Fate

Episode 14

CLAIRE.

Jumping down from her bed as if she’d been stung by an ant, she drew her bedside drawer and pulled out a Wesson and smith 9mm pistol. Turning on her bedside lamp she shouted at the top of her voice “stop or I will blow your head off.” She looked around as her voice re-echoed.

Looking lost around the room, sweat oozed out from every pore on her body drenching her nightie which clung tight to her body. It had been so real to be a dream she thought. She had felt a presence and a hand squeezing tight around her neck. It has been long she had dream of such. Pulling her phone to call the SCD, she decided against it, it might seem like raising a false alarm. Again, she didn’t want the entire question which at the end wouldn’t yield out anything.

Sitting up from the bed, she went to check through the house. Though with little training on how to use a gun, she felt confident enough in protecting herself with the weapon in her hand. Is this really a dream? She asked herself as she walked down the stairs to her sitting room. She moved cautiously as she took the door which led to the kitchen. She found the kitchen door slightly opened. That had never happened not as far as she could remember; she doesn’t leave the door to her kitchen open once she is not inside. Her instincts all came on alert as she nudged the door slightly with the nose of the gun. She peeped through first, before letting herself in, step after step.
Everything was as she left it before going to bed except for the kitchen door. It wasn’t clear to her if she actually did lock up the kitchen door before retiring for the night because she’d been so tired when she came back from work. Convinced about the kitchen as everything seemed in place, she opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Placing the gun on the freezer, she took a deep gulp from the can before picking up the gun and walking away back to the sitting room. As she left the kitchen, she made sure to lock the door behind her.

The silence in the sitting room was distorted by the ticking of the wall clock which hung on the wall. Taking her attention to the time which just clocked 2am she sighed before lowering herself on the couch. She took another gulp from the can setting it down beside the couch.
Totally calm, she relaxed back and tried to remember everything about the dream. All she could remember was two hands tightening around her throat trying to strangle her. She’d fought all she could trying to get a look at the face but she couldn’t. She tried thinking deep but her head felt like splitting. With the gun still balanced in her hand, she stood up and picking the bottle of water, she walked aimlessly up the stairs to her room.
In her room, she sat on her dressing table and stared at the image that greeted her at the mirror. She couldn’t believe the shadow that stared back at her. She looked totally the shadow of herself. Reaching out for a bottle of medication on the table, she took some pills and threw them in her mouth washing it down with another gulp from the bottle which she dropped on the table afterwards.
Still on the table waiting for the drug to take its effect she forced herself to remove her eyes from the mirror and focus on something else; the sight staring back her wasn’t pleasant at all.

Turning away from the mirror she looked at her bed. The pillows were on the floor with the duvet while the bed spread was rumpled like it was played on. She stood from the table and went for the pillows, picking them up, she tossed them back to the bed with the duvet. She sat on the bed with no effort at trying to arrange the bed. The pills were taking its toll on her already as she was finding it difficult holding up her eyelids. Placing the gun on the lamp stand beside her bed, she la!d back to the bed surrendering to the effect of the drug as she drifted into another realm.