Daniel shot up in bed with a sweat covered shirt sticking to his body. He panted and tried to catch his breath. Even though the dream was over, he still could see remnants of it in his mind. Usually Daniel forgot his dreams, but this was a dream he couldn't forget because it was deeper than a dream.
It was real life. A flashback he encountered over and over again some nights.
When Daniel did drugs, it took his mind off the dark things he'd seen and done. However, sometimes if he got too high, it only made him remember more. As hood as he was, he could never stomach the memories from when he killed people. The memories haunted him though he had no regrets about what he'd done. For some reason, he just couldn't shake the fact that he was capable of murder-or the fact that he'd done it twice and got away with it.
He worried someday everything he'd done would catch up to him. Whether it be his friends taken from him or his family, he had this looming fear that he'd pay for what he'd done. And those were usually what his dreams persisted of him. In his dreams he relived the murder, then he'd watch the person he killed, kill someone he cared about it. Daniel had the dream on more fingers than he could count. Each time, it left him paranoid.
Whenever Daniel had the nightmare, the first thing he did was call his mother. After peeling his soaking wet shirt off his body, he felt around his bed for his phone. Once he found it, he ignored the plethora of notifications on his screen and went to open FaceTime before calling his mother.
She answered on the first ring, but nothing was in the camera except for the ceiling above. It was 10:30am, so he knew she was at the salon working. Still, she always answered the phone whenever he called.
"Hola, mi amor. Te extraño. ¿Cómo estás?" She spoke. Hi, my love. I miss you. How are you?
Sometimes when they talked on the phone, she would speak to him in Spanish. His mother always told him he was too Americanized, so she liked to make sure he still remembered their language. It annoyed him sometimes, but he stopped complaining about it since it made her happy.
"También te extraño. ¿Y tu?" He told her he missed her and asked how she was doing.
