Chapter 68 - Nightmares I turned and shifted restlessly in bed. The room was too hot with blankets, too cold without, and the quality of my sleepwear did not help the situation. Neither did the evil gnome on the other side of the wall chanting into my ear, or Bubba's easy descent into sleep. Finally, I gave up and lay flat with my eyes closed, willing myself to fall asleep . . .
I stood in a field somewhere. There were buildings across the street, and trees and fields behind me. The air was cool and warm at the same time, and the scene was oddly familiar, a little sense in the back of my mind telling me I had been there before.
Then, someone appeared. Not appeared, exactly--just blinked into being in a way that would be odd in real life, but seemed perfectly natural at the time. A young woman who seemed strangely familiar, but also just strange. Grandmother Serena?
I didn't have time to find out, because the woman clutched her stomach in pain and cried out. I knew that she was starving to death.
Serena collapsed at my feet, her eyes closed before she hit the ground. I tried to move forward and help her, but my body was unconnected to my mind and I remained cold and distant.
Within moments, her ghost rose, and the Reaper appeared. The ghost tried to resist, but Grim swung his scythe and smashed her, and she dissipated into strands of mist.
The moment Grim departed, a younger version of Grandfather Nicholas stood in the field in front of me, looking his usual impatient, fast-paced self. I began to relax, thinking maybe the nightmare had turned into a dream and he would be all right and we would all go for ice cream or some such thing.
Then I noticed the flush of his face, his skin slowly turning bright pink.
The universe winked.
Again, I searched for a bottle of water, a river--anything to save his life. But my feet refused to move, and my arms remained at my sides, and Grandfather Nicholas burned and burned until all that was left was ash.
His ghost was as happy-go-lucky as his body as he cheerfully shook hands with the Reaper and leaped into his tombstone.
It seemed that the Grim Reaper turned and smiled at me, tapping his hands together in a fashion that would be amusing but was sinister.
Grandmother Bree drowned in a pool that appeared from nowhere, even though she holds the world record for treading water and swimming races.
She plead for her life and was thrown into her tombstone.
I felt a brief pang of sadness, added to all my grief over the previous deaths, when Grandfather Brandon appeared, looking as young as in the photographs in his and his wife's room. He smiled at me, then looked down and cried over Grandmother's grave.
Sparkles surrounded him and tiny wrinkles appeared around his eyes and mouth.
But the sparkles didn't stop there. Instead, they kept flashing around my grandfather, forming a cocoon of light that hunched his back, turned his hair white, and criscrossed his skin with deepset wrinkles.
And I experienced a scarily extreme case of deja vu.
I wondered what time it was. 5, 6 AM? Would my alarm go off now or in eternity? The Grim Reaper smiled at me, and I hoped it would be over soon. But, as all who experience a nightmare know, it's never over until you die.
