4 Stories

"Name?"

The policewoman asked. She had her head held high with her afro boldly sticking out from under her blue, gold badged police hat.

"Dani Harrier."

She wrote it down on her blue clipboard that stood out against her tight, buttoned, navy uniform. "What's Dani short for?"

"Daniella."

She scribbled something out on the clipboard. "Thank you."

We were alone in the dining room, where we ate our dinner. It was a bare room with a table, where we ate our dinner, a cabinet, an unkempt paisley rug and yellow walls. I stared at the shut door behind her right ear as she put the clipboard down. I wondered if Aunt Sara and Uncle Harry were listening.

"So, Daniella, Dani, tell me everything happened. I'm Amanda. Now, before you start, I want you to tell me the truth because if you lie, you will be found out. You can trust me."

I nodded. She bowed her head slightly, interlocked her fingers into a solo fist on the table, leaned forward and looked at me obligingly.

"I was, um," I didn't know what to say but I felt scared, "dreaming. It was more of a nightmare, actually. Like a normal one. Totally normal." I was such a bad liar. "And I just woke up suddenly." I told her the whole story and she listened with unblinking eyes. It was only when I stopped that she relaxed back into her chair.

She still said nothing. I heard my heartbeat thumping in my head.

Instead, she made a sudden move, snatching up her pen and writing something down. Each word made my heart quicken. Every single one lingering on the nib of her pen. Until she stopped.

"Thank you, Dani." Her chair scraped back on the wooden floor where the mat didn't reach.

She swiftly left the room, accidentally slamming the door after her. Quietly, she spoke to Aunt Sara and Uncle Harry for a long time.

I didn't want to eavesdrop. It was impolite. I didn't even know if I would be able to hear them and distinguish words. What was the point anyway? If they were saying bad things, it would make me feel worse.

I slumped back into my chair, determined to find out why I had that dream. It had never occurred before. That was definitely the first time. But how was it even physically possible to dream something and then have it come true? I didn't know what to feel. Surely it was just a coincidence but what if it wasn't. What then?

I began to think about the person I was in the dream. That scar on my left hand in retrospect wasn't a scar. It was a cut. I knew that because it looked fresh. Fresh blood was still outlining the wound which means the cut would have happened quite recently. Earlier that day maybe.

Sure enough, I wasn't a doctor but I'd had a lot of cuts over the years. I needed to find them. But how? It could be anyone on the whole of New York. Could I tell the police? But how would I explain it. I didn't even know whether my dream was correct. I could've been leading them on a wild goose chase. I didn't have any proof. Only that I'd seen it in a dream that had happened to come true. The dream may have seemed like some sort of premonition but maybe it was just some part of my subconscious telling me about Nancy and everything else was nonsense. I would never know. That dream had been a one off: I'd never had anything like it before.