow. “Then me.” 

Dr. Rhodes sat quietly for a few minutes while Audrie shook, the retelling triggering the same physical response as the premonition had triggered from a few nights before. Only she didn’t cry this time. She only cried when Triston was there to comfort her. He was waiting outside of the office for her, Dr. Rhodes never let him in the room. According to the good doctor’s assessment, having him present during sessions would alter how she acted in them. Which wasn’t entirely untrue. However, as well as warding off the premonitions, Triston just all around made her feel safe and comfortable enough to discuss them. 

“Why...are you convinced these are premonitions and not just nightmares?” asked the doctor. Again, this wasn’t the first time he’d asked a question to get a specific reaction from her. He just hadn’t learned that the more he did it, the less receptive she was to it. “What specifically tells you they aren’t just...figments of your imagination?” 

“They happen when I’m awake. I’ve yet to die, obviously, I’ve never been trapped in a burning room before, but I’ve had others.” Like seeing her boyfriend in one before meeting him. He’d lived in New York City before he moved to their small town. People tried to explain it away, insisting she must have somehow met him before and the memory inspired a dream. However, neither had crossed paths before his foster father walked him into her great-aunt’s store and introduced them. She’d never been to New York City and he’d never left New York City until he was adopted. 

“Like meeting Triston?” Audrie nodded her head. “And what else?” 

Audrie paused as she considered how to answer this question. What else? There were probably a million ways she could answer his question, but she figured the best way would be to tell him the most recent. Now was as good a time as any to share a premonition that didn’t involve her dying. 

"Your secretary, Jani?" Audrie checked the clock before returning her gaze to the doctor. "She's about to get a call from her mother, she'll burst into the room, in tears." Both Dr. Rhodes and Audrie glanced toward the door as the phone at the secretary’s station began to ring and Jani was heard answering, cheerily. "Her father had a stroke, she has to leave, she has to--" 

There was a wail on the other side of the door. After a minute passed, the door flew open, Jani the secretary burst into the room in a flood of tears. She was inconsolable as Dr. Rhodes tried to get her to tell him what happened, why she was so upset. In the doorway, Triston stood. Audrie had told him what was going to happen on the drive to the office. 

"Dr. Rhodes, oh my god, I have to-it's my dad, my mom, she just, oh my god!" she shrieked, breath catching in her throat and she choked on tears. The doctor walked her out to the desk, where the young woman finally got out what had happened. Her dad had definitely had a stroke, as Audrie had told him, and she had to go to the hospital. 

  The drive back to the apartment was quiet, Audrie's eyes on the passing scenery, an overwhelming sense of panic flooding her gut. When she asked Dr. Rhodes, “Do you believe me now?”, the doctor couldn’t form a full or even comprehensible sentence. However, from the fact that he’d handed Triston the card for another psychiatrist, this time one who operated out of a mental health institution, she guessed he didn’t believe her. And yet again, she was being pawned off on another psychiatrist, someone who would call her delusional and morbid and outright claim she was insane. 

“I’m not going to another one,” she stated, not turning to look at her boyfriend in the driver’s seat. She’d been doped up too much, she couldn’t drive...even if she knew how to. “Not to be locked up on the funny farm, not to be told I’m crazy, not again.” She couldn’t handle the process of having to explain herself over and over. That would drive her to insanity, if she had to endure it again. Audrie felt crazy enough as it was without mental health professionals corroborating it. 

Triston was the only reason she saw them. It had to be hard enough for him, people constantly apologizing that he had a crazy girlfriend and asking how he dealt with her, you know, being insane. It scared her to think there could be someone out there who’d convince him she wasn’t worth the stress or sleepless nights. 

Audrie had dealt with being called crazy all of her life, because premonitions, seeing the future, that was unbelievable. By rights, it ought to stay in the fantasy and supernatural genre of fiction. She saw how people pitied him. After all of the hardships he’d endured as a child, he had his life together, he was studying to become a doctor, he was going to go places, if his mentally ill girlfriend didn’t drag him down.

“She’ll just get between you and your goals,” she’d heard one of his friends tell him, “she isn’t even trying to hide her insanity anymore.” 

“You’re a great guy, but she’s nuts and you can’t fix nuts,” another had said.

He hadn’t spoken to them again after they made their statements, insisting they were just looking out for him. Triston was the only person to believe her, without need for justification, without her having to exhaust herself explaining. He simply believed her and had promised to help her find a reason behind why she saw them. 

“What if...what if this is the one?” questioned Triston, the car coming to a halt in front of their apartment building. “What if this doctor is the one who’ll understand it all and can give you real answers?” 

“And what if this is the doctor that finally locks me up?” she asked, this time actually turning to him. Her eyes were red from pushing down tears. 

“They can’t lock you up unless you’re a threat to yourself or to others, or I was to admit you personally, and I wouldn’t do that,” he reasoned. For how crazy she could seem, Audrie was rather logical, however, her logic compared to his… Well, he was Mr. Logic and Rationality. “Why don’t we just look into her?” He didn’t want her giving up on answers she’d been trying to find as long as she’d known him, and he wanted people to stop thinking she was crazy. There had to be a reason behind her premonitions. 

