Chapter Text
Abigail had the same dream again.
Every night, she dreamed of a circus tent set up high above her head. She was surrounded by red and yellow stripes, with the sky hanging in a medium-sized circle against one wall. Around her were all sorts of objects and...beings she remembered, and yet didn't.
When she was there, her entire memory focused on dreams from previous nights. She remembered everything, everyone, every detail of events...and in the morning, it all vanished. As soon as her alarm went off, she returned to normal life...mostly.
She always felt tired, disoriented, and achy when she woke up. It felt like she wasn't just waking from a dream, but somehow coming alive. She didn't even know if she could call these fragments, this other reality, just figments of her imagination. Before she came home from the hospital, her dreams had been much different.
But Abigail didn't want to dwell on the same subject again. She dragged herself out of bed, yawned, and rubbed her eye as she went to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth lazily, wondering what she had planned for the day, which turned out to be Saturday.
But instead of focusing on her morning routine, her mind kept wandering. Even if she didn't want to think about the dream, she still had a strange feeling, a premonition, that it was about Gangle...no, Zoey. She didn't remember how her friend looked like in the dream, but she felt in some twisted way that it was her. She remembered others too, but...her most of all.
Her electric toothbrush stopped vibrating, bringing some of her consciousness back. She quickly spat out the foamy toothpaste, rinsed her mouth, and reached for a towel...or rather, froze as soon as she looked at it.
The towel hung on the rack near her; it was red with navy blue stripes and white trim, every other stripe crisscrossed with yellow thread. Every morning she looked at it, and each time she couldn't bring herself to use it.
Now was no different. She crouched at the cabinet to use another towel, but it fell to the floor as quickly as she had pulled out the first one. The soft thing fell as her trembling hands released it.
The towel was quite large, with a wide yellow stripe adorning it at the very top, green beneath, and even lower still, the thinnest strip of white. Abigail didn't know why these colors frightened her so much, or stirred such strong emotions in her.
A humming sound filled her ears, along with a buzzing sound, like bees. She began to hear more and more muffled voices, but she couldn't make out what they were saying, what she was saying. Of all the words, she could only make out one: Pomni.
She didn't understand what it meant, but the word kept repeating itself. She reacted particularly well to them, able to detect them in every sentence...but why?
A sudden series of barking outside her window made her sit up straight and feel her heart skip a beat. She closed her eyes, then grabbed her hair as if she were about to rip it out in clumps.
She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but she had been afraid of dogs for a while. An image of a terrifying doberman snapping at her. His saliva dripped down onto her, and she screamed as the dog clamped its teeth on her arm and another one on her leg.
Abigail quickly shook her head and covered her ears.
"Calm down, it's all over" - she told herself, crossing her legs and breathing deeply.
She slowly began to remove her hands from her ears, finally doing so when she couldn't hear any more barking in the background. Before she could do anything more, her phone, which had fallen from her pajama pocket as she sank to the floor, vibrated. She grabbed it with her still-shaking hand and unlocked it.
She saw a new message in the group chat from Suzie, confirming a meeting at Riley's bar. Abigail quickly grabbed her hairbrush and finished her morning hygiene routine, noticing how little time she had left before meeting her friends.
She then rushed to her room, dressed to leave, and went downstairs as quietly as she could. The stairs led centrally to the center of her living room, where the other tenant of her house lived.
Abigail sighed in disappointment when she noticed that her couch was empty, the pillows arranged on it still the same. She approached it quietly, her eyes scanning the floor. The sight that met her eyes made her hands clench.
A dirty mattress lay on the floor, and the thinnest blanket in the entire house was sliding off it. Leeroy lay on the makeshift bed, his matted black hair obscuring his eyes, and the calm radiating from him suggested he was still asleep.
Abigail crouched beside him, wondering how she could wake him without frightening him. Leeroy had been staying with her for several days, or rather, finding refuge with her house. She had recently found him in a deserted alleyway; something drew her to the place, something she couldn't describe, and she persuaded him to come home with her.
