If You See This Boy

It'll Be Alright

I ran immediately to Liam's after I left Oliver. Before he could even open the door, I threw it open. The poor boy was almost hit with my merciless door opening skills.

"Harry?" he asked tentatively.

"I'm almost positive it's him. If it isn't then it's some other missing kid. Look at this!" I nearly shouted at him as I tried to catch my breath. I yanked my phone out and showed him the picture of the photo I had found. "That's supposedly Oliver," I huffed as he took the phone out of my hands.

He looked closely at it before zooming in on the small child's face, "Hardly looks anything like him, but you can't say it isn't him because of that."

"I know!" I yanked the paper from my pocket. A part of me was afraid to see what it said, and a part of me was afraid that it would mean absolutely nothing. "On the frame of that photo there was a date scratched into it. September 15, 1998. Too young to be Oliver's birth date," I began explaining.

Liam sat on the arm of his sofa as he continued looking at the photo, "Then what do you suppose it means?"

I lifted the paper so that I could examine it's contents just as Niall and Zayn came into the room from the kitchen. My eyes drifted over the text multiple times before it slipped from my fingers.

"Harry?" Liam called to me softly as I tried to process what the text had told me. "Harry, what did it say?"

Zayn lifted the paper from the floor when I remained silent, "Oliver David Gregs, age 7, pronounced dead on September 15, 1998 at 11:57 PM. Cause of death... Complication during corrective surgery; heart defect."

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"Hello? Is someone there?" her voice reached me again as my grip on the phone weakened. 

I leaned against the walls of the phone booth for support as my knees began to give out beneath me. That woman was supposed to be a figment of my imagination, a... a part of my endless nightmares. My free hand brushed through the fringe of my hair. "M...Ma'am... Who am I speaking to...?" my voice came out much weaker than I intended, but I couldn't help it.

The woman paused for a small moment.

It felt like hours as I waited for her to respond. Why was I so nervous? This was a coincidence. A mere coincidence... Nothing more. My head was beginning to ache again. Ever since that kid showed up in the restaurant my migraines were becoming more frequent and more violent, but that was all coincidence. All of these things were coincidences.

"This is Jay Tomlinson, who is this?" she replied softly. 

I was probably scaring her. A random stranger calling her in the middle of the night over a dream... "M...My name is Oliver. I have a question..." I tugged at my hair lightly in an attempt to get some form of a grip on myself.

"It's late... What can I do for you Oliver...?" her voice was weakening. It wasn't strong and cheerful like it always had been in my dreams.

"I... I have these dreams... About a boy named Louis," I inhaled sharply. "I don't know how I know him... I... I know your voice too..." I was shaking. I sunk down underneath the phone's box and held the phone tightly against my ear with all the strength that I could muster.

She was silent for a long while and I could have sworn I heard a muffled cry. "Is... Is this a joke...? What kind of sick joke is this...?" she choked out.

I felt my breathing hitch as my focus became blurred with my own tears, "No Ms. Jay... I'm not joking... I'm... I might be sick in the head... But, I don't know what to do... I can't get these dreams out of my head... I'm sorry... I don't know you... I shouldn't have called..."