My dreams consisted of flashes of images, and for the most part, dark and dreary. Barely any of it made sense, and I awoke to my sheets half flung around my room and my pillow by my feet.

I sat up, lifting a hand to brush my hair off my face. What the hell. I felt exhausted, like I had just ran a marathon with seven year olds clinging to my legs.

Swinging my feet around to the floor, I let my toes touch the cold hardwood while I contemplated just what my dream had meant.

It wasn't unusual for my dreams to make little sense. But for my dreams to be that dark and peculiar...it just didn't add up.

As someone who had dreams that came true, normally finding out a way to somehow alter the premonition was my first step. Some nights were nice, because I would dream of someone getting proposed to or something, and nothing bad would happen, and the next day would be peaceful and fine.

I thought back and tried to piece together just what had happened.

Cousins? No, they were brothers, but not close. There had been a fight involving their dad. A girl, who...I winced as the bright image of her on a ceiling burned across my eyes once more. I decided to come back to that.

Something about a woman in a white dress, but she was a ghost of some sort. I stood up and stretched my arms up above my head.

Could that symbolize something? A ghost? I frowned. One of the boys, Stan? Sam? Had mentioned something about a pentagram to two young girls in goth get ups. Maybe they were enthusiasts of the other world, meddling in dark matters they shouldn't. But what kind of dark matters were there really?

I walked to my door, swinging it open, and making my way to the kitchen.

I froze in front of the fridge, an idea sprawled in the back of my mind.

If I could dream the future, maybe a ghost wasn't such a crazy thing. Maybe these guys always did that kind of thing, dealing with dead women who like to freak out people driving on highways. But my brain kept swirling back to the vison of the girl on the ceiling, her stomach red, face frozen, and the flames...

How did she even get on the ceiling? She couldn't have survived, that's for sure. Which means if I didn't do something I would hear about a girl killed in a fire sometime in the near future.

I swung the fridge open and bit my lip. There were so many things that were strange about my dream. I'm pretty sure the Sam guy had mentioned Stanford, which was where I live, and I've never seen a premonition of something nearby. Even when I saw the lottery numbers last year, I had to drive two states over to Colorado to get my own piece of the prize.

Jericho. They were in Jericho and the boy was killed two days before the night the girl died. I pulled out the jug of orange juice and moved swiftly over to my counter where I had left my laptop charging. I flicked it open, and typed out Jericho then searched for news.

Without fail, Google supplied me with exactly what I needed. Troy Squire, missing persons. Of course, I knew he wasn't missing. He had been killed by the...ghost? Woman in white? The article was updated yesterday, so he must have been killed the day before, so Sam and his brother would be coming back tonight.

I opened the orange juice and tipped the jug back directly into my mouth.

How was I supposed to find out where Sam and his girlfriend live? His brother had a mass of fake everythings so there was no way to get a hold of him either. I couldn't even remember his name.

I sat back, thinking. What if it had been just a regular dream? No future?

But what if tomorrow I hear about a girl who died in a fire and know I could have stopped it.

But can I stop it though. Stanford may not be huge but it's not exactly a small town either. They could take any number of roads and-

I swished around the Orange juice and formulated a plan.

The car they had been driving I could probably recognize, although they would be driving back so late it might be easy to mistake the black car for something else.

I closed my laptop and stood up to make toast. I had some time before I would have to put my plan in action.

•••

Thinking back, I could have perfected the plan further.

Jericho was a small town sure, and while Stanford has many roads you can get into it from, if you were coming from Jericho you would have to drive down this one.

So now I had to wait. The sunset was warm on my back as I sat on my motorcycle on the edge of the road. Had I come too early? Too late? I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the handle bars. Barely any cars passed me.

One convertible packed with guys zoomed by at one point, and honked at me as they all waved and hooted and hollered.

I fiddled with the straps on my helmet. This plan was nowhere near foolproof. I had to get them to pull over, and if that didn't work then follow them, then what?

I tipped my head side to side as I tapped my foot against the dirt. The sun was nearly completely set now, the air growing cooler.

What if ghosts did exist? Was sitting and waiting next to a quiet road with my back to a bunch of trees really a good idea?

I turned my head to squint at the patch of trees. The tint on my helmet's visor certainly didn't help me any to look between the trunks.

All of a sudden I heard the muffled sound of rock music and I swirled my head around, remembering the easy banter the brothers had had about cassette tapes.

And there they were.

Driving right past me.

I swore and started my motorcycle, pulling out onto the road a bit behind them.

At least I knew they were real. Which was good in the sense that my time getting a sore butt wasn't wasted, but also kind of sucked cause now not only did I have to consider the possibility of some other freak phenomenon other than seeing the future, but also the double whammy that a girl might burn to death tonight.

They drove fast, and I lost sight of them once or twice. As we neared Stanford, I slowed down to watch for a giant pot hole and when I looked back up, they had disappeared, and it took me a couple minutes to figure out that they had turned. Finding them again was tough, I had to turn down multiple suburban streets to finally find them, and even then what I found was the car stopped across from the large building I recognized from my dream.

"Oh no," I whispered, and pulled over a couple meters away. I wrenched my helmet off, and ran towards the car.

I didn't make it five steps before I heard the yell of "no" and the older brother must have heard it too, and the door suddenly flew open, and he came flying out. He didn't even glance at me, but how could he? I wanted to follow his speedy path through the front doors but I knew I couldn't help. I would only get in the way. I gazed up at the windows as one grew increasingly brighter.

I failed. I flopped. Sam's girlfriend was currently burning to death-burning.

Fire.

I yanked my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911 faster than I thought I would ever have to.

I blathered the address and situation as best I could to the lady who answered on the other end, but it wasn't long before I had to hang up.

The brothers were still inside. Oh god. I covered my mouth with one hand. What if I had altered something somehow, and changed the timing. What if now all three of them were going to die.

I ran forward to the door, just as they burst out. I backed away quickly, and looked up just as the heat shattered the glass, and sent a rainfall of shards onto the street. I ducked my head anyways, even though I wasn't anywhere near the radius.

I spun around and went to my bike, getting on and pulling my helmet over my head.

I messed up. I didn't save her. I slammed my fists down onto my thighs in frustration and let out a cry.

Someone just died and I could have saved them.

I should have honked at them, I should have drove faster and caught up, I should have done something.

I stayed sitting on my bike and gazed at the brothers.

What would they do now?

I leaned forward and frowned. Their dad was still missing.

Blackwater Ridge.

That's what Sam had said in my dream. That's where they were going.

As more and more people arrived and gawked at the flames, I started my bike and went home.

Tomorrow morning I was going to Blackwater Ridge. I didn't know how, but I was going to help them.