About a Dream I Had (Short Story)

By J. Will Cairns

The following is literally a short story I wrote about a dream I had. I wrote this around three years ago, and was still finding my voice as a writer. I had only written a few stories up until this point, but I remember feeling so excited after I had this dream that I could not wait to write a story about it. The story is not exactly how the dream went, of course. My dreams are weird and unconnected, but the basic concept and story are there. Grab a coffee, and enjoy.

About a Dream I Had

3 AM. Thursday.

Blood pouring out of his neck, Nate clutched his throat as he woke up. His face was cut from his eye to his chin, and there was a hole in his neck. His mind raced with so many questions, but his body knew what to do. He ran into the room next door where his roommate was sleeping. Trying not to cough blood all over him, Nate shook John awake.

John grabbed his keys from the bedside table, took Nate by the arm and got them both to the car as fast as he could. It was pouring rain outside, and Nate’s gray t-shirt quickly became soaked with a mixture of blood and rainwater.

John drove as fast as he could without flipping the car on the turns. He knew how to get to the Emergency Room from the incident with his mom the year before.

“Did you do that to yourself?” John asked.

Nate tried to talk, but only coughed up blood. His look said, Are you serious?

“What the hell happened, man?” John asked out loud to no one in particular.

Nate’s vision was spotty, maybe it was the darkness, or the thick rain, or the blood, but he could see the bright red glow of the Emergency Room sign. John put Nate’s arm around himself, doing most of the work to walk them in. A nurse immediately ran to him when they passed through the sliding glass door.

“Grab a stretcher!” she yelled over her right shoulder.

Laying his roommate down on it, John said, “Stay awake, Nate. Stay awake.”

11 AM

“Rough night?” someone asked to Nate’s right.

Waking up, Nate first saw the fluorescent lights of the hospital ceiling, and then remembered what happened the night before. Panicking, Nate reached up to his throat, where he found a small tube redirecting blood from inside his neck to outside his neck. The sudden movement hurt his hand, which had an IV in it. In his other arm, he was receiving blood to make up for what he’d lost.

Remembering someone said something, Nate looked to his right, where he saw a curtain, closing him off from his new friend.

“Oh,” Nate started, barely getting out a whisper. “Yeah.”

“It’s okay, man, don’t talk. Check the TV out, though.”

Nate sat up slightly in his bed, looking at the TV. His new friend unmuted it and turned it up.

“We have breaking news of a new social media trend, where women are taking revenge on their ex-boyfriends by cutting across their faces with knives. Not much is known about how this started, but two teenage girls who were caught during the act are being held for questioning in a Police Department just outside of Atlanta. We have photos of several of the victims, whose injuries look eerily similar. Viewer discretion is advised.”

Nate could not see himself, but the pain in his face felt exactly how the photos looked. He wondered something. Nate pulled open the curtain with his IV hand and looked over at his new friend.

“I’m Jacob. Crazy, right?” his new friend said as he motioned towards the TV. Jacob’s face had a cut in it from his eye to his chin. His neck was untouched.

Nate was still stunned, and his throat was still unable to make noise.

“Your girl must have messed up or tried to actually kill you,” Jacob said, pointing at the tube coming out of Nate’s neck.

Nate stared at him. He had so many questions.

She wouldn’t do this, he thought.

“More on the two girls being questioned after these messages.”

“How were only two caught? I mean it seems like most people would wake up when someone is carving up their face with a knife,” Jacob thought out loud. “And how are they getting in the houses? And how are more of them not seen?”

“Maybe they still have old keys,” said John as he walked in.

Nate was relieved to see a friendly face.

“How are you?” John asked him

Nate smiled at him enthusiastically, making his IV hand into a thumbs-up.

“That bad, huh?” said John.

“Have you talked to her?” John asked.

Nate pointed at his throat.

John nodded.

“He just woke up,” Jacob said as he sipped some apple juice.

“Right,” said John. “Rough night?” he asked Jacob.

“Rough night.”

4 PM. Saturday.

Nate was in the hospital for two more days. They let him out on Saturday afternoon with stitches in his face and a bandage on his neck. He had been planning what he would do first when they let him out, but he was still nervous.

“Are you sure you want to do this now?” John asked him as he turned out of the hospital.

“No,” Nate said, able to speak in slightly more than a whisper. “Let’s do it.”

“Alright,” said John.

John drove them both to Nate’s ex-girlfriend Ashley’s house. It took twenty minutes to get there from the hospital, and it looked like she wasn’t home.

“No car,” said John.

“No car.” Nate coughed.

Nate knocked on the door anyway. No one answered. He knocked again. No one answered. He walked around to her window.

“We should go, Nate. She isn’t here,” said John.

“Hold on.”

Nate looked through the window to Ashley’s bedroom, where the blinds were slightly open. Looking in, he saw her cat sitting on her bed, and her phone sitting on her bedside table.

“John, her phone is–” Nate started.

“Nate,” John interrupted.

“I think she’s here,” continued Nate.

“Nate, let’s go.”

Nate looked back. He saw a familiar car. Inside was Allie, Ashley’s roommate. She took a picture of Nate and John on her phone and then sped away.

“That’s not good. She probably thinks we’re here for revenge,” John said.

“I just want to know who poked a hole in my neck, man,” Nate said.

