Short story 2 – The Dreamer
The dreamer was 9 years old when she lost her parents for the first time. Her first years she barely slept, constantly keeping her parents awake with her crying. As she grew older her crying did not stop, it only became louder. Frequent night terrors and screaming drove her parents near madness, eventually, they abandoned her outright. Ever since then, she was alone, an orphan whose parents lived their happy little lives far away from her. She grew older but her dreams kept haunting her, even when she was awake they came. Dead people she could see now too, sometimes they would even show her how they passed. It terrified her to no end. Three more parents did she get, all unable to handle her, all abandoning her. She was 14 when she finally learned how to lessen her dreams from some friends, she only had to pay some money to keep it coming. Her first victims were her final parents. The dreams had started showing her glimpses of the future on occasion, she learned how to use the dreams to steal money from her parents.
Not long after she was living on the street, doing whatever she could to keep herself alive. Her “friends” still gave her the relief she needed but since she no longer had the money to pay them, they made her do their dirty jobs instead. She collected debts, sold wares to other customers and bought them from shady contacts. More than once did she fall into dangerous situations, but her dreams saved her every time. Why were they saving her? If they were there to help her, why had they given her nought but suffering? Eventually she learned to use her dreams, managing to work her way up on the streets by stealing and scamming the gangs that had had her under their control before. She no longer wished to be numb all the time, and while the dead still scared her, she had now become dependent on her dreams. Not all were as pleased with the dreamer though. The police wanted her in jail and she feared her victims wanted a much worse fate for her. One day her dreams showed her it was time to leave, and not a mile further she was when fire started illuminating the sky behind her.
After a long journey, she finally arrived where she was meant to be, just as her dreams had shown her. A beautiful forest, with enormous trees as far as the eyes can see. There were barely any dead people to scare her here, and no living ones either. She loved living in the forest, surrounded by silence all on her own but still surrounded by life. When she needed food or drinks, she went to a hotel that stood near in the forest and stole what she needed. She did not like being near the hotel. It was full of the dead, yet these dead were strange. They did not try to show her anything, they didn’t even seem to notice her at all, all of them blankly staring towards the same direction. She had no idea what lay in that direction but she wanted to avoid it at all costs.
And so her life went on for an entire year. She was 19 years old now, living in the peaceful calm of the forest when her dreams started showing her something new. A weird creature stirring near the hotel and a man heading towards the hotel. And the dreamer knew then that her peace would not last much longer