The day you meet your Villain

Remises

“I had a dream” Remises said abruptly and Dean, who while waiting for him to recover had almost drifted into a tired sleep, awoke.

“I had a dream” Remises repeated “It was completely terrifying.”

Dean sat up.

“But what I saw upon waking…” he trailed off

“What was it?” Dean finally asked

Remises looked at him. “A man… a man… but he looked more like a spirit. Or perhaps I just felt like it.”

“A spirit?”

“Yeah, a spirit”

Dean scoffed. He rose up slowly then lumbered over to his bed. Remises looked sharply at him.

“Won’t you stay and listen?” he demanded.

Dean got into bed. “There are no such things as spirits… goblins… zombies… oh, give me a break” he sniffed ‘it was your imagination.”

Remises was shocked.

“I don’t imagine!” he spelled looking at his brother with wide eyes ‘it is never an imagination.”

Dean settled in till he was comfortable and closed his eyes. However, he said ‘Then it was a dream. You said so yourself.”

‘I did have a dream, yes, but I woke up to another. Will you listen?”

Dean was silent.

“You know how important these dreams are” Remises continued “You know what… what people like me are called.”

“Seers, Is that right?” Dean asked

“You told me yourself”

“I told you mom believed it but I still remember saying it was all trash.”

Remises swallowed. They were silent a long while then Dean told him.

“Go to sleep, Remises. It was just a dream”

“It wasn’t just a dream two years ago” Remises replied abruptly. He was looking down at the swirling colors on his mattress.

Dean stiffened.

“It wasn’t trash…” Remises continued speaking slowly and with emotion “It wasn’t trash two years ago.”

Tears formed in his older brother’s eyes and trickled down his hot face to the covers. Dean sniffed. His fingers wandered into his pajamas and touched the skin of his back. Where his fingers caressed, the flesh was wrinkled. While he touched his back, tears dropped from his eyes and he thought. Remises watched him.

Two years ago, when Remises was nine years old, he had had a nightmare. Then, Dean was thirteen and it seemed, almost like most thirteen-year-olds that the whole world was against him. Therefore, when Remises came to his bed to share his dream, Dean, irritated paid no attention. He could still remember his brother screaming:

“There was a fire!” Remises cried “Oh, it was so much.”

Dean frowned. “I’d really appreciate it if you would just go back to sleep”

“But mom says you should always listen to my dreams. Have you forgotten what she called me? Have you forgotten my dreams always come to pass?” Remises beseeched him. Dean turned in bed facing his back dismissively to him. Remises, livid with rage seized the pillow from under his head and struck him furiously with it.

“For crying out loud” Dean exclaimed. He caught the arms of his younger brother, wrenched the pillow from his grasp and yelled into his face “Go back to bed! I’m trying to sleep.”

Remises still had some fight in him and he tried to break free.

“Alright” Dean switched to a new tactic “No need getting worked up over an imagination, now is there?”

Remises stopped struggling “I…ma…gin…nation” he stuttered and Dean almost laughed at his ignorant nine year old brother.

“Yes, that was no dream. They call that … imagination” he explained “So go back to bed

Dean sat up. Propping the pillows, he leaned against them with his scarred back then wiped the tears away. Later that year in October, a fire broke out in the house. Dean, in his bid to get Remises to safety lost his footing and fell, back first on something hot and burning. It scarred his back. The tears dropped fast. He remembered the pain he’d gone through in the hospital treating first degree burns. The wounds healed into ugly scars. However, there was still a terrible wound in his heart. One that bled furiously, that as far as he knew had no cure. It was the realization, upon coming back from the hospital that their mother, who was asthmatic, had died in the flames. He blamed himself for her death. It was a secret only he and Remises shared.

Looking intently at Remises he said “Alright” he sniffed again “if you will talk, this time, I will listen.”

Remises still watched him toying absent-mindedly with the bedclothes with swirling colors.

‘Tell me first about your dream” Dean encouraged him.

Remises nodded. He heaved a sigh and began to talk.

“It all came to me in flashes of many scenes” Remises began “I could hardly make any sense out of them.”

Dean leaned forward.

