Chapter Two: Obscure dreams

Callie woke with a start gasping for breath, cold sweat trickled down her forehead and a scream caught in her throat, she struggled to calm down, fending off an impending panic attack. She stared into the dark and haphazardly patted her bed in search of her phone. She remembered falling asleep with it on.

She finally felt the phone and grabbed it lighting the screen up. 2:00am. The time read, she stared at the screen trying to will the sun to come up. She shut her eyes and collapsed into her bed after a minute had passed and nothing had happened.

She had a very weird dream, the worst part was that it was horridly realistic and honestly quite lucid.

It felt…real. She put her left palm on her chest in an effort to calm down trying to laugh away her fear but an odd sound resembling a squeak came out.

She tried to analyze the dream to find meaning but it was too odd, way too odd. In her dream she was walking down the familiar path that was her street but her vision was a few inches higher than normal .

The street was quiet which was odd for that time, and for whatever reason in the dream she knew what the exact time was. She still continued down the road in the unfamiliar body. That’s when it happened. It appeared. It looked human but for whatever reason she had an inkling that it wasn’t.

It smiled at her, blue eyes shining in amusement, it was seemingly trying to get her attention. She knew to ignore it though. Act like it’s not there. The words echoed in her head, so she did.

The action seemed to aggravate the human-like thing though, it started acting out, shifting out of its form, then it went quiet and she thought it was safe.

“Hi” a cute little voice said, the voice sounded eerily familiar which was odd because Callie had never heard it before, she couldn’t help but look down and she saw a cute little girl, five?, six maybe. The unfamiliar body let out a shaky breath and Callie realized that she wasn’t in control of the body’s actions.

The cute smile on the six year old’s face warped into something terrifying and I died at least it felt like I did—the body I was in. Dead.

Callie couldn’t understand why she felt so unsettled by that dream. It was human. At least it looked like it but deep down she knew. It wasn’t.

She ended up lying in bed till dawn because she was too scared to fall back asleep. When it hit 5:30 she dragged her tired body out of bed and up to the attic, throwing her curly hair into a bun on the way. She grabbed an apron and wore it before she sat in front of the painting she was working on.

She stared for a bit trying to decide where to work her magic on, she grabbed her brush and palette and let her creative juices flow.

Two hours passed by and Callie cocked her head slightly at her painting, she was currently staring into a pair of vivid green eyes.

Whoa. She thought. She was surprised at what she painted and was a bit off-put. The eyes felt familiar. Her mind wandered back to the strange dream she had and she felt like the person she was in the dream, whoever that was, owned the green eyes.

“Don’t be crazy Callie,” she mumbled under her breath shaking her head “ I didn’t see his eyes.”

She suddenly paused her face crunching in confusion. “His?” How do I know it was a he, she was confused but also very certain that it was a he.

“I think I need a break” she said before slapping the thought out of her head, “Preston’s calling.”

She spent the next 22 hours fully engrossed in her painting, she was completely overtaken by the spirit of art in her, by the time she decide to rouse out of her art induced state, her eyes were blurry, her head aching, throat dry and belly grumbling.

She pushed through the pain dropped on the fall and crawled to the spot her phone sat, the screen lit up immediately she tapped on it, it read 5:30am, 25th of august, Monday. She stared dumb-foundedly. She had spent a whole day in the attic working on her painting she was shocked that her parents had yet to come and berate her tgen she remembered that they physically couldn’t. They had gone on a work trip and left Saturday evening.

Callie burst into almost psychotic giggles, she suddenly stopped as her world started swaying and everything went blurry. She wakes up almost immediately, she moves and flinches expecting the pain of her worn out body to attack her but was pleasantly surprised. She couldn’t feel anything. She stood up and dusted herself off despite it being useless considering she was covered head to toe in paint.

She turned to make her way back to her stool, she stared face scrunched up in confusion, it wasn’t there. What? Infact this attic which she believed to be hers was more spacious than normal.

She walked up to the spot her stool and easel where supposed to be, swiveled around trying to catch a glimpse of the huge canvas she had been working on. Nothing. Literally nothing spare a few boxes and other containers and this one weird thing covered by a blanket. A mirror perhaps? She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of the attic door opening.

“Oh thank God! Mu-?” Callie paused as she stared at the complete stranger in her house. She wondered what was going on. The stranger was at least 6 feet tall, probably even more, he had short chocolate brown hair and green eyes—the same eyes she had painted. Her jaw dropped. He was hot respectfully but what was he doing in her house? And why did she see him in her dreams? How did she know he was the one in her dreams? She had so many questions and no answers, she was about to speak when he cut her off by walking through her.

Callie had tried to dodge by throwing herself backwards but he literally passed right through her. Not beside but through. Confused was an understatement to her state of mind. Was she…dead? She wondered if she had become a ghost or vengeful spirit. She was about to continue her train of thoughts when everything suddenly went black.

She woke up with cold sweat dripping down her face, the pain of her worn out body hit her full time. She grunted and groaned in pain as she curved into a ball in an attempt to reduce the pain. She spent a few minutes in that position before dragging her tired body up, with shaky legs and her phone in her hand she leaned on the door frame her brain too blinded by hunger and lack of sleep to remember the odd experience she had a while ago.

She dragged herself to the kitchen, filled a cup and finished it in one gulp. She took Tylenol to dull the pain and when she felt okay enough she called a pizza place to place an order.

“Large Pepperoni pizza please” she informed them.

Her order was to arrive in about 45 minutes they told her. Her shoulders relaxed slightly and she collapsed onto the couch in her living room trying to get a quick nap before her pizza arrived.