Nightmare

Riley stretched her limbs high above her head as she stood in the parking lot. She felt her hair fall on her shoulders and settle behind her as she looked to the sky. The bright sun was high overhead beaming down warm sunrays and the black asphalt below her feet was radiating with heat. It combined to make the day a very hot one. As she turned to her left and began her trek southward, her sea green eyes caught the sight of a barely there black cat sleeking behind a rusty blue dumpster. Not giving it a second look or even a thoughtful care, she let her legs carry her wherever they wanted to go.

Riley walked on and on, along the sidewalk of a two-lane road. Unaware of her destination and oblivious to the overly warm temperature surrounding her. She marched on, mindlessly going through the motions. She knew in her head she had to make it somewhere, but suddenly she no longer knew how to get there or where “there” was. As her legs methodically moved her onward down the never ending road, she became increasingly aware of the fact that she couldn’t remember where she had just been. Yet she didn’t have the energy to care about that either. Inside the core of being however, she felt a rapid and strong desire for the need to get on a bus. The same something inside the core of her told her it would take her where she was meant to be. The longer Riley walked the stronger the desire became to get on bus number 87. Over and over again she racked her brain, searching for the origin of her need to ride this specific bus. When she found none, she concluded it was just natural instinct and her feet finding their way.

Her soft careless eyes gazed behind her to investigate the coming sounds of a fast traveling bus. As the speed of the bus increased she knew then she would not make the bus stop in time and would have to catch it when it came around a second time. However, her gaze was glued to the bus as it came barreling down the road. What she saw next did not even startle her like it should have, which confused her very much. As the bus made its way down the lane she swore to herself that she saw body after body tumbling under the sides of the bus. People were being pushed from the open doors of the bus and thrown to the curb then dragged beneath it. But there were no screams or sounds from the people at all. The only thing Riley heard was the loud roar of the bus’ engine as it came racing toward her. She also noticed once the people had been run over by the bus they ceased to exist. Although her view of behind the bus wasn’t perfect she still never saw any bodies lying on road. It was as if someone were playing tricks on her. She shook her head from side to side and tried to push the image of what she was seeing from her mind but remained. Although any sensible person would have burst into a panic frenzy, Riley stayed calm, as if in her heart she knew this extremely hideous sight was just another everyday scene.

Riley gazed at the sight of it all with amazement but remained calm and slightly unconcerned, telling herself this sort of thing happened all the time. That’s why no one else was panicking. Yet in the back of her mind she knew it was still oddly strange. As the bus continued heading her way she felt a little uneasy in her stomach. She slid further from the road side of the sidewalk and walked a few paces faster. Riley feared the bus would take her under like the rest of the bodies it threw about but knew in her heart she wouldn’t be harmed. Something was off about this day and the idea that this scene was mysteriously somewhat normal made things all the more unbelievable. Riley knew one thing for sure, she needed to get on bus number 87, at least that’s what she thought at the moment.

Out of nowhere, Riley was suddenly at the bus stop with a gentleman beside her. The bus came sliding on down the lane and Riley, after being so certain she must get on bus number 87 was abruptly convinced she mustn’t get any bus at all. And then Riley was walking beside the gentleman, now pushing an old fashioned baby stroller down the sidewalk. It was as if her memory had failed her. She felt like a ghost in a world passing her by. She zombied on, walking beside the man. It never occurred to her to ask his name or to ask why he was pushing such an old fashioned stroller. The only thing she knew was how persuasive he had been in directing her to walk to her destination instead of getting on the death bus as he had called it.

Time passed as if it didn’t exist, but Riley felt her journey slowly coming to an end. Looking around her she realized the scene of the road she had been walking beside never changed. There was just one long road that seemed never ending until something odd popped in her head. Before she knew it there was an intersecting twirl of concrete bridges in front of her. The gentleman silently walked beside her as they traveled under the bridges. Riley looked to her right, bored and tired of her never ending journey. She spotted a horse somehow trapped between the rings of the highway bridges. Although later it would not make sense how the horse could be trapped here, she let it her slip her mind for now. The sight of this horse here struck her as strange for only a moment. However, she was not nearly as surprised as she thought she should have been. Even though in her head she knew this was an odd sight, she felt as if on this day, nothing should surprise her anymore. So she turned her head back toward the silent man and continued walking to her unknown destination wondering what she would see next and where her feet would lead her.

Her breath veered from its normal rhythm and her body shook sharply as her eyes burst open. She took in a short intense breath of air, sat up in her bed and looked around the room, half expecting to see a horse to her right. But she didn’t. The only thing to her right was a window and the pitch black sight of nightfall beyond it. Riley evened her breathing and pulled her hand over her chest and to the place where her heart was to calm its erratic beating. She shook her head in annoyed disbelief and laid back down. Pulling the covers up around her shoulders she rolled onto her left side and slowly closed her eyes. She ran the nightmare over and over through her mind as she laid there. What does the bus barreling down a two lane highway trampling people over mean? What would a horse trapped in a mess of highway bridges mean? And a man pushing a stroller? None of it made any sense to her. It never made any sense to her.

Riley sighed and settled into her usual frustrated demeanor. Everything from the dream always felt so real and everything was always the same. Always the same barely there black cat, same bus number, always the same people falling beneath it, always the same man, the same horse, and the same unknown destination that she can never seem to reach. The dream always followed the same path and the people in it never veered from their lines. Not even Riley herself, she always felt the same way in the dream, like none of it was a surprise and like nothing really mattered. Riley was tired of this nightmare and tired of trying to figure out what it meant. So she let sleep once again consume her and she drifted off back into the dream world where she felt like nothing more than a ghost with unfinished business.