Skipping Stones - Karlnap

•15|Dream Journals|15•

Two Birds - Regina Spektor
death bed - powfu
—
Sapnap never believed in ghosts. He always saw it as some spooky fairytale that's told to scare you during the Halloween season.

His best friend, Dream, however, is a different story. He's absolutely obsessed with the paranormal. Growing up, he always read horror books and forced Sapnap and George to watch scary movies with him. When they were younger, Dream wanted nothing more than to be a paranormal investigator. And because of that, he wrote journals filled to the brim with everything relating to ghosts and demons and everything in-between.

Of course, though, just like any child's childhood dream, he grew out of it. Somewhere within their last two years of high school, Dream realized his dream wasn't necessarily realistic. Looking at it from a money standpoint, it'd take years for him to actually go somewhere with it. He'd have to work with skeptics—his own parents were skeptics. And over time, he found a new passion in coding and followed through with that plan instead.

That doesn't mean he doesn't still love the paranormal, though, and he kept every single journal he ever wrote about it. And that's exactly why Sapnap's standing on the porch of his family house.

It's an old house having been made somewhere between the seventies and eighties. It's been repainted over and over again; through many years of rain and rather harsh winters, the paint always chips and they always end up repainting it next season. Sapnap's helped a few times. Up until Dream and George left, he spent more time with their families than his own. Dream's mother even calls him her third son.

He knocks, his breathing becoming shallow. He hasn't visited Dream's family since they drove him to the airport with them. Since then, he promised to visit again only to never actually push time aside to go.

The door opens, and artificial light floods out of the house and into the dim streets behind him. The inside of the house smells like a mix of old wood and flowers, which makes sense as every room seems to contain some form of flowers whether it be a bouquet or a painting of one.

A young girl stands before him. Her emerald eyes glance up at him. She always resembled her older brother, but it became more apparent since he left. Not only because they have the same green eyes and long-ish dirty blonde hair, but because she stole some of his clothes since he left. Sapnap recognizes the oversized graphic tee as the one Dream always wore up until the end of high school when he decided to completely change the way he dresses to tucked-in button-up shirts and slacks.

The only thing she has on that didn't once belong to Dream is her jean jacket. Sapnap remembers helping sew the patches on and, because of that, specifically remembers it belonging to George.

"Sapnap's here!" She suddenly shouts after gazing over him for a few moments. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I just randomly drop by?"

She scowls. "No."

"Sapnap!" Both Sapnap and Drista turn to the older lady approaching them. She has the same emerald eyes and is actually almost the exact same height as Drista except she has crows feet creasing at the edges of her smiling eyes.

She's starkly different than Sapnap's actual mom. For one, she has far more energy than his mom. She was always more present in his life, as well. Whenever he was sick, she would go down to his house and bring him soup and some of Dream's comics to read to pass the time. Sapnap's convinced that's where Dream got his unconditional generosity that always made Sapnap feel bad; he's never able to pay him back in full.

"Hi, mom," Sapnap replies quietly.

"It's been so long. What brings you by?" She pulls him into a loving hug. It's warmer than his own mother's.