"Aaarrgh!" I sit bolt upright, the sheet falling away, drenched in sweat. My heart feels as if it's about to burst through my ribs and take flight. It takes a good few minutes for the dream to fade and my bedroom to reassemble its self. The dark dream night fades away, the screams slowly silenced. I lie back on the pillow and cover my eyes with my arm. I don't need to look at the clock to know the time. The blinking red digits are always the same. 3:29 am. For the last year, my sleep has been disrupted at the same time every night, the nightmare always the same. The screams ripping through the dark, the sounds of battle are deafening. I know someone is dying, I always know. I'm just not sure who that someone is, nor if it's just a dream or if it's more prophetic. And that's what scares me so much. Am I seeing the future? Do I have the ability to stop this person's death? But if that's true, how am I meant to go about it? I don't even know where the dream is happening. I leap up, too wound up to sleep again tonight. As I pass the study I see an eerie bluish light seeping under the door. I push the door open and step inside. The light spills from the laptop screen, reflecting in the window. I was sure I had turned it off before I had gone to bed. I walk around the desk and reach for the mouse. As soon as I look at the screen my body turns cold. The laptop is turned off. The screen is black and all the little flashing lights are silent. Then, as I stand there staring, something flashes onto the screen. A Google search. Two words are written in the search box. I do not recognize the words, don't know what they mean. But there they are none the less. I click on the search button and wait to see what appears. I read the first entry:
La Push, Washington - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
La Push is a small unincorporated community in Clallam County, Washington, United States. It is home to the Quileute tribe and is located along the Quileute...
Geography - History - Tourism - References
.org/wiki/La_Push,_Washington - Cached - Similar
What the hell is going on? Before I can read anything else, the screen goes blank. I back away from the desk, quickly fleeing from the room and shutting the door roughly behind me. Okay, so, logical explanation; I'm losing my mind. Probably that should bother me more, but I'd rather that than believe my laptop just turned itself on and opened up a search for a place I've never heard of. So, crazy. I had better book myself into the nut house tomorrow.
I leave the study and wander through the house, idly looking around though not really seeing anything. I end up in the kitchen and pull a glass from the cupboard. I pour a healthy measure of tequila into the glass and gulp it down in one go. Three more glasses later and I pour myself back into bed.
A little over a week later, the same thing happened with the computer. It scared me so much I hid the laptop under a stack of towels in the linen cupboard. It's been in there for over a fortnight. But when I woke up from the recurring nightmare this morning, the door was open with the laptop sitting on the towels. The La Push search was on the screen, glowing brightly and sending a chill skittering down my spine.
I bit the bullet and opened the search, reading up on the little town of La Push. And I mean heavy emphasis on the little; La Push has a measly population of 371 people.
After that, I dreamt of La Push every night, always before the other dream. The one I've had every night for three years. I still didn't entirely understand either dream. Was I meant to go to La Push? Is that where the battle is to take place? I keep going round in circles, only one thing seems to make sense; I have to go there.