The Dawnmeister Chronicles
Chapter Four: Nightmares
Today was the freakiest day ever and just confirmed the fact that we have moved to Hell. And no, I'm not being melodramatic. I'm talking seriously Hellish. And weird. Weird, freaky, odd. All of the above.
I'll start at the beginning. I've had this recurring nightmare, yeah? Where I'm nothing, but kinda everything. And I'm floating around and it starts off nicely enough, with all this nice stuff with people being all romantic and things that are like the best of human nature - like love, generousity and kindness.
Then? Well, then it gets kinda gory.
I'm talking seriously gory. With blood and green light and shouting and it's so loud, and all I can feel is this pain and hate and anger. There's all this destruction, like the world's falling down and there's nothing I can do about it because I think I am doing it.
You know how when you dream, most of the time you know you're dreaming? In all my dreams, I know I'm dreaming (though in the good ones, where I'm on a date with Nick Carter, I try to pretend I'm not dreaming). But this one is different. This one is real. Scarily real. Like more real than anything, than school or home or anything. Like my life's a dream and the dream is real, which is more scary than any dumb movie Buffy ever tried to make me watch.
So, no, not the best dream I ever had and I get it every now and again and it seriously freaks me out because I wake up and feel sorta detached from everything. From Mom, from Buffy, from everything, like I don't belong here, like I belong... I don't know. Someplace else.
But it's only a dream, right? Wrong!
I was at school and it got really dark. So I ran through all the possibilities, y'know, hurricane, eclipse, apocalypse, but before I could decide on one, things went nuts. There was one girl who started spewing a snake and this other guy started scratching at his eyes. I was wondering what the hell was going on when things got scarily familiar. It was like I was dragged backwards and I started screaming, but no one could hear me. Everything was green and loud and painful, like I was being turned inside out. The world felt like it was crumbling and falling down around me, and all I could do was scream because I couldn't stop it.
I don't know how long it went on for, but the next thing I knew was I was in the middle of a park and Buffy and her friends came running over to me. I looked up and her face was sorta contorted, but I must have imagined it because when she grabbed me, her face was normal, but she looked terrified. I thought she was going to hit me when she grabbed me, but she hugged me! And I'm talking bone crushing, suffocating hug, until her librarian (Mr Giles, I think) and her friend Xander pulled her away.
"Are you ok?" she said and you'd think she was accusing me of ruining her best sweater the way she said it.
"Fine," I answered.
"Don't you ever scare me like that again, ok?" she shook me then.
"Like what?" I asked. "Scare you like what? How'd I get out here? What's going on?"
I don't know why I was asking her, it's not like Buffy even knows what went on in her English class, so she wouldn't know what was going on in that kind of situation. But since before the fire in the gym in LA, Buffy's been acting differently and odd things seem to happen around her. So I think I thought she ought to know. Thinking about it know, she probably caused it, she's like a freaky trouble magnet.
"Nothing, sweetie," Buffy's other friend – Willow – rubbed my arm. "Buffy was worried when she saw you float - uh, I mean, running down the street."
"But what's going on?" I asked, but I don't know why I bothered, no one ever answers me.
"Nothing," Buffy snapped. "Nothing happened. I told you not to have so much coffee last night; Mom's always telling you that. And – and it screwed you up a bit and you passed out at school. Mom was at work, so they asked if I could take you home and you just ran off. Ok?"
"Hey, Buff, shouldn't we take the Dawnmeister home?" Xander – who is kinda cute – said. "And how about neither of you telling your Mom about this, huh?"
And so Mom didn't find out.
But then, neither did I, because something seriously weird happened today and I'll betcha Buffy had something to do with it.
'Cause guess what? I never had any coffee last night.