Twisted immortality

I - The first sight

Out of the blue, Songkarn could see flashes of a male figure. Like moving through the house. No, it could hardly be considered a house. More like a mansion. At every door, he could see the same male figure, in the shadows, standing. He was tall and had short hair but Songkarn could never once see his face. And the man felt cold... also, distant and mysterious. Songkarn woke up with a start.

This weird dream had kept disturbing his sleep for a long time. Usually, it was pretty difficult to discompose Songkarn, but this dream had the ability to do so. That's why he wanted to get rid of this intrusion unsettling his sleep for all this time. Generally, his go-to solution for that was to call his therapist, who would probably want to kill him for waking him up almost every night. This was already the fourth in a row.

"It better not be you again, Songkarn! I can't even open my eyes enough to look at this blaring, bright object in my hand."

Songkarn held the phone away from his ear until he was sure that Lucas will not try to bite his head off anymore. The two had gone to the same high school. The five of them, Jame, Boom, Silanon, Lucas, and Songkarn, became best of friends from the very beginning. From their very first meeting.

Smart and gentle Lucas had changed his plans to not continue university with them and went on to study to become a doctor and eventually specialized as a shrink. Lucas had never even hinted being in any way interested in that sort of field of study, but it obviously suited him perfectly. Songkarn had a natural prejudice against therapists, but Lucas showed him that he was an excellent one. Someone who genuinely tried to help people trying to get to the bottom of his patients' issues.

Luckily for Songkarn, Lucas was his best friend and his go to the person whom he called whenever he had trouble with something. Songkarn was successful and talented in the engineering field and also, had his small but trusted group of friends. Yet at times, he felt lonely, sad and somehow out of place. He felt like his life was incomplete, even though he had been a department head for many years and now overall, his life seemed to be going well.

Still, there were two things that confused him about the way his life was moving along. First was the obvious connection between his insomnia and the weird dreams. They were surely related. Most nights he couldn't seem to fall asleep no matter how tired he was and when he did manage to fall asleep he dreamed so often that most mornings, he didn't feel rested at all. It had been going on for almost a year now. It was soon going to be his birthday but his mind was so tired that he couldn't concentrate on anything to the point that he felt like work was the only thing keeping him sane. The second concern was his loneliness. There were times Songkarn thought that maybe it was his fate that he would be alone for the rest of his life. He didn't like being alone but whenever he was trying to find a connection with someone, he never managed to create a spark with them.

"Lucas, come on, who else can I call? You know I'm lonely and this dream just keeps coming again and again." Songkarn rolled onto his back and waited for Lucas to decide a way to deal with his annoying best friend. "So how can I sleep if I don't call you for help?".

"Songkarn just to remind you, though you are alone and will probably be alone forever, I have someone with me here." Songkarn rolled his eyes. What kind of therapist would rub his patients' loneliness in their faces like that but he had already heard Lucas heaving his tired body out of bed and to his study. He was nothing if not predictable.

Songkarn knew if his friend's profession would be anything else or his feelings would be even a bit disturbed because of Songkarn's constant phone calls Lucas would have told him so.

"Did you see anything new this time? Last time you got to see the painting inside the darkroom. Do you now know where the room is or where it could be? Have you seen it before? What about what's in the painting?" Songkarn could hear Lucas typing something on his computer. He had a huge case file on Songkarn and his dreams. At first, Lucas had dismissed Songkarn's dreams and his lack of sleep as just an episode. Work-related stress perhaps but as it had gone on for so long, almost a year now, Lucas began sharing Songkarn's concern and was just as curious to find out what could be causing the weird dreams.