Nightmare

I reside in a nightmare.

The authoritative figure gestured with two fingers at me, and I held out my left hand, palm down, knowing what the figure was looking for. After seeing the black marking on my hand, the figure gave a slight nod. A snappy look over their shoulder later and I was being directed forward.

As I walked through the narrow opening in the chain link fence, I glanced to my right, where the rest of the fence was practically bursting at the seams from the pressure applied by the frantic refugees. It wasn’t this busy man’s fault what happened, but he would have been blamed for it later, regardless. I looked up as a loud crack filled the air. A streak split the sky, blinding white against the orange and black backdrop that was now reality.

Broken signs guided me to my destination. Figures wearing masks, like the guard on hand duty, lined the streets, guns slung in front of their chests. One didn’t need to see the faces underneath to know that the same, stoic expression rested on all of them. I stared down at my hands as I carefully walked over loose gravel and discarded trash, careful not to step down too hard on a rampant rock. As I focused on the path, I was mildly aware of the locket my fingers were caressing. Dried blood stained the upper half of the heart shaped metal and I found myself mindlessly picking at it, chipping it away, red flake by red flake. A strand of brown hair hung from the lockets clasp –

A scream pulled my gaze away from my hands and into an alleyway to the right of me. The gun toting figures were not far behind my stare as they burst into the alley. The scream blazed to a crescendo, then silence rang through the air. As the figures hustled back into the streets, I stared back down at my hands. They were shaking, the small, metal locket swinging back and forth like a pendulum. My quick glance up revealed to me the building I was searching for, and I adjusted my feet to set me in the correct direction.

My people are dying. I stepped further into the refugee camp.

In a nightmare.

“You never forget your first.” Someone had said that in a time that had long since passed. I remembered it now as I stepped through the ajar door leading into what could only be described as a bar. A quick glance around revealed two other patrons and a bartender. The latter looked up at the sound of my scuffling feet inching their way toward a stool and gave me a once over.

What a sight I must have been.

The bartender gestured at a handwritten drink menu on the counter between myself and her and I took a seat. I pointed at the word ‘SCOTCH’ with my left hand, my right hand still thumbing the locket. The heart felt as if it were thrumming to life in my hand, and I could sense what should be the throat beneath. A pulsing, throbbing throat – I swallowed that thought back as the brown liquid was set in front of me, the color indicative of the barrel it must have come from.

As I sat, faint noises of rustling papers and clinking cubes of ice against glass filled the gaps of permeated silence. Halfway through my drink, a patron stood up and walked out of the bar. The bar held one other patron and a bartender.

A nightmare.

My mind drifted to the hell that had ripped through the sky some time ago. How long had it been? A year? A month? “You never forget your first.” That’s right, she had said that to the younger man that was with her. At the previous camp, before… A shudder ran through me, and I took the last sip of my drink. Wordlessly, the bartender poured more brown liquid into the glass that was nestled in my right palm.

My hands were shaking again. As I finished my glass, I thought of the myriad of refugee camps littered across the valley and how many I would visit. I thought of the way my people were butchered by those monsters and how quickly bullets were able to incapacitate a foe.

As the last patron got up to leave, my hand jerked violently, and a bit of scotch splashed out of the glass and onto the countertop. A glance over his shoulder was all the patron gave before giving a shrug and walking away, seeing the bartender going for a towel under the counter. I was handed the towel and absent mindedly wiped away at the scotch that had dripped onto my left hand.

The black mark on my hand smudged and I looked up at the face of terror on the bartender’s face.

Nightmare.

The world goes still. Another crack rends the air, and the sky flashes a brilliant white. Ensuing is only silence.

“You never forget your first.” I think of this as I step up from my stool. I think of this as I place the locket into my pocket, the brown strand of hair hanging slightly out of the denim. I think of the woman saying this to her kid as she doesn’t see me behind her. I think of these things as I reach over the counter, my now elongated fingers grasping the neck of the woman behind the bar.

As I think of what I will do to this camp to save my people, I think of my first. I think of the locket I keep as a reminder and of what the woman said before it happened. Much like then, my palm meets muscular resistance as her throat tenses.

I squeeze and that tension gives way.

I am a nightmare.