The Contract

Chapter 5 - Replay

My eyes shot wide open, and I gasped for air, fresh air; a far cry from the humid atmosphere I had been breathing in before. Heart thumping rapidly like a freight train raring to take off and sweat trickling down my skin in an endeavor to cool my body down, the time stuck in the plethora of memories that I had gone through had completely messed up what I considered reality anymore. Heavy were my eyes, and sore was my face, but as I felt for the teeth gaps from having my face get bashed in the traumatizing experience I endured in the strange realm that I existed in, dream or not. I let out a heavy sigh of relief when my molars, canines and incisors were intact.

Still breathing, still sweating, I could still taste and smell the air, and hear the noises vibrating the floor of my room coming from below. The hard makeshift mattress on my back reminded me that I was back in the safe compound that was my room. On my bedside table, even though my clock read that it was very early in the morning, I sat upright, wide awake with adrenaline coursing through my veins. Indefinitely bewildered by the bizarre events that had ensued thus far, the biggest question I had was if the experiences I had went through were even real in the first place. The fact that my teeth were intact was reason enough to consider the other possibility that maybe, just maybe - what happened didn't really take place at all. I was too scared to even consider the likelihood that it was real.

The dim light emanating from the lamp resting on my bedside table, cast a ghastly shadow on the wall my eyes were fixated upon; the shape of which was eerily reminiscent of Adro - the pellucid entity that had slain my father in cold blood right in front of my eyes, in that surreal encounter. What if I had simply been confused by this whole thing, and it was just a hallucination - maybe even a dream? Perhaps my imagination had run wild in the very fabric of the reality in my dream; spinning up a false story within the confined edges of my consciousness.

I had heard of dreams occurring within dreams, and read up such cases online back when I was in high school due to assignments, so the probability of this whole thing being a dream was probable, to say the least. Deciding to write the whole thing off as merely another strange nightmare in the collection of weird dreams residing in my cerebral cortex, I stretched and rubbed my sluggish, exhausted eyes as I started up the desktop that sat atop the table beside my bed before heading over to the washroom to splash water at my face.

A lethargic grimace halfheartedly greeted me as I squinted back at the blurry reflection on the little cracked mirror on the bathroom wall. Dabbing my cheeks and eyes gently with a handful of water, I relished in the soothing cool that spread from the droplets of water to my own skin. After using a towel to wipe away at my face, my head felt ten times clearer, and I proceeded to sit in front of my shabby computer with the intention of killing away the time, as classes would only start in about a couple of hours.

Checking my clock once more, I realized I had quite an abundance of time before college started. It was, after all, my first day of a new semester at Toren College. To think that I was so worried about being on time for college was laughable after the series of disturbing mental episodes I had sustained. Nevertheless, I began searching for the definition of dreams, looking for forums and websites regarding dream within dreams, and whether dreams were an alternate dimension unknown of to man.

I sighed. This wasn't going anywhere. Most of the pieces of information I had scrounged up from the internet were either fake or useless - there wasn't a single case I found relevant, or relate to for that matter. The screeching voices of my parents from downstairs and the abhorrent growling from my abdominal area interrupted my thoughts. I would do some more research after I had gone to make myself a light snack downstairs - a peanut butter and jelly sandwich sounded great to my stomach.

As I made my way down the hollow, cracked oak stairs, I noticed Layla, my younger sister, gobbling up our jar of blackcurrant jelly in a frenzy. After catching sight of me descending the wooden steps, she quickly closed the lid and stuffed it in the fridge hastily before running off; she must've vividly recalled the last time I was in a bad mood even though that happened around three years ago. Let's just say I didn't take kindly to anyone who spat right in front of me and used a racial slur in front of my siblings and I.

Exhaling exasperatedly, I took out the jelly jar from the fridge and examined it skeptically. Luckily for me, she didn't completely devour the whole thing entirely, leaving behind a fairly large amount of jelly residue that accounted for nearly a third of the entire jar. It felt as though the contents of the recent dream I had gone through was slowly slipping away from my grasp; I could barely remember how things played out in detail anymore. Scratching my head in irritation, I reached for a couple slices of bread resting in the fridge, then I placed them gingerly atop a small plate. There really was no point in me racking my brains out at this point in time, for I could barely remember a thing as I applied the sweet, almost sour smelling jelly upon the stale bread.

It wasn't long before I managed to wolf the cold sandwich down without flinching; eating this same exact meal lots of times, naturally one would get used to it over time. The jelly didn't taste like it was expired, thankfully. Expired jelly was something my stomach couldn't handle - the last time I ate expired jelly, I had to frequent the restroom for the entire length of a day. I trudged back upstairs once I was done washing the plate, and sighed contentedly with a quick breakfast inhabiting my gut. Kneading my eyes and stifling a yawn, I decided to get ready for class. But first, it was as if something was guiding me to do something I wasn't even sure what the purpose of doing so was for, and I changed course, moving to my parents' room instead.

Not sure what goaded me to taking the emerald pendant on my father's chest, but that's exactly what I did - take it. It was as though I was persuaded to do it by some unknown force; perhaps my own conscience. I really was not sure. The door to their room was always locked, but they gave me the key to their room in case of an emergency, so that was not a problem for me. The problem was actually unlocking the door and moving noiselessly, as both my parents were not sound sleepers; the contrary, actually - they were very light sleepers, and would react to just about the slightest of sounds. I tried my best to be noiseless as I made my way to my father, tiptoeing so as not to produce a sound.