She didn't know him particularly well, but she felt as if she saw him every day, as if he had been always right next to her. She didn't know why her mind was creating such fantasies, but she had to admit she'd seen Leeroy in the hospital.
She remembered a while back, wanting to explore the old computer company building. She didn't know what had happened when she entered; strange lights and the numbers 0 and 1 flashed before her eyes in fragments of memory. She thought it was absurd, but nothing else came to mind as she pondered the abandoned building. Then, she woke up in the hospital, surrounded by people she had never seen before, who were now her friends. There were Suzie, Riley, Zoey, the IT specialist Grant Best, and Leeroy.
Abigail had talked to them throughout her time in the hospital, and they had all grown closer...except Leeroy. The others, even Suzie, had said she needed time, but she didn't believe it. She felt a special bond with Leeroy and knew he had an inner block, even if it didn't quite mesh with the insults he occasionally hurled at everyone around him. Even though most of the others were irritated and wanted to at least try to help and care for him, he disappeared without a trace after they left the hospital.
But when he looked at Abigail, glassy-eyed, in that alley, she forgot all about his transgressions. She saw herself in Leeroy, frightened, rejected by her closest friend without a word, lying alone in a puddle. She couldn't leave him like that—it was pouring rain. She held her umbrella over him, and he looked at her with tearful eyes and said nothing.
She immediately crouched down beside him and helped him into her own car. She gave Leeroy food, even though he refused. She had left sandwiches in front of him every day of his stay, waiting for him to try, and now she was relieved to see them vanished from his plate, likely eaten by him.
Leeroy rarely spoke to her. He often muttered thanks under his breath, or approached her as if he wanted to say something but still couldn't find the courage. Abigail fully understood that he needed time to adjust -- she herself needed time to recover from the traumatic event, but she couldn't help but silently pray that Leeroy would become friends with her couch before the cold winter.
- Leeroy? - she called out to him softly, looking at him with concern. When he didn't respond, she repeated his name a little louder, then gently shook his shoulder.
He immediately came to his senses, and after a moment's disorientation, he quickly pulled away from Abigail as if scalded. She quickly withdrew her hand, her eyebrows arching in worry; she didn't want to overstep her roommate's boundaries.
Leeroy's breaths remained rapid and panicked for a few more moments, but then he looked down and sighed, clearly disappointed in his behavior. Abigail couldn't bear to watch him see himself beyond his limits.
- No...don't blame yourself - she told him, embarrassed. - It's kind of my fault, I'm sorry.
Leeroy narrowed his piercing gaze but said nothing. Abigail wondered if she saw a bright, positive sparkle in his eyes.
- There's food in the fridge, I'm leaving - she told him.
He sat up a little and adjusted his posture. He looked up at Abigail as if he wanted to ask something but wasn't sure how to word it. Abigail was ready to give him the time, but her phone wasn't. It vibrated in her purse again, reminding its owner of the meeting she was almost late for.
She looked at Leeroy contritely, adjusted her purse, and grabbed her house keys.
- Wait! Can I... - she froze at Leeroy's desperate cry and turned to him. He reached for her hand, but as soon as she met his eyes, he broke eye contact and immediately withdrew his hand, grabbing his opposite elbow instead.
Even though he glanced down, Abigail could see he was internally scolding himself for speaking. Leeroy remained in one position, and his roommate continued to stare at him, now too curious about the rest of his statement to remember the pressing time.
Leeroy finally gave in, muttered something under his breath, probably a curse, and sighed.
- Can I have the orange juice that's been in the fridge since yesterday? - he finally asked, clearly dejected.
Abigail's smile faltered, then quickly returned as she caught herself showing disappointment. She didn't want Leeroy to notice and be discouraged from trying again.
- Sure - she finally replied, said goodbye, and left the house. As she descended the stairs, she felt she wouldn't be able to think about anything else today.