It took me longer to fall asleep than I anticipated. I was just laying there for a few minutes, feeling like I was slowly sinking into my bed. (I couldn't sleep on the couch, because Sock and Seth had the TV cranked up to max.)
When I finally did fall asleep, I was consumed by a bright red light that made my eyes burn. After a few moments however, my eyes seemed to adjust to it and I could see that I was by a huge black river. There was no grass underneath me, just mud, and I could discern where the bright red light was coming from. The sky was completely enveloped in it.
I stood there for several moments, just looking around, until I heard two people talking to my right. I turned my head and saw a man who was probably about my age. He had jet-black hair, a fair completion, and was wearing a black hoodie with matching baggy pants.
Next to him was a tall man. I couldn't tell what he looked like or what he was wearing, because he was completely covered from head to foot in soot and mud.
"Where are we, Hade?" the tall man asked the one with the hoodie, his voice was low, as if he had a bad cold. Hade didn't answer for a few moments and they both continued walking closer to me. It seemed like they either didn't notice I was here, or couldn't see me for some reason.
"Level five," he finally answered.
The tall man snorted. "How do you know?" he asked him, then let out a loud cough.
Hade didn't answer, but instead pointed at the huge black river in front of them. The tall man grumbled something under his breath that I couldn't hear.
"Well, I could always drop you back off at level nine with all your new friends. I'm sure Zachary won't care. Because I don't," Hade told him bitterly and stopped walking once they were at the river.
"What are we suppose to do? Swim over to the other side?" the tall man asked him. Hade in return, looked at him and started laughing as if what the other man said to him was some hilarious joke.
After a few moments, he finally stopped laughing then shook his head. "No. Well, unless you want to be consumed with rage and hate for the rest of eternity," he said, then squatted down and started to dig in the mud with his hands. "Come on. You have to help," Hade said to the other man.
"What are you doing?" the tall man asked cockily and stared down at Hade with disgust.
"Shut up and dig or else you're doing back," Hade answered flatly.
I woke up hearing a woman scream in the living room. My eyelids flung open and I sat up, half wanting to run into the room and see whom it was. Until I remembered that Sock, Ben and Seth were watching Bride of Chucky and that's where the screams were probably coming from.
I sighed and flopped back, laying down, and looked at my watch. Four more minutes until Seth was supposed to wake me up. The thought of him made my stomach turn. How do you even play Risk anyway? I thought grimly and started to imagine Seth sitting down on the floor with me, trying to teach me how to play it for the next two hours. The thought made me cringe.
I can't tell Seth about my dreams, I thought. Suddenly my thoughts turned back to my two past dreams, and what happened with the car. I didn't know why at the time, but somehow I knew that Seth didn't know about them, and that it should be kept that way. "Hade," I said softly. What kind of name is that? I thought. I nickname for Hayden, maybe. I sucked the inside of my cheek for a moment in contemplation.
"Sam…" I heard someone say behind the door. "It's time to wake up," the voice said in a soft, fake melody.
"I'm up," I replied, not bothering to hide my irritation. I then saw the bedroom door open up and Seth standing in its entrance. I let out a light moan and stood up from my bed.
"Now that's what I call spirit," he said with a sarcastic and energetic voice then stepped out of my way so I could walk out of the room. Once I had walked out of the bedroom, Seth followed behind me. When we emerged into the living room, I saw Sock and Ben sitting on the sofa watching the movie.
I walked up to them and looked at the TV's screen for a moment. "How are they already at the cemetery? That's at the very end of the movie," I said to Sock. He shrugged his shoulders.
"We skipped all the boring parts," he replied, not looking away from the television. I nodded and looked at Seth, who was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room impatiently.
"How do you play it?" I asked him, my voice in the tone of defeat.
Seth smiled at me happy and sat down by the board game. "This game has a very easy concept," he said then waved his hand over the game. "World domination."
