I Survived, But At What Cost?

Dear Ruhi

After knowing that Ruhi has the same kind of “dreams” as her Nir couldn't get it off her mind. A part of her wants to believe that this isn't true and it's some sort of hallucination or prank or something. But a part of her can't make sense as to how this is happening to another person as well.

But she tried to shrug it off as much as possible. Nir was a strong disbeliever in spiritual things, like ghosts,demons and gods.

On the other hand, she's just happy that she got to talk to Ruhi. Whom she liked from the first glance. She started to try and get closer to her. Which was surprisingly easy.

Ruhi was a very fun and outgoing person. She was easy to get along with. She was so bright and smiled all the time while she was with Nir. Nir couldn't make meaning out of why she didn't have friends at school. Why was it that people didn't get along with her ?

As they start to form a good relationship with each other, time keeps passing. They come closer to the 13th day of the month. Nir had almost forgotten about it until Ruhi reminds her the day before.

The bell just rang, announcing the end of the period. It's lunch time now. Nir starts to put her books back inside her backpack and take out her tiffin money. That's when Ruhi rushes into her classroom.

“Heyyyyy Nir wassup?!”

“Oh hey! You startled me!”

“Haha sorry for that I came here in a rush”

“Oohh I see you can't wait to see me huh?”

Slightly blushing, Ruhi nods her head. Then proceeds to say, “Well you're the only friend I have you know - and also I wanted to remind you that today is the 13th day of this month. You seemed to have forgotten”

“Ohhh! Yeah right. I totally forgot. But I don't think it's that important though. I mean.. the more I think about it , it seems more impossible. It could just be a bad dream or sleep paralysis. There's no way it'd happen again like that...”

Ruhi takes a deep breath and looks into her eyes. “Nir, it may be hard for you to believe it because it only happened to you once. At first I was like that too. But when it kept on repeating for months and on... I had to accept it. In fact I've been dealing with this for years now. It all started since my 15th birthday...my life has been going downhill from there.”

“....What happened?”

“Let's go get our lunch and I'll tell you while we eat”

They both headed to the school cafeteria and bought their lunch. Sitting down they started eating.

“So... You were saying...” Nir said.

“Yeah...about that. On my 15th birthday I had my first ‘dream’. It was a totally normal day but suddenly bad things started to happen. Yk.. I always had a very loving family. I have a younger brother and we all were happy together. My parents had a healthy relationship as well. But that day I woke up to the sound of loud shouting and cursing.. I went to the living room and saw my parents fighting. They looked like they would kill each other then and there. I tried so hard to stop them but nothing worked. And after that day they would always fight and then take out their anger on me. Especially my mom. Whenever she fought with dad she'd take it out on me. Either cursing me or beating me up. There was this one time she even tried to choke me to death.”

“That's horrible...”

“Yeah..that all happened on my birthday so you can tell it was a hell of a day. My brother was still very young and he couldn't even walk. I had to take care of him because my mom would always be on a cranky mood, complaining about everything. While my dad stayed outside always working and drinking. Still I loved my father. He was a lot nicer to me than my mom ever was. ”