Prophetic Realities

The dream's narrative is always the same, night after night until I am so exhausted I don't dream at all. The scene will and has changed over the years, but the dream and the dread it causes remain constant. I've never told anyone about this particular dream until today because to speak about it might give it the power it needs to manifest and come true. I know, don't be so judgemental, it's what I believe, and this belief has served me well throughout my life.

However, my life is changing, and so are my dreams, so I will share this one with you.

My youngest daughter turned seventeen today. I've experienced all of the emotions that come with seventeenth birthdays three times before this one, so I should have been simply a joyous birthday occasion. This birthday was different and only because of the damn dream.

I have been having the same dream for almost twenty years now. I awake the morning after the dream, exhausted from the lack of sleep or the exertion the dream takes on my consciousness; who knows which one. Usually, the dream only included my middle child and me. We are always living in a post-apocalyptic world with very few humans left in it. Children of all ages surround me, but no adults, and my daughter and I are constantly moving these children in search of food. I have always considered my dreams to be visions of the future, and this dream tops that list of prophetic dreams.

My daughter and I seem to be the last surviving adult humans in our area. However, there is always a group of dangerous people chasing us. The goal of these people changes, but their desire to find us never changes. Sometimes these people are chasing us to take the children away, and sometimes, they are after my daughter because she is the last surviving female able to reproduce offspring.

The dreams always take place in the desert, and over ten years ago, when I moved my entire family from the east coast to the Sonoran desert, I was consumed by the thought that I could somehow be making this dream come true. Therefore you can only imagine my horror when my children's school gymnasium was identical to the one where I hid children in this nightmare of a dream!

I must admit I forgot this quite quickly and resumed my daily activities without giving it much thought. The last dream was different, and I've never quite shaken it from my thoughts.

I'll let you decide from here, and I will simply narrate.

My daughter woke me from a sound sleep to scream, "mom, they are coming down our street!" I jumped from the bed to find myself alone in my room with my other children, horrified in the hallway outside. I checked to make sure all the upstairs lights were off and rushed my children downstairs to the basement.

My basement had a hole behind a concrete wall where a cooling unit had once been connected to the house. I quickly stuffed my grand twins into the hole with my daughter. I was looking for my other two children when the men walked into the basement. They were dressed in military uniforms, and all of them were of Asian descent. My mind was racing as I heard people outside screaming, gunfire in the streets, and more men talking upstairs.

I stood there speechless in front of these men trying not to cry. One of them spoke up and demanded that I bring my family out of the hole. I lied, of course, and told them no one was in the hole and that I had run downstairs in hopes of hiding there myself. They laughed at me and stated that I had two choices: bring my family out of the hole or they would throw gas in and kill them.

I heard my daughter start to cry from her hiding place in the wall, and I died inside as she came out of the hole with her children. The men walked beside us to march us all up the stairs to the street, where I could still hear gunfire. As one of the soldiers walked past me, I could see a heart-shaped locket that he had tried to tuck into his jacket pocket, and that was the last thing I remember before I fainted and fell to the floor.

These dreams have always been frightening, but as of today, I am terrified.

My day was just another ordinary day for a mother whose youngest daughter just turned seventeen. The ordinary stopped the second she opened the small box and took out the 14k gold heart-shaped locket I had already viewed in the soldier's pocket.

At that moment I had a PTSD waking vision. I saw the soldier taking my daughter out into the street in front of our home and executing her along with my other neighbors on that fateful night. I stood frozen in the presence of my family, wondering what my future would hold, and now I live in the shadow of that nightmare every waking moment—wondering, waiting for what the future holds.