Just a Dream

The artificial overhead lights flickered above. Darkness engulfed the room, then a flash lit it up soon after. 

I looked around the shelves strewn across the old pharmacy building. I picked up a bag of candy but threw it immediately on the ground when a spider started crawling on my hand.

I kept walking.

There was a clearing in front of me. No shelves, just open space. In the middle was a metal trash can. 

I walked up to it. 

Suddenly a fire lit up inside the trash can.

I walked closer to it slowly.

  Then chanting started echoing all over the building. The overhead lights shut off.

Only the light of the fire lit up the room. The ominous, creeping light...

Shadows danced all around me. I caught the flicker of a hooded figure behind me. 

I turned around suddenly and a loud scream cut across the whole building…

I woke up with a sharp inhale. What a weird dream… I wiped the sweat off my forehead. Nightmares usually don’t affect me this hard, something felt off about this one. 

I knew exactly where that building was. It was on the corner of the street with all the fast food places and grocery stores. The pharmacy just closed down one day, now it was simply another one of the many abandoned buildings in this small town. 

I got ready for the day like I usually did, I tried my hardest to suppress the feeling of unease developing in my chest.

On my drive back home in the afternoon, I passed the abandoned pharmacy on the corner of the street. It was all boarded up and one of the windows looked like a rock was thrown at it. The parking lot around it was empty as usual.

I shuddered remembering my dream. It was the scream that really did it for me.

I just drove on by.

That night, I dreamt about the building again. 

This time I was outside of the building. There were red cars parked in every spot of the parking lot around the pharmacy. 

Graffiti covered all of the walls of the building. I tried reading the words but I couldn’t make out the language. 

Smoke started coming out of the building. I ran to the front where the door was missing. 

Inside, the whole building was on fire. 

Robed people huddled in the middle of a clearing. The clearing was unaffected by the fire. 

Then they all looked at me suddenly... 

I shook my head. I couldn’t stop getting flashbacks of the nightmares. 

The next day after the dream, I was on edge the whole day. I took another route back home, one that avoided the pharmacy. 

I stared out my window. What’s up with all of this lately? 

Dreams are just dreams… They’re not real. 

They’re not real.

I didn’t dream about the building last night, thankfully. I didn’t really remember my dream actually.

Everything was fine until I forgot to take a different route avoiding the pharmacy that morning.

I saw a couple of red cars parked in the parking lot.

A wave of fear washed over me. 

“It’s just a coincidence,” I said to myself.

“It’s just a coincidence.”

On my way back home that afternoon, I was split between wanting to see the building again or avoiding it. Curiosity ending up winning.

I decided to drive by the pharmacy again. This time, I saw even more red cars.

I couldn’t believe it.

Panic was starting to build. 

I sped all the way back home. This was not good. Everything felt so ominous, like when you can just feel a storm coming.

The wind starts picking up rapidly. The sun goes away completely. It just keeps getting darker and darker. 

I decided I would go back in the evening just to see if the cars would still be here. I had to see if this would just be me being paranoid or if my gut feelings were right. 

I waited patiently. 

With an hour before sunset, I decided to head out. The sun’s rays illuminated my skin to a warm orange color. This calmed me down a little bit as I drove to the Pharmacy.

Eventually, I made it to the stoplight right before the pharmacy. I took a deep breath, waiting for the light to turn green. My heart was pounding. 

Green. I drove slowly down the road. there was a 35-mile speed limit but I was going way below that. 

I Jumped when someone honked their horn behind me. An angry old man waved his fist at me as he sped past me. 

I shook my head. 

Eventually, I made it to the pharmacy. I looked at the parking lot and the whole parking lot was full of red cars. Not full to the brim like in my dream, but nonetheless… 

“Damn it.”

I turned into the grocery store parking lot next to the building and parked my car. Fear froze me.

Should I go back home? Or face my fears head-on?

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit down and relax at all if I went home. I would be pacing around all night. I couldn't go back to sleep either, the thought of having another one of those nightmares was unbearable.

I sighed and checked the time on my phone. It was now 30 minutes before sunset and was getting darker and darker. 

As long as it was still light out I would be fine. I would just peek at the front of the building and then leave. 

I closed my door and walked slowly to the building. My hands were starting to get moist with sweat.

The sun was hovering slightly above the trees and buildings.

Soon, I was standing in front of the glass doors. The windows were blackened and I couldn’t see anything inside. When I looked closer, I saw that it was actually black paper covering the windows. Very strange.

I took a deep breath. I stepped right on the black placement mat in front of the glass door. 

Nothing happened.

I sighed with relief. Nothing happened! It was all just a coincidence! Of course, there was nothing off about this building! 

I looked at all the red cars in the parking lot. There was probably a red car meet or something. Or maybe a club for red car enthusiasts or something. Small town people are pretty weird sometimes. 

I smiled as I turned around to walk back to my car.

Then I heard the door whir as it opened behind me.

I slowly turned around. 

The building was illuminated by clean, white, overhead lights. Inside was a bunch of shelves strewn across the floor. 

I swallowed. Should I go inside? 

Face your fears. A voice said in my head. 

I groaned. The bad feeling was so strong now, looking into the building.

I took a deep breath and walked inside. The door whirred as it closed shut behind me.

It definitely didn’t smell like it had been abandoned for months. It smelled like a normal pharmacy. Kind of like nothing but a hint of cleaning products and old people. 

