7 II. Lucid dreaming. Part 2

Early morning of the fourteenth of February. Following the orders of the courier.

Reluctantly, I lay on my back, breaking private rules about how I shouldn't sleep as a precaution to nightmares or other adversities, and fell into a secluded dream.

When sleeping, often I notice that I am dreaming, I perceive what is happening around me as my own and I manage it as I please. This time, everything was sharper, more vivid. The inner layer of my eyes suddenly turned purple, and that smoke that a few minutes ago had stuck to the photo that Junior took, now floated in my eye socket. My eyelids were itchy. My temples were throbbing. My hands twisted, my mouth went dry, my breath slowed until it was unnoticed by my senses.

Suddenly, I was out of the room. It was daytime, I could tell by the brightness of the beams of light coming through both windows at the end of the great hall. I didn't have my card with me, the pocket where I usually keep it was empty. The door to my room faced me defiantly. "You can't enter without the card...", it seemed to be warning me.

Rebellious, I turned the handle on top of the reader with my right hand, while playing rhythmically with the other, hoping there was someone inside who could let me in. Surprisingly, my attempts, which I thought were useless, activated the bolt and the door opened, giving me the step.

"Hello?" I greeted the air. "Is there someone inside?"

No one answered, so I entered without noticing any other presence. I had enough with the door opening by itself, and the ghost stories that my roommates narrated at night. I went straight to the desk in search of my card that serves as an entry key. I rummaged for a moment each of the things that were on top, without success. There was a strange noise in the place, like a waterfall or a stream of water falling from I don't know where. I realized that my senses had me groggy, they were not fully active.

Touching the bottles, books, plates, or cutlery, it felt... strange, like fluffy. My ears were a bit plugged, but they didn't hurt or bother me. Even though I had passed the side of the garbage can full of disaster, I didn't smell any foul scent coming from the basket. And everything around me: the closets, the beds, the backpacks, the chairs, everything, in essence, looked double or blurred at intervals.

The sound stopped and the bathroom door opened. Álvaro was coming out of the shower, his hair still wet. He opened his eyes and breathed heavily. His skin color, coppery, turned pale, and what a moment ago looked like distilled water from her hair, now looked like sweat from nervousness.

"Are you okay? You look like shit."

Álvaro didn't respond. He looked from the lock to the desk, back and forth.

"Hey, are you okay?"

He moved slowly towards his bed, completely ignoring me. He took his phone and his key and left the room without saying a word. "But what the fuck was that?" I thought. I walked, or so I think, to the door of the room and I left... to go back inside.

I went through the door completely, and unaware of the fact that the other end was in complete darkness, I entered what I thought was the hallway, but was my room once again. The window showed me that the day was ending, that twilight had passed and shadows had taken over the sky. I approached it slowly. I was alone in the room. I couldn't tell if I was in a trance, I didn't feel good. I looked through the glass, at the car park, and I saw myself.

My eyes hurt. My nose was stuffy. I was beginning to hear better, but I think my vision was not entirely honest cause I saw me walking with Fiorella and Ramcés through the southern part of the residence, on my way to building one; probably at three, to the session of the day.

I scratched my eyes with the back of my hands, trying to dispel whatever hallucination I was having at the time. But it was not a hallucination. It was us and we had just entered the building looking for shelter. I turned around, nervous, confused. The ineffable fact that I just perceived kept me at odds with myself, with my conscience. "What the fuck is going on?". At least I could still converse with my thoughts.

I sat on Junior's bed, with darkness for my companion. I looked at my palms, my legs, my clothes. I was wearing my work clothes, which I arrived in this afternoon. "The date...". I wanted to check my phone, but that pocket was empty too. I stood up and walked the short way to Holger's bed. He always leaves his iPad on his sheets. When I turned it on, it slipped from my hands. I let it go when I saw the date.

February 12th, two thousand and nineteen.

"It was fourteen when I woke up when I went to work when I received the messages from that stranger when I followed his orders when Junior showed me his photos when I went to bed ...". The door swung open. Junior rushed in, active. He went straight to the desk, turning on the light, and looked for something among his things.

He took it, put it in his shirt, and left the room. He never realized I was sitting on Holger's bed. "Great. I'm invisible". I was about to go into shock, but I took a deep breath and counted to ten, to thirty, I hit a hundred when I began to take the ends of my madness and stretch them just enough to keep me sane.

I stood on both feet and started putting one in front of the other. I left the room in the direction of building three, where my other self was. I went down the north stairs, which face the lobby of the residence. I opened the doors with great ease as if they weighed what a sheet of paper weighs. I didn't need a lot of space to pass, so I didn't try to attract attention. I got to the north door, the emergency door, and waited for someone to open it for me. Enough was that the security camera placed in front of my room captured how the door operated by itself. Three girls, Paraguayan by default, then entered. I took advantage of the fact that they were drunk to hold the door for a second as soon as they crossed the metal, and I left the building.

The wind was running an arduous marathon towards the next cardinal point, and it took moans from each person it touched, a deep "Ah... how cold as shit. " But with me, it was not the case. I had not touched any clothes. I kept my leg warmers on and my work clothes, which consisted of chemical-stained black jean pants and a short-sleeved cotton polo shirt, but I didn't even feel it. The place was cool, it felt pleasant to feel the breeze in the pores.

I took the longest way. I went through the small section that runs between the lobby and building one, a narrow path well highlighted and covered with snow.

The trail was winding. It had a curved area as you passed building two, and when you reached your kitchen, it broke in two. A path, the one that went long, took you to building four, which was at the back of the territory belonging to the residence, and the other partition connected directly with the sidewalk of the external corridor on the first floor that belongs to building three.

I took the latter.

I advanced, nervous. I went through seven doors until I reached the one to the kitchen. I was not hallucinating. What's more, I shouldn't even be standing in the middle of both buildings, because I was with Ramcés, Fiorella, Noely, and Alexandra looking at the red wedding. Alexandra had just arrived and was covering her mouth, amazed by the brutality of the scenes. Ramcés and Fiorella laughed at her. Noely was reading on her phone, distracted. And I... was there, with my back to me, with my feet on another chair and a bag of popcorn in hand.

I stuck to the glass, supporting my weight with both palms on it. I got so close that my breath fogged the glass. I began to feel the cold in my hands. Listen to the laughter and the murmurs inside the kitchen. Smell the petrichor of the ground that I walked on. My lips moistened and my vision cleared completely. I hid when I saw myself turn and look out the window. I remember that day I felt that someone was watching us.

I walked around the building, taking care that no one saw me. Noticing that my senses returned to normal I feared that my physical form would also. Although it would be unlikely that there would be two identical people on a single timeline.

Everything that happened was unlikely.

I walked down the corridor on the other side of the building, the side that shares a parking lot with building four. The fourth, disabled for any guest of the residence, looked gloomy, more than usual. I felt the same as that day, that someone was watching me. I walked slowly to the kitchen. I stared at them, amazed by the facts. I remembered what we experienced that night. "Crying..." That day we heard a child cry.

I turned around and began to inspect the place. I was looking carefully in all directions until I saw it. I saw it appear fleeting. She poked her little head around the north edge of Building Four, on the second floor. My spine felt a shock that momentarily paralyzed me. I walked in the same direction: north, but not in her direction. I followed the path of the hallway of building three, carefully observing the place where I saw the little one. Suddenly, the crying began. A little girl came down from building four. She walked out the door to the north stairs, one floor below where I had seen her just now. She was wearing a snow-white, pompous dress. I stopped short. She stopped too and looked at me. He looked at me with those snowy eyes, without any pupil, full of anguish and fear, and she ran towards me.