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He bolts up from sleep.
Black hair stuck against his forehead in a cold sweat. His chest rises up and down as he can hardly breathe. His hands dig against the mattress, crumpling the bedsheets between his fingers.
His eyes dart around the dark room, heart pounding on his ears. His mouth feels dry, and he swallows painfully, throat raspy as if he had been screaming as loud as he could.
It had been that nightmare again.
It’s always that one.
He presses the heels of his hands over his eyes until they sting at the back of his skull. He glances blurrily to his alarm clock at his bedside drawer.
6:06 am.
He sighs, reaching over to catch his phone.
Message from Micah:
Nightmares again? [6:06am]
He purses his lips, sliding his finger up the screen to unlock the the phone. He clicks on the message, and clumsily texts back.
Jacob: Yeah .
Micah always texted him at this exact time, every single morning. He knew about the nightmares.
Micah: You should see a therapist, man.
He scoffed.
Jacob: Or a priest.
Micah: Ha, ha.
The boy sighs, leaving his phone to get up from bed and walk up to his tiny bathroom. He leans both hands on the edge of the sink, and takes a deep breath.
He turns the tap on, splashing cold water on his face, watching the thin string of water run down the drain almost hypnotically and as he looks up to his mirror through his dripping wet eyelashes turning everything blurrier, his eyes widen.
A face flashes on the mirror that isn’t his.
“Fuck!” He gasps, hitting the tap to turn it off, scrubbing his eyes as hard as he could before blinking up at the mirror again with reddened eyes.
The face was gone.
He places his wet hands on his forehead, leaning against the cold stone, breathing in and out. He could see the faintest shine of the new morning coming in through the window curtains, illuminating the room bit by bit.
He grabs a towel, and dries his face in aggressive strokes, leaving his skin red. He throws the towel on the sink, and goes back to his room, sitting down in bed with a sigh. He glances back at his phone.
Micah: Wanna come over? [6:24am]
Jacob: It’s not even 7am dude.
Micah: We can go for a “morning walk”.
Jacob: You really are 84 years old, man.
Micah: On my last leg ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
He huffs. Maybe a walk wouldn’t be that bad.
Jacob fetches his shoes, and throws on a cap over his messy, sweaty hair. He puts his phone inside his pocket and pushes his window up.
“Fucking-...” he grumbles, hitting the wood underneath the glass to unstuck it, and jumps out.
His feet hits the wet grass under him, and he sticks his hands on his pockets.
He squints at the tree leaves moving in the distance, and rubs his eyes before they play tricks on him again.
In between the trunks, a strawberry blonde head of hair pops out, the first lights of the morning sunshine seeming to follow it wherever it went.
Big blue eyes look around until they find Jacob's, and a smile spreads across the boy's face.
“What’s with the hat lately?” Micah says, voice echoing across the trees.
Jacob shrugs, “Style.”
His friend picks up his pace until he meets him halfway, and the boy seems to analyse the hat. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Jacob scowls. “Your face doesn’t suit you.”
“Who else would it fit on?” Micah asks, pulling his cheeks like they’re made of rubber. Jacob snorts.
“Someone real ugly.”
The boy smiles, so bright it seems to light the entire forest faster than the proper sun.
“At least I got personality,” Micah says, striking a confident pose.
“Frankenstein’s monster had personality as well,” Jacob points out.
“And he survives!” His friend chirps, then hums. “I think.”
Jacob personally doesn’t think the monster survives at the end of the book, but he can’t argue the ending is merely suggestive. He remembers feeling sad when he had read the novel.
The story of someone created against their own will, then casted out of society with no choice resonated quite deeply with him, but he did not know why.
“Are you feeling alright?” Micah says, in a much softer tone.
Jacob sighs. “I think so.”
“You don’t have to lie,” he says, as both of them start to walk along the vivid grass under their feet.
They kept quiet for a while.
“What does it feel like?” He whispers, like it’s a secret between both of them— and in a way, it definitely is.
“Like burning,” Jacob mutters. “Like I’m being lit on fire as I sleep.”
“You should see a doctor, man.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, and tell him what?”
“That you can’t sleep right since you turned 16.”
They keep walking until they reach a rusty playground nearby, the swings and see-saws still wet from the rain. Everything is so quiet here , he thinks, and his pounding headache agrees.
His ears ring— they always had, with tinnitus and all. But as the years went by, the ringing only got worse. The sound twisted and distorted itself like a radio out of signal, and sometimes, even if just for a second, he could’ve sworn he could make words out of it.
“You know, they say that when we dream, God speak to us,” Micah interrupted his train of thought.
He thought about it. “Maybe He doesn’t have anything to say to me.”
“He always does,” the boy affirms, and Jacob envies how sure he is “But sometimes we can’t hear it.”
If Micah knew about the sounds he heard in the middle of the night or the faces on his bathroom mirror, he wouldn’t be so sure God was the one behind all of his nightmares.
At least Jacob hoped it wasn’t Him.
Because if it was, God would be pretty fucking terrifying.