I slowly walked along the aisles. There were overhead mirrors all along the roof that had my reflection looking back at me. I never understood why pharmacies had those, there were cameras for a reason.

A thought hit me. I made my way to the middle of the room. I wondered…

There was half of a rusted trash can in the clearing in the middle of the room.

“Great,” I whispered.

I looked around the building. I didn’t see any sign of people or movement. This seemed like the perfect time for me to head back out and forget any of this happened. 

As I turned around to head out, I heard a door slowly creak open behind me. 

I froze.

“Hmmm… Hmmm… Hmmm…” 

It sounded like a church choir. Almost angelic in a way.

“Hmmm… Hmmm… Hmmm…”

Now I started hearing some deeper voices. Rumbling, low voices.

“Hmmm… Hmmm... Hmmm…”

The whole room was filled with the humming of a crowd of voices.

I was in some sort of trance because I couldn’t move a single part of my body. My legs screamed for me to run! They just couldn’t move.

“Hmmm… Hmmm... Hmmm…”

The voices started echoing, all around me. They kept getting louder and louder…

Suddenly all of the lights turned off. The humming stopped and silence and darkness filled the room. 

Then a fire inside the trash can lit up the room. 

I still couldn’t move! What was happening! This wasn’t my normal stress response, I would have been out of here already.

“WE SHALL EXPUNGE THE IMPURE!” A deep voice thundered.

Suddenly I heard a loud scream that pierced through the air. 

Then silence.

Please let me move. I need to get out of here! My body was starting to feel hot from the fire behind me. The heat was becoming unbearable.

I heard hundreds of footsteps behind me, slowly, methodically approaching. It sounded like soldiers marching.

“FACE US!” The deep voice boomed.

The marching stopped and suddenly I could move again. But instead of tearing for the exit, my body started slowly turning around on its own. 

I tried fighting it but my body kept turning. 

I was now facing the fire. I was entranced by the flickering of the fire. It felt like it was speaking to me, warning me of what was about to happen.

Suddenly three brown-robed figures appeared out of the shadows. 

“We shall now judge if you are impure,” the three robed figures said in unison

I swallowed. 

“SIT!” The loud voice said.

I immediately sat down with my legs crossed.

“Touch his head.”

Two of the robed fingers placed their palms on both sides of my head. 

What was going on??

Suddenly everything went dark…

I opened my eyes and I was in a field of the softest grass I had ever touched. I sat up and saw pretty flowers everywhere, growing all around me. I stood up and dusted myself off. There was a giant hill in front of me with an enormous oak tree on top of it. The shade of the tree covered the whole hill.

I looked up at the sky and there were no clouds. The sky was all different shades of blue. It looked like it was shimmering and sparkling slightly. 

I walked up to the hill. I saw kids dressed in white shorts and shirts, wearing white masks running around, chasing each other. Each mask had a simple face on it, the kind with just two dots and a line. There was a smiley face, a sad face, and a blank face. 

They didn’t even notice me as I walked to the base of the tree. 

There was a big patch of moonflowers on the ground. I sat down and looked out over the field of grass. It looked like it continued on forever. All I could see was the infinite horizon. I was staring out into an ocean of paradise. 

Wait. Did I die? Was this heaven? Or some kind of afterlife? 

“Ow!”

One of the kids fell and was laying on the ground. I immediately got up and ran up to her. 

“Are you okay?” I asked the girl with the smiley face mask. “I’m sorry you fell,”

There was thankfully no wound on her. 

The little girl giggled and got up and ran away.

“Where are you going?” I asked. 

The other little kids all started giggling and ran after her. I got up to go after them until all of a sudden I heard flowing water from the top of the hill. 

The field of flowers at the base of the tree was now replaced with a pool of the clearest water I had ever seen. Water was flowing down from the limbs of the tree and was breaking smoothly into the pool. I looked into the water and saw that it was quite deep. I couldn’t even see the bottom. There were also giant shiny, silver, and golden koi swimming around.

I felt a wave of calm wash over me. 

Then I felt some hands push my back.

I fell into the pool, falling deeper and deeper…

I woke up gasping for air. I could move freely again. I opened and closed my hand, making sure I could still move.

The robed figures were standing in front of me, whispering amongst themselves.

Then they looked at me. 

“You are deemed… Pure,” the middle-robed figure said. The middle-robed figure had a female voice it sounded like.

There was cheering all around me coming from the whole room.

“What?” I asked simply.

“You were just deemed pure,” the robed figure on the left said. This one had a lower, deeper voice, one of an older man.

“What makes you say that?” I asked, curious now.

“You were transported somewhere right?” The robed figure on the right asked. This one sounded younger, a young man maybe?

I nodded.

“That was the inside of your soul,” the middle, robed figure said.

“And your’s was beautiful,” the left, robed figure said.

“The way you acted too, was pure. You passed the soul test,” The middle figure said.

“That’s why we called you here, to test your soul,” The right, robed figure said.

“Our purpose is to rid the impure and save the pure. You are officially pure,” The middle, robed Figure said. Then all 3 of the figures bowed in front of me and then disappeared back into the shadows.

I was… pure? What did that mean? Are these people some sort of jury for the soul?

“LEAVE!” The loud voice from earlier suddenly said. 

Then everything turned dark…

I sat straight up in my bed.

I rubbed my face and laid back down.

I felt oddly calm.