Some dream

"Miss, do you live here?" A voice from below interrupted my thoughts. 

A middle aged man, with black hair, and a beard, wearing grey pants and a faded orange tshirt, was standing on the terrace, with one hand on the ladder that was fixed to the tank. 

"Erm..no, I'm just visiting my grandmother. 203, Meera? She seems to have gone out, the flat was locked, so I came here, to watch the sunsent and stuff. I'm sorry, is this a restricted area?" I asked, from where I was standing on the tank, and contemplated how to climb down the ladder. Climbing up was easy enough, climbing down shouldn't be hard.

I jerked in surprise as the man suddenly yelled at me, to climb down quickly, and then proceeded to sit down on the floor of the terrace, criss crossing his legs.

While I was wondering what in the world was up with him, the air started to get heavy, like the air above a swamp, and the red sky slowly darkened to a bloody shade.

For a second, I was too stunned to move.

Then the man's voice, barely understandable in the sudden sound of air that seemed to have fogged everything, broke me from my trance. I quickly found my footing, and climbed down. 

"There's no time to explain. Quick!" He patted the place on his side and I sat down. 

"Sit like this", he put both his palms on his knees, rolled his head back to face the sky, closed his eyes, and began saying something repeatedly that I could neither hear completely, nor understand from the bits I did. And when I shook him and asked, he exclaimed "Anything! If you're not quick, you'll die!" and went back to doing that.

 I followed him, sitting exactly as he was and did the same yelling/chanting thing that he was doing.

I figured I was in a dream because, though I was wondering what in heaven's name had been happening, my reactions weren't panicky enough for my general nature. Things weren't confusing enough, I just went with the flow, and I remembered that that only happened in dreams, so this must've been a dream.

Slowly the creepiness caught up to me. 

Like something was crawling towards me, in the air, and on the land and everywhere else there was.

I felt like I was being exposed, and dissected, like something was playing inside me and with me, and that with one wrong move from my end, it would swallow me.

So i shut my eyes tightly and focused on the rythm my voice was making.

After a few moments, I started wondering if this feeling would ever stop, if its all in my head or if its a nightmare or a disease which would never leave me.

Just when I was going to give up and open my eyes, I felt the feeling, and the thickness in the air, the suffocation, slowly start to leave me. 

Relief washed over me when I heard a familiar voice softly say, "you can open your eyes now."

And as I did, the air was back to being invisible, the sky no longer red, like it had been before the nightmare, it was now grey and the sun was no where to be found. 

Without further ado, I got up, ran across the terrace, and began taking the stair case that lead to grandma's flat.

Five, six, sometimes the whole row at a time, every jump felt like adrenaline and fear rushing to my brain, but I never slipped or fell, and I never seemed to reach my destination.

"And the worst part is that it's spreading already and nobody knows what's happening and why its happening", Mrs.Davina said, her tone surprisingly casual, taking a drag of the cigarette that was between the index and middle fingers of her left hand, holding her dog with her right arm.

She was different from the Mrs. Davina I had always known.

First of all she looked younger by atleast a decade, and was wearing a long, white night gown, with blue ruffles near the chest and sleeves, her hair up in rollers, which had not been her usual style at all, and somehow reminded me of Aunt Petunia. 

"Dementors! Were those what they were?" I asked. 

"Ment-? No! Are you listening to me?They're bad, okay? I'm serious about this. If you neglect, you.will.die", she exclaimed, suddenly serious, as if she thought that I hadn't taken it seriously because of her tone.

"Mama I think she understands that, will you chill? She said dementors, not de mentos. Dementors are a kind of demons in harry potter", her daughter sighed, "do you think this is making me look tummyish from this angle?" she asked as she turned to her right and inspected herself in her reflection, on the fridge that was in the corner of the dining area in their house.

202 was a cozy flat. It had a three sky blue painted and one mustard yellow painted walls in the living room, complete with a sofa, on which I was sitting, and a TV, on which some guy was preaching about god, and selling jewelry, a coffee table, on which were today's newspaper, an empty coffee mug, some medical files, and some keys.

Next to the living room was the dining room, with a table, on which several sauces, and topping bottles were scattered, along with the torn remnants of an online shopping package, that were yet to be thrown away. 

"No, dear darling. You look stunning. Keep it", the mother said, turning away from her and towards me, added, "do those movies explain what's going on now?"

"Sure, mumma. I thought so too, initially", she said to her mum, then walked some three steps backwards to get a long shot of herself, thereby entering the living room, and added, "They're like dementors, a bit. And also like that bullocks movie monsters. Actually, its like a lot of scary apocalypse situations all mixed together, like whoever it is studied us and decided to freak us out using our own imagination and creativity against us, but we can't know for sure until we experience it, and we can't possible want to experience it unless we know for sure. Kind of like trying to know what happens after we die. And nobody can find out until they try dying which I'm not very interested in. I want to live and laugh, and I want to return this dress. So I'm gonna do that." She looked defiantly at her mother, challenging Mrs.Davina to object.

Her mother just sighed, and kiara went into her room to get changed.

"How is she so chill?", I wondered out loud, "I mean, like, isn't it scary?" 

"It is. But it's been more than two months now and frankly everybody's just tired, and are trying to just get on with life as much as they can, until the why is found out. But as long as we take necessary action and do whatever silly nonsense we're supposed to do, we seem to be alright, so..."

I sighed. "Grandma never mentioned it. And neither did mum, for that matter."

"Yeah", she smiled sympathetically. "She told me she was worried you'd figure out and come here. Turns out you didn't figure out and yet came here." 

I gave an embarassed smile, "Yeah I just had this urge to see grandma today. I wasn't expecting to find mum too, honestly. I would've been ecstatic, if I weren't terrified." 

She put the non cigarette holding hand on mine, which was on my lap. "Its temporary, dear. It will all go away in a few days and life will be back to normal". 

It was in the middle of the night when I opened my eyes.

I had slept on a travel bed, on the floor, mum had taken the sofa bed in grandma's living room. 

The main door was ajar, only the grill doors locked. I was just about to go to the bathroom when it started again. Panic hit me this time, as I was no longer shocked.

I tried to remember everything I learnt today. It doesn't affect us when we're asleep. "A reason why some people started taking sleeping pills in the mornings as well", kiara had told me earlier that evening. "Hypos, bro. I'd rather be scared shitless and risk my life for an hour a day,if I can get to live the other 23".

So okay mum was safe as long as she stayed asleep. But the problem was that, She could wake up, because of me.

I knew I needed to do something, but I had no idea if I had to wake her up, or not.

And she had vertigo. It usually made her disoriented for a few seconds after sitting up, and that would be too late. 

I decided at last, to get away, and found my way to the door to the balcony, the darkness of the night and the dread making the simple task hard. 

The door was bolted shut. And I tried to 

Work it. It wasn't usually that hard, but anxiety and fear crippled my hands. 

My vision slowly started to fade, and I felt myself fall down, felt my body start to disassociate from my brain, and the last thing I heard was mum's voice, like it was far away, from another world, saying "Wake up" over and over.