It lives in my head...

"Let's play a game!... I spy something brown and smelly with two eyes and no sense of humor... Tick-tock... Do you give up? It's the piece of shit hiding from us! We know you're in here. Come out come out wherever you are and take your medicine like a bad boy should. I promise it won't hurt. Who am I kidding, I've never been a great liar. That sour taste just won't go away."

My hideaway in the depths of this poorly lit, dusty warehouse, reeks of mothballs and stale, mildewy garments. The ceiling leaks rusty water, hitting my face and making contact with my lips. My first instinct is to spit it away from entering my mouth, but that will make too much noise. I wipe the metallic-flavored gunk from my lips with the side of a closed hand and keep quiet.

This place is like a labyrinth once you enter it, filled with a maze of odd clothing, all stacked in corners or hanging on racks or going lord knows where on a conveyor system that angles toward the ceiling and disappears through a hole in the wall. It feels like these garments go on forever, but they really don't. Any corner I turn may be the last.

Based on the number of different voices I can hear, at least three men are in here with me. I can hear the shuffling of hard-soled shoes or boots only a few yards away. Why can't I ever escape what's coming to me?

"He's close, I can smell his fear sweating out those guilty pores, wishing that mommy would just make it all go away. YOUR MAMA AIN'T COMING TO SAVE YOU JADEN!"

Three weeks of the same nightmare. Three weeks of being involved in this illusion of mental games that always end with a different way of disposing my body.

Each night it seems to get closer to its goal of driving me out of my own head. If I could move all my thoughts, experiences and memories to another brain, I would pack up and leave immediately. Anything to stop this.

"We know you can hear us. Quit delaying your punishment. Get your ass out here so we can kill you!"

Unable to take a stand, bravery hides with me. Without deliberately giving up my position, I force it to speak up. I need to know why they want me dead. I try my best to throw my voice.

"Who are you? Is it money you want? I don't have any. I have a family. Leave me the fuck alone! Or at least tell me what' I've done to you. Maybe we can fix this."

I hear laughter before a response is given.

"You know who we are. Use that pea brain of yours to think real hard back to what you did on your seventeenth birthday... Ahh, silence. You remember, don't you? Just think of us as the karma police. Except, we're not here to arrest you. That would be too easy."

Any type of response from me was hindered by the bullfrog wedged deep in my throat. Before I even have time to absorb what was just said, a rack of wool sweaters in front of me parts to reveal three, shiny, black rifles pointing directly at me. I have no time to react. Every bullet hitting my body pushes and jerks me backwards in rapid succession. As the last one pierces my chest, I watch my vision of my killers go sideways; I was falling to the ground. Choking on my own blood, I was still conscious as they drag me out the warehouse and throw my limp body off a cliff. I Immediately wake, gasping for air as I always do.

"Another nightmare?" My fiancé, Charlotte says, she is barely awake.

"Yeah, the same one. This time they threw me off a cliff after they shot me. They were dressed like bikers this time, with bandanas, tattoos, torn jeans and black leather jackets. And one of them said... uh, never mind. It's just a stupid dream."

"Said what?" She asks, still laying with her back to me.

I barely had time myself to reflect on what he said. How could a dream know something about me buried so deep that even I was struck with a wall of shock hearing it. It gave me the chills. Only two other people knew what I... we did after my birthday party ten years ago. It was ruled an accident.

"It was nothing, I can't remember. This whole situation is getting old."

"Well, dreams like this are trying to tell you something, you know. I wonder what it means."

"I also wonder what it means. I'm gotta grab a glass of water then try and get back to sleep. I have a busy day at the stock market in a few hours."

As I slowly get out of bed to begin the long walk downstairs to the kitchen, I'm too tired to even consider putting my slippers on the right foot. It's not important. What's important are the haunting memories of that day so long ago. Why haven't I thought about it in so long? The dream wanted revenge or at least for me to set things straight, maybe confess. Guilt quickly overshadows anything else going on in my mind until it too is interrupted by a familiar noise coming from my bedroom. I race back upstairs to confirm where it's coming from. Before I enter the bedroom, it's gone. Charlotte is dragging her tired self toward the bathroom.

"What was that noise I just heard? That was it! The sound of me being shot to death!" I quickly say, being overdramatic.

"Jaden, calm down. It was my alarm. I hit snooze a few minutes before you woke up. I wasn't ready to rise and shine."

"Your alarm? Wait a minute! Play it again. I have to hear it again." She's annoyed but retrieves the phone to trigger the alarm again. It was the same sound and pattern that I hear every night!

