Time for part number four to the Serial piece we have been spending time with.
Check out the other pieces at these links (in story order) and you can catch up with what’s been going on so far.

She Who Watches
There will be Flood
Will you do the Fandango
Awake in Dreams
Trip to the Doctor
Night Sweats
Visions of Breakfast
After the Fire
Sweet Dreams are made of These

Awake in Dreams

Lisa woke drenched with sweat, the dream again. The same dream she had over the past few months. Not exactly the same, the players changed as well as the locations. But the ending, always the same ending, she died at the end, every single time.

Not just died, she died bloody. The odd bit, she wasn’t the victim of a crime or diseased. She knew that upon waking every night. But the blood it covered her in her dreams, soaked the area around her. And every night she woke drained and dehydrated.

She turned her head back and forth. The dark circles under her eyes found equilibrium. They grew no darker but they didn’t grow any lighter either. The clock on the bathroom wall flashed the time, three am. She splashed water on her face in hopes to clear some of the funk from her mind. Sleep the rest of the night would come in bits and pieces.

The light from the bathroom gave her a faded view into the bedroom. Shan still slept. After the first month of this he learned to roll over and go back to sleep, no sense in both of them losing the rest of the night.

In the kitchen the light from the fridge cut a swath into the room. She kneeled in front with the door open and searched through the shelves. Leftovers from their trip to that new restaurant, Shakers, and a sandwich with a bite missing were the only things she found that looked appetizing.

She set the togo box on the kitchen counter and left the fridge door open. In the light of the fridge she picked through shrimp and noodles with her fingers. The tails she left in the box as she ate the meat of each shrimp. She ate three shrimp before she realized they had no flavor.

“Dream again?” Shan asked. He rolled over to face her as she settled back into bed.

She flipped her pillow to the dry side. “Yes,” she said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Noticed you were gone when I stretched to your side of the bed.” He stretched his arm over her waist to demonstrate. “Did you take the pills?”

“Took them before bed, for what good they do…”

“Doctor Samson said you need to take them before sleep and then after you wake up from one of the dreams.”

“Sometimes I wonder if the pills are part of the cause of this.”

He switched the light on. “Babe, you have to take this serious.”

“I am taking it serious. I’ve been taking these pills for a month, and they are making the nightmares worse.” She sat up and wrapped the blanket around her torso. “I can’t sleep. These pills aren’t doing anything to help it. And the dreams haven’t stopped, not even a little.”

He held her gaze with his own. “Should we go back to the doctor? Or do you think we need a second opinion?”

Heavy sigh. “I need to check something new. These pills aren’t cutting it. Hell, I think they might be making me loopy.”

“Okay, you want me to call around for a new doctor tomorrow?”

“I’m a big girl. I can do it myself,” she said. She fell back on the bed and turned away from him. “I’ll make some calls tomorrow.”

Shan watched her back for a while. He laid down when her breathing changed to that of sleep. “Tomorrow,” he said then closed his eyes.

Through fitful sleep the rest of the night, she missed when Shan dressed then left for work. She rolled out of bed at ten am, not quite rested but better than she felt at three. He left the bottle of pills on her nightstand with a note. “Don’t give up on the pills.”

She grumbled and poured a few of the pills from the bottle, sea green coating that tasted like mint, well diabetic mint anyway. The look of it did little to entice her to try it. She dropped them back into the bottle and closed the lid tight.

After a quick shower she dressed and began the search for her phone. The logical thing would have been to leave the phone on her nightstand every night so she could find it in the morning. That never worked for her. Instead she tended to drop it off in the kitchen or the living room when she arrived home after work. Most of the time it was never in the same place from the previous day.

She found the phone in the fridge, laughed at herself for the orange she had for a snack after work the day before. At least the battery wasn’t dead. With another orange and glass of juice in hand she sat on the couch and opened the browser on her phone.

“Hello?” Yes, hello, are you taking on new patients?” she said into the receiver. “Great. Medical history? Oh ya, I can come to the office and fill all of that out. I can be there before noon.”

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What the heck is going on? There is some strange stuff happening in that new house.

When you get a chance, check out Hastywords. You can find more Halloween fun over there.