Nightmare Weight

Last night I had this incredibly vivid nightmare that’s been sitting in my chest all day like something heavy I can’t shake.

I was on a school trip with my class when a massive forest fire broke out. Somehow I became one of the helpers, handing out water bottles to people fleeing the flames. This man pulled up, locked eyes with me, and set a tree on fire right beside me. He pulled a gun and shot at me—missed—and I knew my only way out was to throw myself down a slope. I tumbled down the embankment and at the bottom I ran into a classmate. I asked him where the terrorist went and he pointed upward. I looked and watched this man jump out of a tree a few meters away and start running toward us. Another guy from my class fired a harpoon into his back and he collapsed, bleeding everywhere.

We walked toward him. Then suddenly he got back up and it wasn’t the terrorist anymore—it was Rebecca, my girlfriend, bleeding and stumbling around. I screamed at her: Do you still want to kill me? No, she said, but her eyes were empty and she didn’t seem to regret what she’d done. Then she collapsed.

I grabbed her and yelled for a doctor. A hospital suddenly appeared. I ran up all these steps and found a doctor and nurse next to another bleeding girl. I laid Rebecca on some cloth and screamed at them to save her. The doctor barely glanced at her, pointed at the blonde girl, and said, At least she still has a chance, then just walked away. I looked back at Rebecca and I could see in her eyes that she was dead.

All I could do was scream. Then I woke up, but that heavy, dull feeling from the dream followed me through the whole day.