Sam was lost and alone, wandering endlessly through unfamiliar streets. At first he thought this must be a dream or some odd, otherworldly vision, but as time went on, his biggest fear began to seep into his brain.
Had the yellow-eyed demon returned somehow?
He had once again been whisked away unexpectedly to an unknown town, just as before. The only difference this time, he thought was that there were no others around like him, not that he could find anyway. It wasn't a ghost town, it was just a city, like any other, but unlike any he'd ever seen or heard before. The people who passed him on the streets seemed normal enough. Cars driving by, people walking… somewhere… to work, home, shopping. Two young boys collided into him, running past towards some kind of childhood mischief. He stopped and looked into the window of a nearby shop. He could see people inside making their purchases, the salesperson ringing up the sale and taking their money. It happened to be a jewelry store and the window display showcased wedding and engagement rings. Sam saw his own reflection in the glass as a beautiful engagement ring caught his eye. Jess would love that one, his mind thought before he could stop himself. As he shook the thought out of his head, he saw the reflection of two young girls behind him, staring at him and trying not to giggle, their heads bumping together as pre-teen girls do. He turned to face them and they ran off. Someone rushing by bumped into him as he stepped toward where the girls had stood. Sam immediately put his hand to his to his pocket to check his money, but no, the person had just been in a hurry and he had stepped into the way.
It certainly seemed like a normal, bustling city street, with one eerie exception. All around him was a deafening sound, shooting through him like a wave. At first he couldn't figure out what the sound was, and then it hit him. It echoed off the cars and the buildings and even the people themselves. He looked up at the flashing neon light over the shop and realized it should be humming with the vibration of the gas flowing through it. The sign flashed and blinked but no sound came from it. He was surrounded by a mind-splitting silence. Wondering if he had temporarily lost his hearing, he said out loud, "Hello?" His voice echoed in his mind but fell flat on the air.
He tried to catch the attention of some people walking by, but they shrunk back at his approach. "Hello?" he said again as he stepped toward one woman. "Can you hear me? Can you tell me where I am?" as he spoke directly to her, she shrank back from him in fear but instead of turning to run, she faded into the wall behind her. Panicked, Sam tried to find her, but there was only a shadow left where the woman had been. What had she looked like again? He couldn't remember mere seconds after looking intently into her face. He tried to remember the faces of the two young girls who had just stared at him moments before. Were they blonde? Brunette? One of each? Had they been wearing jackets or t-shirts and jeans? There had not been anything unusual about them, he knew that, but when Sam tried to picture their faces again, his mind drew a blank. What about the salesperson he had just observed? Had that been a man or a woman even? Or the person who bumped directly into him for that matter? As it happened, he remembered staring intently into the person's face, studying their features to be sure they weren't trying to pickpocket him. If he had to describe the person now, a few moments later, he wouldn't be able to describe a single detail.
Looking around frantically, he discovered that although the people going by appeared normal as he saw them, they were out of his mind immediately after passing by. The same with the cars. He focused on the one in front of him, sitting at the light. The instant the light changed and the car was gone, it was gone from his memory. Had it been a classic car or a new one? What color? A taxicab? Although he had stared at it for several minutes as it sat at the light he couldn't name the make, model or year, much less the color or anything about the people inside once it was gone. He turned and rushed into the store he had just looked into.
Looking around the antique store, Sam realized something was off but he couldn't quite place it. Wasn't there something in here he'd thought Jess would like? He looked around at the dusty knick-knacks and worn furniture. No, this wasn't right. He saw the salesperson out of the corner of his eye and turned to go speak to him. Him? Her? Sam wasn't sure. Rounding the corner of the aisle where the person had just been, Sam saw there was no one there now. "Oh! Come on!" he said out loud and his words echoed in his head. He went up to the counter and hit the little bell sitting there. Even the sound of the bell fell flat instead of the expected high-pitched ding. Still, no one showed to answer it. "Hello?" he called out. "Is anyone even here?" Frustrated, he turned and left the shop.
As he stepped back out onto the street, Sam saw the same two girls from before, standing in just the same way, their heads bumping into each other as if they seemed to have some kind of psychic connection that way. He saw them staring, pointing and giggling silently at a man whose back was to him, just as they had done with him. Shaking his head, he hurried down the sidewalk, almost knocking the man down in his rush to get away from the store. He saw the man instinctively reach for his wallet, obviously thinking he was up to no good and he muttered a brief apology as he and the stranger looked into each other's eyes. "No!" he cried out. "No! That's not possible!" and he turned and ran from the man, the store and the giggling girls.
Rounding the corner out of the way of passers-by, Sam leaned on the brick wall of a nearby building, gasping for breath. "Okay, Sam, get a grip," he said out loud. "This is a dream. You know that this is a dream and you're going to wake up and figure it all out later." He laughed to himself. "Maybe it means nothing at all. Maybe you're having an ordinary dream for once, just like everybody else." A glass-shattering shriek split the air, banishing that thought from his head. "Or maybe not," he said to himself as he turned to go towards the sound.
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Rushing back onto the bustling street, Sam noticed that no one else had reacted to the ear-piercing scream. "Okay, that's just odd," he thought to himself. "People usually at least look up." He heard the scream again and realized it was coming from the middle of the street. He sprinted to the street to see a woman lying there, hit by a car, another woman standing over her shrieking like a banshee. Sam grabbed the screaming woman and tried to pull her out of the street and away from traffic. The car had just kept going and now other cars were weaving around them, none stopping or even slowing down. Sam looked down at the bloody, mangled body of the woman lying on the pavement and knew instantly that she was dead, her pale blue eyes staring up at him. The other woman just stood there staring at the dead body and screaming like the devil himself was after her. Sam pulled on her arms but she remained rooted to the spot. "You need to get out of the…" he started to say, but stopped, shocked as he looked into her face, realizing it was the same woman lying dead in front of them. He released her arms and she shoved back at him hard, causing him to fall backwards onto the sidewalk just as a speeding car collided with her, throwing her body to the ground.
Picking himself up from the sidewalk, Sam looked down at her, knowing what he would see… a bloody mangled corpse with pale blue lifeless eyes staring up at him. He turned and ran from the scene, knowing that no one else was going to come to her aid, but that there was nothing he could do. As he ran, he heard petrified screams behind him. Realizing what it was, he changed his course, so as not to end up back in the alley where he had just ran out. He stopped and waited. The screams ceased and didn't start up again. Sam caught his breath, leaning on an iron post nearby. He tried to remember the woman's face but it was a blank now. He knew he had stared into her cold, dead eyes, but he couldn't remember even what color they had been. He looked around and began to figure out how to make his way back to the street and the store where he had been earlier, but do so without retracing his steps. After several wrong turns into dead-end streets and alleys, he finally found it. He stood on the opposite side of the street now and watched.
He saw himself appear out of nowhere and look around, confused at first, but then accepting that he was on an ordinary street. He saw the two boys run into him. He saw the shop window and the two girls. Watching the door of the shop, he saw himself come out and bump into himself. The first Sam began looking around frantically, trying to catch the attention of people on the street, staring intently at a car going by, then turned and went into the store as the second Sam ran off down the street in a panic. With both "Sams" gone, he watched and waited to see what would happen next. Nothing happened. He didn't reappear, he didn't come out of the store again, he didn't bump into himself again. The other Sams were gone. He started across the street but was stopped when he heard a voice behind him.
"Sam," the woman's voice said.