Bruises and Bitemarks [Hiatus]

Recurring Dreams

I walked through the woods, trying to find the house for another visit. I was familiar with the area but for some reason, I could not locate the house… It probably would have been a good idea to get his number, but he didn’t seem like he would have a phone. He’s such a hermit.

 “Zac?” I yelled out, hoping he would hear me. “It’s Amy! I’m here again!”

My only reply was silence and a whoosh of the cold, winter wind. I continued to call out his name as I walked through the forest. The house finally came into view, and I was finally greeted by the familiar pair of green eyes that seem to stand out so much to me.

“Hello, Amy,” Zac said to me, smiling as usual.

The sense of relief that I should have felt didn’t appear, however, and instead I was surrounded by feelings of vague distress. I looked at Zac, as if he could help explain my own feelings to me…or as if distress was what he was feeling himself for there was something about him that just seemed off.

Like he wanted to tell me something but he just couldn’t.

We went on in the day with the usual meal of soup and bread, the conversations that ranged from philosophical to personal to silly, the pictures, and so on. We laughed and had fun being in each other’s company, and the sense of distress that I felt from earlier had disappeared.

“Thank you for coming to see me again,” he told me as we stood on his porch to bid each other farewell.

“Tell me if I become annoying for stopping by every day,” I said, laughing a little.

“Oh, no, I look forward to seeing you every day during lunch time.”

I smiled and nodded, happy to hear that he readily enjoyed my visits. I waved as I walked down his steps and back into the snow, starting my journey back to the outskirts and back to my car. But as I walked away, I took one last glance back at him to smile again, and I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were no longer green, but rather, red.

And I would wake up in my bed, baffled as ever as to why I keep having that same dream over and over again. It’s been almost three weeks since my first encounter with him, and I have been making visits to see him every other day.

I think it was safe to say that we were actually friends now.

But this dream…I had it for the first time on my fourth visit with him, and I have no idea why it turned into a recurring dream. Needless to say, it’s annoying, confusing, and a little bit scary. I would tell it to Zac but I don’t want to creep him out by saying that I have dreams about him.

Oh, I just happened to dream about you literally every single night, Zac! Yeah, that’s not weird at all, Amy.

This dream would cause me to wake up in bed every night around three am, and it would take me a while to fall asleep afterwards. Sometimes, I would have dreams where Zac was standing in the corner of my dorm room, by the window, watching me sleep…I would wake up in my bed to see his dark figure, but when I reach over to turn on the lamp on my nightstand, he would disappear instantly.

The one thing that scared me the most about this particular dream was that it was so vivid. Sometimes I wondered if it was really a dream or not, but of course it was. There is no way that a human being can do such a thing as that, and I always lock my doors and windows. And I also must take into consideration that I am on the fourth floor and that visitors would have to go through the check in area before coming up.

Somehow, I feel like I’m trying to convince myself that this was really a dream. …but why must I do that if it really was? Sometimes I find myself staying up just to see if Zac would come back, but he never does—it was just a dream, after all. I must sound so silly. But as silly as I try to make this be, I find a part of myself doubting my confidence.

Eventually I just fall back asleep on my own, drifting back into temporary rest.