Chapter 2: A Night to Remember
As promised, the night that Ryan had planned for him was one of the largest parties he had ever been to, let alone had to co-host. It had been held at their home and while the apartment that they lived in couldn’t hold more than a dozen or so people comfortably, the pair had somehow crammed more than thirty into their tiny two bedroom apartment.
There had been plenty of alcohol to cover the amount of guests, which at times had spilled out into the hallway of their apartment complex. Just to ensure that none of the neighbors would have any issues about their wild antics for the evening, Ryan had thought ahead and invited the entire hall as well, including the middle-aged divorced man that lived at the end of the hall.
Aside from supplying plenty of drinks themselves, they had quite a few people who showed up with additional beverages of their choice.
Music blasted through every wall of their apartment and spilled out into the hall every time the door opened or remained open. Ryan had gone to the effort to encourage the raging party atmosphere by adding colorful lighting all around their living room.
A DJ had been placed in the corner of the room and served as the source of the thunderous music. Bodies were crammed in like sardines into the main room, where together they moved to the beat of the music.
The party was meant to celebrate Desmond’s twenty-first birthday, but with the size it had become it felt more like a college party than it did a regular birthday party.
Not that he would complain about the turn out, but it still impressed him that Ryan had managed to pull off so much in such a short amount of time. Not to mention he had managed to get this many people, lights, food, drinks and a DJ while they still went and celebrated on their own. It just went to show that it proved to be a good thing to be friends with someone who was such a social butterfly.
That had always been the pair’s dynamic. Desmond, having come from a rough up-bringing, was quiet and observant. While Ryan had always been the one to talk and bring in the excitement. He was the one who had always arranged outings for the two of them and introduced Desmond to people he knew.
However, he did have to admit that three nights of celebrating his birthday in a row was a little much. The sheer amount of people shoved into their tiny apartment proved to be increasingly annoying as the night carried on, as well. Especially with the more drunk their guests became and the more of a mess that their home ended up becoming.
Despite his slight discomfort, the night went on as it had been planned. Gradually the number of people hanging around their place dwindled to a little more than a dozen. By the late night hours, there were only a few who were still conscious after having spent most of the night drinking.
Somewhere during the night, Desmond had given up on trying to keep picking up after everyone there and allowed for the cans and empty cups to gather on nearly every surface available about the kitchen and living room of their apartment.
He figured that he would just harass Ryan into cleaning it up since he had gone to the trouble of inviting so many people. Because, by the end of the night, he was too exhausted to deal with the mess himself.
After trying to announce to a half-conscious Ryan that he was going to bed, Desmond stepped past the slumped over bodies and headed down the narrow hall to his bedroom.
Nothing sounded better by that time than falling into his bed and allowing sleep to take him because he knew that whenever he woke up again, he would have one of the worst hangovers he’d ever experience after a party like that.
Between the exhausting weekend he had been subjected to and the amount of alcohol he had consumed, sleep should have been peaceful and effortless. The kind of sleep that leaves you dreamless or in the very least without any memory of your dreams the next day.
A deep and heavy sleep for someone who needed the rest. However, Desmond found that after he had drifted into unconsciousness his rest was anything but what it was supposed to be.
There was the feeling of weightlessness to it as his mind had him drifting through a void. It left his body feeling light as it seemed to fall through this realm of complete darkness.
He had no way of knowing how much time had passed nor did he know how he could be both asleep and aware at the same time. Desmond did not have a history of lucid dreaming, so this sensation was completely new to him. Whatever it was, he told himself that the drifting would end soon enough, as soon as he woke from his much needed rest.
Being aware of a dream and knowing that it was nothing more than just a dream, he felt that he didn’t need to worry about why he was drifting in a void or if he was even going to make it anywhere before he woke up.
He had friends that told stories about their strange dreams. Dreams that never made any sense, and to him, this was just another case of a strange dream.
Without knowing how long it had been, the void eventually began to fade away. The soft glow of sunlight touched his face as though he were meeting the sunrise. Which to him was odd, because he didn’t remember waking up and as far as he knew he was still asleep.
Simply shrugging it off as just another part of this strange, increasingly complex dream he was having, Desmond waited to see what would become of this sunrise.
The light never grew beyond that of a light dusting of light though. A glimpse of orange light being cast over an invisible horizon, streaking his surroundings in colors of orange, gold and blue.
