Page 7 of The Final Storm
Am I dreaming? This feels different.
“Hello,” I shout into the darkness. The sound of my voice echoes back. I’m in a familiar room with a bed and a desk, almost like our old cabin on the Thalassa, but this place is empty. The typical noises of the ship aren’t around, and the silence makes my skin prickle.
“Hello. What’s going on?”
Nothing.
Silence.
The nightgown brushes along my ankles, and I pad my bare feet toward a door, the pain that burdened me moments before now gone. Turning the handle and entering a narrow hallway, cold air bites my skin. The icy metal almost burns, and I shake out my palm.
“Hello. Is anyone there? Where am I?” My words carry down the black hall, falling into a void.
The darkened hall grows colder with each step, but the smells don’t match the air that bites my skin. It’s… smoke without fire and chemicals, like flames ignited with gasoline. I scan my head from side to side, trailing my fingers along the wall. I’m startled when, in the distance, I make out a figure, someone at the end of the hall. I take one step toward them and notice they wear a nightdress like mine, white and reaching down to her ankles. I call out again. “I see you there. Hello, can you help me?”
The figure stalks my direction, and my heart flutters with nerves. An apparition or not, it’s real to me. She’s someone I’ll encounter, and my gut fills with dread. As she draws closer, I close my eyes, wishing I was awake on the floor of our living room. I try to will myself back, despite the pain that awaits my return.
The empty hall echoes with her bare feet as she walks, each step growing louder until she stands in front of me. My breath catches as I look over her frame, and when I exhale, a fog forms from my warm breath against the frigid air.
She’s almost a mirror image of me. Same height, the same dark hair and eyes, and the identical white dress I wear. If that’s meant to comfort me, it doesn’t, and I freeze from fear, my heart pounding out of my chest. Goosebumps cover my skin, and the tiny hairs on my body stand at attention while I focus on breathing.
In - one, two, three. Out - one, two, three.
I taste the smoke that enters my lungs with each inhale and exhale.
You’re dreaming, Rowan.
“What are you doing here?” she seethes. My head jerks back, shocked by her tone. She spits the words at me with disgust, her face contorting with rage, causing adrenaline to pour through my veins.
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know where here is,” I stutter. The hall becomes unbearably cold, and the floor beneath my bare feet feels like ice. Nothing makes sense in this juxtaposition of a dream, or vision, or whatever I’m experiencing.
“You should leave. He doesn’t want you here. No one wants you here. You weren’t supposed to even be here,” she rages. She moves toward me with outstretched arms and screams in my face. The sound reverberates through the steel walls, making it feel as if the space is vibrating. I’m stuck in an earthquake of her thunderous rage. I stumble backward with a cry, covering my ears, and fall to the floor.
The room shakes, and before I can bring myself back up to standing, my body lifts and floats. I open my mouth to scream, but water fills my lungs. I’m drowning, and I bring my hands to my throat, desperate for air. The woman floats above me, arms and legs kicking and pulling through the water.
I swim up to her and reach the surface, gasping and coughing when I break through. Arms and legs of strangers move in the surrounding water, and I spin in place, lost from the change of location. When I catch my breath, I find her white nightgown, and I dive forward to follow her. All of us swim like we’re racing toward the shore, and my body aches when I hit shallow water. My feet race in her direction while she runs ahead of the pack. I need to know what her words mean, and why I’m seeing her tonight. Dream or vision, nothing has ever come through this clearly, and I stumble forward, desperate to know more.
She turns, her wet nightgown sticking to her body, showing her shape in the moonlight, and smiles. The sight halts me in place and my knees buckle from shock.
Oh my God.
“We win again,” my sister, Morgan, calls out to the crowd. There’s a groan from the other swimmers as they slap their bodies onto the shore. A memory floods back of nights like this, evenings in summer when we snuck out of our homes and raced across the lake.
I reach out to her, but my body seizes. With another jerk, a bolt of pain shoots back through my spine. The brightness of the room blinds me while my eyes blink to adjust. The scent of soap fills my nostrils, and I sputter a cough, my arms outstretched to my sister.
But she’s gone.
I’m back inside our living room, my head spinning with the shift. I let out a faint yelp, attempting to sit up. The immense pain in my stomach muscles keeps me down, and the cries of an infant fill my ears.
Luke rushes to my side with my baby wrapped snugly in a sheet. “She’s doing just fine. A little small, but there is nothing we can do except keep an eye on her.” I touch my stomach, and it’s smaller, the skin loose under my fingertips. I’m sitting in a pool of water, sticky and sweaty, while Lori and Sam move about the room with purpose.
My mind races to comprehend my vision and this sudden reality. Luke places Morgan in my arms, and her face looks so perfect and beautiful. She smacks her lips and closes her eyes. I hear Sam chuckle beside me, and my beating heart calms.
This is real.
Morgan is real.
Sam is real.