She’d agreed to looking into this doctor, believing that there was no harm in it. Their evening played out like it usually did, aside from them crowding around his laptop and scrolling through google for any information on the doctor from the clinic. Audrie saw a smiling woman, someone who shouldn’t be a shrink but an actress or a model. Triston recited to her a few of the reviews on the clinic’s Yelp page, people raving about how much she’d helped them, cured them, and how her methods were different and groundbreaking. She was even raved about on the clinic’s website. 

“Sounds like she’s Freud reborn,” Triston sighed as his phone lit up blue, a call coming through from his dad. A frown settled on his face as he cursed. Audrie raised her eyebrows at him, a little surprised. “I told them I’d keep an eye on Allison,” he explained, making Audrie nod and smile a little, as he answered the phone. “I completely forgot, we’ll be over in ten minutes,” he told his dad, but Audrie shook her head. “I’ll...be over in ten minutes.” 

“Just going to do some work and go to bed,” she told him, lowering her voice. He’d be home before midnight, they wouldn’t have anything to worry about. 

Triston made sure she set the alarms before he left, alarms she always put on in case, for any reason, he wasn’t home for a quarter to one in the morning. And he left, leaving Audrie home alone with the dog. She did her work, she finished the food she’d started before their google search for Dr. Elinor Cowrie, and she settled into bed. She pulled Triston’s pillow over and rather quickly, she fell asleep.

The clock on Triston’s dashboard read ‘01:07 am’ as he raced toward his apartment, tirelessly calling Audrie’s cellphone. His dads took a little longer than they’d planned, he’d fallen asleep to Jurassic Park playing on the television. He hadn't meant to be out until now. 

Her unanswered calls and the thick dirty grey cloud of smoke billowing into the air made everything scream inside of him… His car screeched to a halt before he flew out of it, the firefighters trying to get the blaze under control and keep people back. He fought his way through the crowd of people who had gathered, calling his girlfriend's name but she didn't respond and the crowd just stared at him. 

Today was not the day, it could not be the day. She hadn't said it would be today! They had to have more time, they had to. She had not said it was going to be today! 

"Sir, please, you have to stand behind the barrier, it's not safe," a firefighter tried to move him back, but he insisted he had to get inside, his girlfriend was still inside. "Everyone from the building has been recovered and anyone with injuries has been transported to the closest trauma unit." Triston's blood ran cold.

"She isn't injured…she's dead." 

It took two firefighters to calm him enough to explain how he knew, involving a police woman who started asking questions. "No, you don't understand, I didn't start the fire, I just got here."

"So how do you know she's dead?" asked the police woman, hands on her belt as she looked him up and down. 

"Because she told me, because she saw this happening and no one listened to her!" 

"Mr. Parker, please, lower your voice," a firefighter interjected, sounding far too calm for a man who had just been inside a fiery inferno. "Which apartment is yours?" 

"3C, we're in 3C," he told him. "She'd have been in bed, a firefighter would have tried to wake her up at the bedroom window, but she didn't get up in time," he broke down his face in his hands.

"Son, she's not dead," Triston was told as another firefighter joined them. "He got her out." 

Escorted to the local hospital, Triston was shown to the burns unit, seeing a young woman lying in a sterile room, on a sterile bed. "We were able to identify her almost immediately," a nurse informed him. "Your girlfriend had her ID on her." That had been part of their preparations, as well, just in case she was unidentifiable. 

The dressings covered the majority of her body, but from what the nurse had explained, she had been very lucky. She had been in wool, so it didn’t melt into her skin. She would eventually need surgeries to repair and graft her injuries, however, they didn’t believe there would be any lasting nerve damage. But given the condition she was in for now, Triston wasn’t allowed in the room, for sterility issues. Her immediate family had been informed and for a few hours, he sat by himself outside of the room. Accompanied by Dr. Rhodes, an arson investigator and a local detective came up to the hospital in search of Triston. Triston wasn’t happy to see Rhodes.

However, the investigator asked a question that struck a raw nerve. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Are you fucking kidding me? No! Okay? No, I do not believe she could have set the fire!” 

“Triston, given how much she’s spoken about foreseeing this--” 

Dr. Rhodes was lucky that Triston knew how to contain himself. “You have called her insane for years, after she desperately asked you for help, and now you want to pin the deaths of ten people on her? After she begged you to believe her, you want to pin that guilt on her, too?” There was no way she could have set the fire, because he knew how it had played out, he knew that she was tucked into bed and found there by a firefighter. “She was found in bed. Ask George Lozzi, he’s the firefighter who saved her.” 

The arson investigator asked the same questions over and over, frustrating Triston and making him realize, this must have been how Audrie felt. No one believed her, no one listened to her. He’d be asked, “If she knew it was going to happen, why didn’t she leave? And why didn’t she warn everyone in the building?” 

He answered, repeatedly, “She did, she told them, they never believed her, just like you don’t believe me.” She wasn’t a suspect, they’d discovered that the fire had started in another unit and it would have been impossible for Audrie to be involved. However, the investigator refused to give up. 

Months passed, the long and grueling healing process began. As grateful as she was that she lived, Audrie couldn’t understand how. But a vague letter in the mail explained; 

I saw it. I believe you. Acting a few minutes sooner changed the ending, but I’m sorry I couldn’t save Dipper, as well. G.L.