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If their was a world record on how fast a game of Risk lasted, Seth and I had to have broken it. He destroyed me. Royally.
"Okay. Why did you want me to play with you when… Well… You knew this game is about conquest? You had to have known that you would kick the crap out of me in this," I said to him in annoyance.
Seth shrugged his shoulders, he had a small grin on his face. "You'll get better at it with time. Just like Ryan did with Sudoku," he said then started to put the plastic pieces into the Risk box.
"I really doubt it," I said sourly, unhappy with the thought that Seth would be making me play it again.
He snorted and closed the lid over the box once everything was back in it. "I don't," he said simply, stood up with the box in his hands, and walked out of the living room and into where the bedrooms where.
I stood up as well, and sat on the sofa beside Sock. He was now watching the latest episode of One Life to Live on the DVR with Ben. "I had an other dream," I whispered to them softly, not wanting Seth to hear me talking to them.
They looked away from the TV. "You mean one with the brown haired, glowing guy?" Ben asked me.
"Why are we whispering?" Sock chimed in.
"I don't want Seth to hear us," I told Sock, looked back at Ben and told them about my new dream.
"A black river?" Ben said softly, with a confused look.
"It was probably just a nightmare," Sock said then looked back at the TV. Ben nodded with agreement, then looked back at the TV as well.
I sighed, not really knowing what to say to them. It didn't feel like only a nightmare to me, but what had happened in it just didn't add up.
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I woke up to my alarm clock the next morning and sighed with relief. I didn't have any dreams that night, that I could remember. I found that surprisingly pleasing. Having all those weird dreams was very… stressful. Then with Seth added on top of that made it even worse.
I looked over to my side and saw that Ben and Nina were still sleeping. I grunted and stood up from my bed. Not particularly happy that I was the only person stuck with first shift that day.
Just think of the positives Sam, I thought to myself as I walked out of the bedroom and over to the bathroom. Damn it, I can't think of any, I thought miserably and opened the bathroom door and walked in.
Except when I walked in I wasn't in the bathroom, I was in a department store. I was in the men's section. Racks of shirts and jeans surrounded me. I moaned with frustration, but was silently thankful that I put on PJ pants and a shirt this time instead of just boxers.
I looked around me for a moment, until I saw the Devil two racks behind me. He was looking at a rack pants. Sighing, I walked over to him.
"I've always thought that they had an interesting variety of clothes here," he told me without looking over. "If I didn't have a tailor, I would probably buy some of my clothes here," he said to me then pulled a pair of black slacks out. "Like Seth does," he said then put them back onto the rack.
"Seth buys his clothes here?" I asked him with a cocked eyebrow. He nodded, still not looking at me.
"How long have you known Seth has been stalking me?" I asked him bluntly. The Devil chuckled lightly and looked at me.
"Yeah, he does do that sometimes," he said with a pleasant smile then continued to look through the pants hanging on the rack.
I clenched my teeth with frustration. Should have figured I wouldn't get a straight answer. "So, who's the soul?" I asked him, wanting to get over with this.
The Devil shook his head, stopped raffling through the pants, and looked at me once more. "There's no soul that you have to catch this time, Sam," he said to me.
I frowned at him. "Then why did you bring me here?" I asked him impatiently. Please not for clothes shopping. Please not for clothes shopping.
"To give you this," he said and handed me a key. It looked to be for a car, but I couldn't tell what type by just looking at it.
"What's this?" I said, feeling more and more impatient and irritated.
"Part of the vessel," he said simply. "The rest of it, is out in the parking lot."
"I thought you said that I don't have a soul to catch," I grumbled.
The Devil rolled his eyes. "No. I told you that you that you don't have to catch him. I just think that it would be in you're best interest that you would," he told me and shrugged with shoulders slightly.
"Why?" I asked.
He smiled broadly at me, as if he was laughing at his own inside joke. "Because Morgan escaped from Hell yesterday."