Dazing Into Storms

Opening my eyes, I attempt to remember what it was I had dreamt. Nope, not even a slight remembrance. I sit up in my bed, finally giving up. My room somehow looks different to me though it shouldn’t. Nothing had changed, right? My room theme was the same, everything was in the same condition it had been in before, and my cat, Clarabelle, had just jumped onto my bed. I patted her head.

“What’s wrong with me, Clarabelle?” I asked. She, of course, just purred.

I looked around my room once more before getting up. I started heading toward the door, wanting to escape this room. As I touched the knob, I felt a rush of fear flooding through me. I remembered a part of my dream and I knew there was no possibility of anything being outside that door. I just stared at the door, taken aback more than anything else. What the hell happened and why don’t I remember any of it? I started looking through my room for anything to explain this. As I went through my drawers, I found a diary. Yes! If the explanation was anywhere, it would be here, right? I flipped to the last entry. I remembered this. It was about the psych testing I got done a few days ago. Didn’t explain much about my current situation though. I put away the diary, disappointed.

“Clarabelle, what happened to us?” I asked before looking at my bed to see that Clarabelle had disappeared.

Is that what happened to the world? Did things slowly disappear until nothing but this room was left? No, it couldn’t be. I started frantically searching for Clarabelle but stopped when I noticed my window was opened. Had Clarabelle left through the window? Now I could clearly see the outside world. Correct, there was absolutely nothing out there. Now that I knew for sure, there wasn’t a reason why I couldn’t go. I started walking towards the window, every step feeling strange. I knew I had to save Clarabelle though. I didn’t know what from, and that scared me too. I took a deep breath before stepping up onto my windowsill. I was on the first floor, so there definitely wasn’t a big drop. As my feet touched the ground I realized that everyone had disappeared. Of course, I already knew this, but it was hitting me now. Nikki, Tupã, and hopefully not Clarabelle. They’re all gone now. A tear escaped my eye and streamed down my face. More came but I soon stopped them. I had to find Clarabelle and that was something that made sense right now. I turned my head in all different directions to see if I could see her. I started running in all directions looking for her. Soon it hit me that she had disappeared as well. The tears quickly began to fall as I ran trying to look for something, anything! At this point I didn’t care about finding people, dogs, cats or rats. I just wanted to find something. Eventually I ran out of breath. I fell to the ground as I caught it.

“No!” I yelled as I cupped my hands over my eyes. “No! No! No!”

I yelled as loud as I could manage. I felt something against me. I instantly stopped yelling and crying. Someone was here after all. I started breathing again, not sure when I even stopped. I heard birds, wind, and children playing. I took my hands away from my face and looked up. I was outside, but the street was back to normal. It was as if nothing had ever disappeared. My friend Nikki had somehow appeared in front of me. As I opened my eyes, I noticed her black hair glistening in the morning sky.

“Nyx?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes “How did you get here?”

“Don’t worry about it” Nyx said softly, her lips curving into a reassuring smile as she squatted down to my level. “Are you okay?”