Good night, have nightmares

***

My feet tread on the frozen ice; all around me is nothing but cold and fog. I realize I’m not alone here. The problem with dreams is that you understand what’s happening, but you don’t know what it is. Staring into the gray murk of the horizon is useless; the feeling of being lost weighs heavily on me, and, for lack of other options, I keep walking. One step, then another—the fragile ice cracks beneath my feet, like a snake in the grass, threatening to strike. Wispy clouds of steam escape from my mouth, betraying a cold that’s almost imperceptible. I keep moving forward until the silhouette of a person emerges from the fog; he’s dragging something long behind him. I call out to him, and the silhouette freezes in the distance, shrouded in a veil of gray mist. My steps turn into a run: slipping, falling, and getting back up, I slowly approach the solitary, tall figure. For some reason, she seems familiar to me, even though I can’t see her face or even any details that might help me identify this mysterious person. After an agonizingly long wait, my legs grow tired of running, and I stop. No more than five meters separate me from the “stranger”; in her hands is a shovel covered in dirt; just one glance at it sends a shiver down my spine. —Where’s Alice? - the words slip from my numb lips. I have no idea why I assume she’s supposed to be here. This dream dictates its own plot against my will, controlling all of us like puppets. In response, I hear only laughter coming from a tall girl with red hair and blue streaks. I feel the mocking gaze of her ash-gray eyes upon me. I can’t see clearly: the image of her face is blurring and won’t come into focus—separate features, eyes, a squint, a nose, lips, cheekbones! Everything blurs and distorts before my eyes, and my gaze can’t latch onto even a single feature on the face of yet another person from my dream. I just feel it, I just know it. The laughter seems deafening. But suddenly a voice rings out: — You know where we buried her. It wasn’t a question, but a matter-of-fact statement. An indisputable truth. And it hit me like a blow to the head, as if Sasha had struck me with that shovel. And I wish that were the case. At that moment, I remember… What happened on the beach of that lake. In dreams, time is more malleable than matter, and how long did it take to dig the grave for our mutual friend? You’re digging through the frozen sand, and I stand there agonizingly long, waiting, unable to look away. The sound of the shovel striking the cold ground rang in my ears, penetrating deep into my heart and brain. Alice’s flesh is as cold as the lake’s shore. Everything is cold, just like my heart. I can’t cry, I can’t get angry—I just freeze, realizing everything we’ve “been through.” Inside, everything trembles with panic and grief. At some point, everything around me begins to tremble too: the ice beneath my feet starts to crackle, spreading in fissures into the dark waters hidden by the cold. — This will be another secret just between the two of us. - The realization of what we’ve done shatters the ice beneath me completely, and I fall through the hole without even having time to gasp. We didn’t kill her; we couldn’t kill our best friend—we simply buried her lifeless body. I personally laid her in the hole. But I just watched. Powerless to do anything. The water was pulling her body to the bottom. The cold water burned, enveloping me in darkness. My body, as if to spite me, wouldn’t obey, paralyzing my entire body with a vile fear that spread through my veins. I’m drowning. The light from the small crack is quickly fading. I can’t breathe.

***

I can breathe. I wake up, gasping for air. It’s still night outside, and the room is cold from the open window. I hesitate to get up because my heart is pounding so fast—it feels like it’s about to give out and burst inside my chest at any moment. I try to pull myself together, trying to make sense of what just happened in yet another nightmare. It was just a dream, right? Wasn’t it? I instinctively reach for my phone, lying next to my pillow. I unlock it only on the second try; my eyes hurt terribly from the screen’s light, even though it’s dim. My fingers automatically open the messaging app, immediately finding our chat. Only now do I notice that the time in the corner of the display is 3:30. Great. I scroll through the chat: no new messages, neither from Alisa nor from Sasha. It’s just a stupid dream. Everything’s fine; no one died—that can’t be. My throat is parched and desperately begging for at least a sip of water. Naturally, I don’t deny myself. Cool water washes down my throat, quenching my thirst. I really don’t want to go back to sleep, but I don’t want to sit here for another four hours either. I was supposed to get up early today at 7 a.m., but sleeping less than three hours is a bad idea. I look out the window, repeating one of my rituals. Staring into the darkness of the window without getting out of bed, my lips slowly begin to move: —Where the night goes, there goes sleep, - the words force their way out of my throat, and my eyes begin to sting as tears well up. - Where the night goes, there goes sleep. Where the night goes, there goes sleep! - “It’s a Slavic incantation against bad dreams. To keep a nightmare or a disturbing vision from coming true, when you wake up, you have to look out the window and say this phrase.” I don’t believe in incantations, but sometimes they really do help. It’s more of a habit, something that happens automatically. It seems the adrenaline has worn off; I’m starting to drift back into drowsiness, and then into sleep. Good night.