“I know. Let’s go home,” John said.

9 PM. Sunday.

Someone knocked on the door.

“I’ll get it,” John said. He started to get up from the couch as he turned down the news, but Nate was closer to the door and already standing up.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to live in fear my whole life,” Nate said, walking to the door.

He looked through the peephole. It was Ashley. She looked very distressed.

Nate’s heart jumped. He questioned if this was a good idea. He took a deep breath, and opened the door.

“Nate,” Ashley started, she looked shocked when she saw his stitches and bandage. “I’m so sorry about what happened.” She seemed very sincere.

“Did you do this to me?” Nate asked.

“No, Nate, I would never.”

“It just seems weird,” Nate said. “You’re my only ex-girlfriend who lives within 500 miles of me; and you still have a key.”

“Nate, I can explain,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

“You know I never cheated on you, right? Lying about something I didn’t do was a pretty lousy way to break up with me,” Nate said.

“I didn’t—I thought—she told me—” Ashley said between quick breaths.

“And what was the deal with what happened yesterday? I’m guessing Allie sent you that picture of John and me at your house,” Nate said.

Ashley looked confused.

“Or maybe you knew I was there. I saw your phone,” he continued.

“Nate, please slow down, I didn’t know about that,” said Ashley.

Nate looked behind himself to see if John was hearing all of this. He wasn’t sitting on the couch anymore.

Something on the TV caught Nate’s eye as he was looking back. He walked in, and Ashley followed him. He grabbed the remote and turned it up.

“A deleted video was just recovered of what seems to be a woman filming her ex-boyfriend as she cuts him. We do warn you, the following video may be disturbing.”

Nate’s heart felt like it stopped beating when he saw himself asleep in his bed. Someone was holding a knife up to his face. It was a woman’s hand, and she set the knife down and injected something into his arm with a needle.

“Hurry, that only lasts like 30 seconds,” said a man’s voice quietly.

The woman took the knife and cut across Nate’s face from under his eye to his chin.

When she put it on his neck, the man yelled, “Hey! That’s enough.”

She was able to cut his neck slightly before the man ran up and took the knife from her. “We need to go!” the man yelled.

The woman flipped the camera around and Nate saw Allie with a crazed expression on her face.

“This is why you stay away from my friends,” she said, almost laughing.

She held up her hand, raising her middle finger while still holding the knife.

The video stopped, but it froze on the man standing behind Allie. It was John.

Nate felt dizzy. He looked around to see if he could see John. He was nowhere in sight.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked.

Nate didn’t know what to do. He looked for his car keys. They weren’t on the usual hook. He looked out the window. His car was gone.

“I want to get out of here,” Nate said.

“Let’s leave. I’ll take us both far away from here. I don’t want anything to do with Allie,” Ashley said.

Nate wasn’t fully sure if he could trust her, but right now he trusted her more than anyone else he knew. He grabbed everything in sight he thought he might need, and followed her into her car.

Ashley started the car and drove away, getting on the interstate without a plan for where they were going.

11 PM. Sunday.

Nate didn’t say anything to Ashley for two hours. At first, they just sat in silence as she drove, but then Nate pretended to be asleep for a while, thinking.

Acting like he’d just woken up, Nate asked, “Did you know about this? Is there something going on between John and Allie? Why would he do this?”

She took a deep breath. “The entire trend was Allie’s idea. I don’t think she knew her video would go viral, but apparently a lot of ex-girlfriends saw it and actually went through with it.”

“They saw the video of me?” Nate asked.

“No, she made a different one where she said what her plan was the day before she did it,” said Ashley.

“Did you know she was going to do this to me?”

“No. Of course not. I would have warned you. She was talking about unfaithful ex-boyfriends so I thought she was going to go after her ex, Logan.”

“Did you warn him?”

“I don’t have a way to reach him, and I didn’t think she would actually do it, but when I saw her leaving with a knife, I called the police and gave them her license plate number.”

“Is she one of the people who were caught?” Nate asked.

“Not one of the girls who were caught in the act. She was brought in for questioning, only there was no evidence except my accusation.”

“I guess there’s evidence now,” said Nate.

“Yeah. Probably why they left.”

“Why did she do it? Why did John do it?”

“I’m sure you know that Allie never liked you,” said Ashley.

“Yeah. Did she tell you I cheated on you?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well I didn’t.”

“I believe you,” she said.

“Why didn’t she like me?”

“She always said ‘he’s not good enough for you,’” Ashley answered. “Maybe it was just jealousy.”

“What about John?” asked Nate.

“I have no idea,” said Ashley. She paused. “Actually, how long have you known him?”

“About six months,” said Nate. “I put out the listing that I was looking for a roommate and he’s the one who answered.”

“I think that’s about how long Allie has been seeing him,” said Ashley. “About six months ago I noticed she was leaving the house a lot. She never told me where she was going, and some nights she didn’t come home.”

Things were starting to make sense, but he kept asking himself, why.

“She must have convinced John to move in with me,” Nate said.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Ashley, “to get back at you.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” said Nate. He felt a lump in his throat. He tried not to cry but tears started to trail out of his eyes.

Nate rubbed his eyes with his right hand. His left hand was on the armrest. He felt Ashley’s fingers slip through his.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

He drifted off to sleep as she drove into the night.