"You know I love popcorn. I downloaded this tone a few weeks ago." She explains, suddenly realizing what I'm thinking. "OH MY GOD! It's around the same time your nightmares began!"

"Yes, it is! You got to change it, right now! I...I don't know what it's called but I know that external noises can incorporate themselves in a dream. Change it now! Or at least switch it to default. This explains why it happens the same time every morning and why it doesn't happen on the weekends. The sound of your alarm going off at 4am every morning has to be the answer to why my dreams have been violent and repetitive."

"I'm so sorry, I obviously had no idea. I'll change it. It's so weird though. I guess popcorn can be interpreted as gunshots."

She finds this situation humorous as she sits down to open the settings on her phone.

"This isn't funny, Charlotte!"

"Oh, relax, Jaden. It is kind of funny. If you could have seen the look of horror on your face when I replayed the tone... Let's just say, I wish I had taken a picture of it...priceless. Relax, you can go back to sleep knowing it's over. I have to shower. I'm going to be late."

I lay back down, but don't have any intention of going back to sleep. How could we have been so stupid to have left that kid in that abandoned fridge. It was supposed to be a joke to frighten him. He must have never seen the emergency latch that would have let him out. How could he? It was pitch black in there after we closed the door on him. He suffocated. It was an accident just like they said. No, it wasn't. We never went back to check on him. The idiot teenagers we were caused a young boy's death. A gigantic mountain of guilt returns. I weep myself back to sleep.

***

Red balloons are all I can see. Thousands of them flood every inch of my peripheral in a moment of befuddlement. They cause my emotions to teeter on the fence, not knowing know which way to lean. This is no celebration... A feeling of dread slowly creeps up my spine.

In all my years, I never once considered myself a sufferer of claustrophobia- the fear of being enclosed in small spaces. The feeling becomes real after the balloons move in closer, touching me, squeaking like they do when hands twist around them in opposite directions. A sound worse than fingernails across the chalkboard.

The color red continued moving inward, obscuring the sunlight. I could feel balloons all over me, attaching themselves like I was a rich source of static.

My movements are directionless, not knowing where I am in relation to the seemingly harmless objects. I fight my way through them until it feels pointless to go any further. I fall to the moist dirt, covering my head, hoping the balloons will soon pass.

As if they are conscious, the relentless bombarding ceases. The squeaking stops. I peek from under my left arm, watching them hover away from me and each other, dragging their white strings with them. They resume the normalcy of helium-filled balloons as if some collective soul releases it's control over them. They drift to the only place they can — upwards. The scene quickly begins to brighten. They are thinning out, allowing the sun to blind me when the openings become large enough to reveal the cloudless sky.

Without ever taking my eyes off them, I stand up and brush off my clothes. The bulk moves in a massive cloud toward the snow-capped mountains, getting higher and higher until they become a red smudge in the sky.

When my eyes level, standing in front of me is a young boy with a red balloon as a head. Unlike the others, this ballon has an expression painted in white. It moves unnaturally across the surface, changing his look several times— happy, sad, angry. I am more curious than afraid, wondering what I'm looking at.

We do not exchange words. Only the uneasy feeling of being in his company exists. He then looks toward the ground and grabs the string laying down the front of his shirt resembling a very thin necktie. He stretches his arm as long as it can go, detaching the ballon from his shoulders, gesturing me to take the string. I don't hesitate to grab it; it feels like I am supposed to. The balloon bobs in the air as it gets closer to me, like the helium is losing its potency. The expressions no longer change, its locked on the standard smile. The headless body doesn't move either. I think they must depend on each other to stay animated. Once the string left his hand, there was no life to either of them.

I held the ballon in my right hand, the smile always facing me. It is close enough to touch it. Before I could raise my hand to do so, It POPS, drenching my face with water...

While wiping the water from my face, I begin hearing a boy's laughter. The headless body is nowhere to be seen. I follow the sound into the thick brush. There, in a clearing, I see little Christen, the twelve-year-old boy we unintentionally killed. He's standing idle by an old refrigerator. He laughs again, then goes inside of it and closes the door behind him.

Not again, I think to myself. Panicking, I run over to the fridge and yank it open. Laying inside was a small skeleton. Beside it was a deflated red balloon. The sight was enough to scare me awake.

I sit up in bed with an odd feeling of closure. Does Christen forgive me? It feels like he does. His death was senseless. I am sorry, but don't think I can ever forgive myself...