“You were there” Remises continued “Only you looked different. The time must have been dated many years ago. I could tell from the looks of the place. And then there was someone else-a man. He was one huge menacing fellow that looked all kinds of petrifying. I shudder just to think of him.”

“Was he the man you saw when you awoke?” Dean probed.

“That was hardly him.” Remises told him “The man I saw upon waking was like a shadow. His one hand was hooked up and his head was c****d to the right. He was like a fleeting apparition. No. This guy was very human. He had a well-defined aura about him that spelt dread. He had the kinds of looks that did more than send chills down one’s spine. There was this ominous feeling I felt whenever he appeared.”

“What did he look like” Dean enquired

“I noticed he wore black leather. There were diverse blades strapped on his waist; chest, everywhere. He also had daggers sticking from the mouth of his boots. It’s a wonder how he actually managed to move with all that. However, he held a sharp hatchet in his left hand and the edge of the blade was evidently sharp… He was after you.

“He took his time in his walk, looking about him from side to side, searching for you. He had a limp. I’d say one leg was longer than the other but, make no mistake about this, whenever he saw you, he was almost upon you in a flash.”

Dean’s eyes seemed to gleam with archness and the end of his lips curled up in a wily smile.

“Was there any distinctive thing about his face?” he asked

Remises was pensive. “Now that you mention it” he said “I think he had a scar stretching from the left side of his face going just beneath his eye then over the bridge of his nose. He wore a hood so I could hardly see most of his facial features but that part is accurate. With the whole array he had on, he must have been something of a warlord or I believe he was more like… I’d say…”

“An executioner?”

“Precisely!”

“Go on” Dean urged. He still had that smile.

Remises began to wring his hands.

“There was a well; there was a bridge and a garden. But there was no one. It was just you and he. At one point, the executioner almost caught up with you but you were too fast for him. And then there was a stone wall. The most enormous wall you’d have ever dreamed of.”

“Funny. Are you quite certain it was me?”

Remises managed a smile “Well I can’t make a mistake about that now can i?”

“True. Please continue” Dean leaned back in his pillow. His smile had developed to every part of his lips and folding his hands over his chest he looked like someone holding a secret.

“What’s with you? I tell you this is important and you’re smiling it off. Is there something you’re not saying?” Remises demanded

“We’ll get to that. Go on.”

The little brother heaved a sigh looking directly into his hands.

“There was a house too” he said almost in a whisper

“And then what happened?”

Remises was silent still watching his moving hands. “There was fire.” he pronounced, eyes wide and his voice began to tremble “There was so much fire and you were stuck up there and couldn’t get out. The roof was burning, the floors, and the windows - everywhere! And you couldn’t get out!”

Alarm seemed to jump into Dean’s eyes “That’s not right.”

“That was how it was” Remises cried. “You were dying up there! There was a lot of fire and you were dying.”

“And the man?”

“He was the one who locked you up and set the place on fire. He’d walked away in triumph.”

“No!”

“I tell you that was it!”

“Then you’re wrong! That’s not how it’s supposed to end”

“How do you know that? You couldn’t have possibly had the same dream at some time.”

“But that was what happened.” Dean replied. “At some time I did dream something like that up… and then I put my pen on paper and wrote it down. The dream you’re talking about, well, that’s one of my stories.”

***

The clock struck eleven with one sharp chime. Casey woke up to it. Rubbing her eyes, she turned to look at the clock when her heart skipped a beat. On her writing table, the mini laptop was open and put on emitting an amount of light in the almost darkened room.

She sat up looking around quickly. As far as she could tell, the room had not been broken into. When she climbed down to look into Thelma’s and Rima’s bunks, they were fast asleep.

She yawned. Had she forgotten to shut down the laptop earlier that night? She paddled over in rubber slippers to the table. Even as she walked, she knew it was hardly a possibility and her heart began to thump.

Her story was displayed on the screen. She read through it. It was intact, just the way she’d typed it. What then? She shut down the laptop still rummaging various possibilities in her mind. Her friends could not have been responsible. She had secured the device with a password. However, she was terribly sleepy. So when she made sure the laptop had been turned off, she went back to bed. As far as bravery goes, Casey had some pluck. She was asleep in no time.