Push

Push [chapter 11]

Sorry if this one seems kind of filler-ish and more exposition than dialogue heavy. I do hope you like technical details though cause here's where Ryan first experiments on his push :D

Please feel free to tell me what you think of the chapter with a comment and vote if you liked it. I'm always in dire need of criticism.

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Chapter 11

I slept a troubled sleep that night. I had a nightmare. Not really something new because I've had nightmares ever since I ran away. But now, it was more vivid. It was the same one of course: that horrible memory of the night I ran away. I saw once again, the furious eyes of my father bearing down on me, his hands clasping my arms and throwing to the ground. I remembered the thoughts that went through my mind then, even more distorted in my dreams, and then a silent click as if something snapped into place. I saw again, in the horrifying slow motion that only dreams could make, how my father's eyes widened in surprise and then become dull in their sudden lifelessness; how he then fell to the ground, his cigarette falling on a puddle of brandy on the floor, sparking flames that set fire to that whole room.

Shouts and cries (my own) ringing in my ears, I watched from afar as the fire began to eat away at the frail-looking house, the house I grew up in, until it was reduced to mere embers. That was normally how the dream ended, the remaining embers dying down into blackness before I woke up in a sweat. But that's not how this one ended.

With a surprising sense of awareness, an awareness that I knew shouldn't have been there during REM sleep, I began to see more. The embers didn't die down but instead sparked further to life, burning brighter and brighter until they became...a fireplace. It was fireplace, an object that I knew I'd seen before at some time in my life.

I was aware that the dimly glowing hearth was where I was disposing of a bunch of G.I. Joes that my dad got me for my birthday. I was aware that it was raining hard at the time and that was the only reason why I wasn't enjoying the normally good weather of (what place was this again?). Most importantly, I was aware that I wasn't alone in the room. The tiny den smelled of the familiar perfume my mother always preferred and something else - honeysuckle? Dust? Through the eyes of the child I knew I was back then, I looked up and saw an old lady in a rocking chair. She turned to me, smiling. There was a flash of silver (her teeth?) and then I woke up.

A cop out ending, but enough to wake me up in the cold sweat that I thought would come earlier. I woke up in the way that only someone who was still bone weary and hadn't gotten enough sleep would: his eyes slowly opening and just lying there on the bed, not moving a muscle. I must've stayed like that for a bit, just staring at the ceiling and listening to the soft drone of the ceiling fan in my room, my bed slowly getting soaked with sweat. I was only dimly aware that there was a throbbing in my head but whether it had anything to do with my drinking session with Jamie last night or something else, I couldn't tell. Add that to the other bodily pains that were one by one waking up, and I've probably just woken up to my worst morning in a long time.

Though I was sure I was alone in my room without anything else making a sound, it still felt unbearably noisy. The small light seeping through the curtains was brighter than my interior lighting and I felt the need to vomit. I reined the sensations in, however, and tried to keep them under control through closed eyes and burying myself under a pillow.

Out of the corner of my eye, still too weary to move my head, I could see on my digital clock that it was only half past five in the morning. In only thirty minutes, I was due to start my morning ritual before I went to work. Working at Campbell's had taught me how to get by with only a few hours of sleep under my belt but I was still human. Less than three hours of rest was probably going to take its toll on me.