The longer he waited for the light to push above that invisible line, the more solid his surroundings slowly became. A mirror image of the city that he lived in stretched on before him, only the buildings appeared to be gray and empty with no signs of life.
Desmond’s feet finally touched solid ground shortly after the appearance of the city and it wasn’t a scene he was unfamiliar with. In fact, he was left standing on a much duller version of his street.
The apartment complex he lived in behind him, was cast in a gray shadow much like the surrounding buildings and again, there didn’t appear to be any sign of life anywhere. It was as though the life and color of the world around him had been drained away, leaving nothing but the cast of either a setting or rising sun on the horizon.
Desmond took a step forward, his footsteps echoing as though he were walking through a building with high ceilings. “What the…? What kind of dream is this?” he muttered to himself.
There was something eerie about the stillness in the world around him. Desmond wasn’t sure if it was because the sun never seemed to be moving from its place in the sky or if it was the lack of life in the buildings around him.
But as he ventured along his street, peering through the lifeless windows and motionless cars parked along the street, he couldn’t help but feel that something was off.
This place felt too real despite how strange it was and to make matters worse, he felt as though he was being watched with every step that he took. The further down the road he went, the more he began to wonder if something had been placed into his drinks.
There was no way he could have ever imagined a place like this, even in his worst nightmares. The only conclusion he could draw was that someone had laced his drinks with something extra.
Very funny, he thought. Whenever the nightmare ended, he would make sure to talk to Ryan about this. Because the unease in his chest only swelled with every echoed step.
The sound of movement to his left had him suddenly stopping in his tracks. He snapped his head over to a cluster of buildings that sat quietly towering over the street.
There was no sign of movement inside the windows, not even the smallest of light flickers. He was certain that he had heard something in the direction though, the sound of echoing footsteps.
Except the movement hadn’t come like his own, carefully paced or slow and deliberate. No, it had sounded like something was moving swiftly through the lifeless city and hiding itself from being seen.
Exactly what it had been, he didn’t know. An animal? That didn’t seem right. Desmond felt that if there had even been animals in this place, he would have spotted some by now. There wasn’t even the regular chatter from nearby birds though, it was just silent.
So, the fact that he was sure he had heard something had that same uneasy feeling pushing to the surface, so much so that he could hear his heart pounding in his ears.
Something was stalking him, but from where and what could it possibly be? These were questions that he didn’t have an answer to.
“Hello..? Who’s there?” Desmond called. His voice echoed in the silence that swallowed him.
The buildings around him almost seemed to creak to the sound of his voice and if he didn’t know better, he would have said that a shadow settled in over this lifeless version of his city.
When no reply came, he took a step backwards. He was trying hard to resist the urge to turn on his heel and run. For some reason, something was telling him that running would be a worse idea than just trying to stay as still and as quiet as he possibly could.
Another step backwards, this time his toe caught a loose pebble on the road and the movement of his foot sent it tumbling with its own echo.
Really, he wanted to wake up now. Surely this nightmare had to come to an end. Desmond turned his attention away from the cluster of buildings before him and searched his surroundings for any kind of hint that he would need to wake himself up.
He had always heard that there was some sort of sign whenever you were in control of the dream. The only question was, how would he know what that was? Maybe it wasn’t as lucid as he thought it was and this was just another part of the nightmare he was having.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the shuffling sound once more, turning back to the same set of buildings before him.
“Hello? Look, if someone’s there, just say something. I know I heard you,” he spoke with more conviction this time, despite the growing sense of dread in his chest.
His waiting for the unknown entity to reveal itself got no response, leaving Desmond feeling all the more uneasy. There was chill settling in the air around him and while he searched the lifeless buildings for the source of the sounds, he could feel the shift in the air around him.
It was the same shift a sunny day would make when thunderclouds suddenly rolled in. It felt darker somehow. His attention was brought out of his thoughts by another shuffle and this one was much closer this time. Desmond spun around where he stood and found that a dark mist had rolled in just a few feet behind where he was standing.
It gathered in one place, swirling around like a dark cloud. The sight of it had him taking a few steps back away from it. The look of it had a deep feeling of dread swelling in his chest. Desmond might have turned and run from it, but he wasn’t sure if that would do anything. Instead, he kept slowly backing away from it.