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I narrowed my eyes.
I smell bullshit.
“Time for what? Look here, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about and quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass but I’m about ready to wake up now.”
This dream is getting weirder by the minute.
If looks could kill…
His eyes glinted in the moonlight as he stared down at me, a burning fury lit behind his frozen expression. ”Be prepared, Erin Snow. The time has come, and payment must be made.” He pressed a long, willowy finger to my chest and pushed. The world around me turned black and I fell backwards into an abyss.
My eyes shot open as I sucked in cold air. I was back in my car.
What the actual fuck!?
Chapter two
Erin
The drive home went by in a blur. Too focused on the latest sweat-inducing nightmare, my pulse continued to race.
This is fucking ridiculous. It was just a weird ass dream.
I took a steadying breath; I needed to calm down.
I might need to dial it back on the coffee-fueled late-night study sessions.
That had to be it. The lack of sleep and running on fumes had to have been the cause of the nightmares.
As I pulled up to my apartment, a couple of my neighbors crowded on the front stoop of the building. Wisps of smoke swirled around them as they puffed on their cigarettes, the scent wafting as it drifted across the blacktop. I forced a smile back as they waved when I passed them on my way inside. I was glad to be home but I was not in the mood for conversation. My neighbors were great; quiet, friendly, and mostly kept to themselves.
I shoved my key into the lock of my apartment door and shuffled into my open living area. It led into my barely usedkitchen, with the bedroom and bath off to the right side. My apartment wasn’t huge but it worked for me. I made a beeline for my espresso machine, the only appliance I bothered buying after I moved in.
“Okay, so I’m not cutting back on the coffee, but hey, it was a thought at least,” I mumbled to myself.
Coffee was my comfort and I would take all the comfort I could at that moment. While the coffee brewed, I grabbed my small laptop and scrolled through a few news articles. I typically would check them twice a week to keep up with the latest local news.
‘We must prepare.’Prepare for what?
I shook my head to clear it. It might’ve just been a dream but something about it nagged at me. I scrolled further down the news article on my screen.
“Mass Power Outage Overtakes Riverside, Thirteen Disappearances Follow”
That was weird.
Thursday,January twenty-ninth, around ten p.m., the main power plant caught fire, leaving the town of Riverside without power. The cause of the fire is unknown and is currently being investigated. No casualties were reported. However, thirteen residents in the surrounding area were discovered missing after the event.
Woah. I guess it was a rough night over there.
Riverside was a quick twenty-to-thirty-minute drive north from my apartment, so not too far away.
I wonder why we didn’t lose power?
I shrugged. It was probably a different power grid. I continued to read through the article but there wasn’t anything else that stuck out to me. I closed out of the browser, shut my laptop, and grabbed my piping hot coffee from the machine.
It was so warm. Just what I needed.
After chugging it, I placed my mug in the sink and headed toward my room to grab some clean pajamas and hop in the shower before another night of studying. I couldnotwait for finals to be over. My brain was about fried at that point. In addition to the nightly dream terrors, I’d been up late almost every night to cram as much studying material into my brain as possible. We were over a month away from finals but with it being my final semester, I needed to ace each one.