My foot collided with the leg of a chair, and I held my breath in alarm; my eyes scanning at my parents to see if they had responded to the small thud. Thankfully, their eyes were still closed, and their breathing shallow, so I went ahead and grabbed what I intended to take in this room - the crystal clear green talisman on the bedside table belonging to my father. As I closed the door as silently as possible, I made sure to lock the door behind me, so my father wouldn't know that I had taken his treasured amulet, because apart from him, my mother and I, no one else had possession of the key to his room.

Then again, if the door was locked but his pendant missing, I would be a likely suspect as well. Oh well, what's done was done; I didn't want to spend any more time dawdling around in the house as it was. I had a bad feeling something was going to happen in the house, something terrible; call it a premonition, but I definitely did not want to be a part of it.

The front door swung quietly as I opened it, carefully trying to leave the house without making a sound. I didn't want my father to discover that I took his emerald amulet for no good reason, so I decided to go to the one other place I felt comfortable at - college. I could somehow sense that an argument would brew between my parents in about half an hour - some part of me just knew they were going to argue at exactly a half-hour from now, even though it wasn't even sunrise yet.

Not wanting to stay in the house whilst a quarrel would go underway, I decided to take a jog along the muddy path beside the road to the Toren campus. It was of walking distance, just about a couple miles away from my old, run-down house, and since I felt as though I needed the cardio, I started running at a slow pace. The air was sweet-smelling and fresh - exactly like the smell of morning dew in a clean and pristine forest. This scent certainly brought back fond memories of when I was a young child, no more than seven years old; my family frequently brought my infant sister and I to camping trips in the woods.

It felt very peaceful to go outside in the tranquil hours of dawn, where nearly everyone was sound asleep. No voices of people chatting, no humming of electrostatic waves, and most importantly, no one in the streets looking down at their phones as they walked. I must say that with the invention of devices like smartphones, life was made much easier - too fitting, for that matter.

However, technology has made it such that people need not meet up face to face anymore, resorting to text messages and voice or video calls to communicate. In the high school where I studied over in Wisconsin before our family moved here, the guys whom I played on the basketball school team with would usually talk to each other about how stressful it was to text girls.

I rarely used my phone to communicate with the little amount of friends I had; partly because of the fact that my family moved consistently, and partly because the only thing I used my phone for was to listen to music and to call someone in the case of an emergency. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the utter convenience that came alongside electronic devices. Putting on my headphones, I relished in listening to the calm and relaxing beats of music my phone provided as I continued jogging. The sounds of my feet pattering against the wet patches caused by the heavy raining the day before made me feel as though I was a kid again, playing by myself in the mud and water.

A white sedan which I did not recognize was humming rather loudly about a hundred yards from where I was, interrupting my nostalgic reverie rather brusquely while making its way toward the direction I had been running from. When it passed by me, the tires of the car ran over the puddles of water near me, drenching and dirtying my legs.

Glancing back irritably, I made an obscene gesture and cussed angrily at the car in hopes that the driver would see and hear how I felt about ruining my clean, washed pants. As I turned back to observe the vehicle, I noticed that the front of the car was stained with what seemed like fresh, wet blood, coupled with the putrid scent of rotten flesh and diesel that permeated the air after the automobile passed by. I covered my nose so as not to breathe in the pungent, gagging smell that would make any normal person choke in disgust.

The driver of the car looked very suspicious, and if I wasn't mistaken, the light from the street lamps appeared to pass through him with ease, like he was semi-transparent or something. Something about the fact that he was translucent made him seem so familiar to me, and when the sedan passed right by me, I swear I could feel chills run uncontrollably up and down my spine. I continued staring at the vehicle and the driver, trying to figure out just who was he exactly. He didn't appear to be someone I knew - perhaps a long distance relative who was just visiting this area?

What in the name of God was wrong with the man's skin, though? Any onlooker who caught a quick glimpse of the man would know that his skin wasn't normal at all. It was very similar to glass - slightly blurred glass, but if I squinted hard enough, I could almost see right through his head and neck. I didn't really see how the rest of his body looked like because his back was turned and the car seat was blocking all but his translucent head and his neat tuft of combed, grayish hair.

The vehicle skidded to a stop in one abrupt motion, and the driver got out of the car, allowing me to see how he appeared like in full. Wearing a black blazer over a white dress shirt complemented by a navy blue tie and equally sapphire pants, he was exceptionally tall and well built from what I could see, probably a lot taller than I was - perhaps seven feet tall? Even though he was about a third of a mile away from where I stood, I could've sworn his eyes were looking right ahead at me as he observed coldly at my direction.

His body and skin was opaque now, no longer the translucent hue that even light could sift through, and unless I was mistaken, his mouth curled upward in what seemed to form a cruel, sadistic grin that made me feel like running away and hiding. Not wanting to maintain eye contact with the strange, freakish anomaly of a man that was gazing at me rather intently like how a lion stalked its prey, I faced forward and resumed my jog, perspiration dampening my shirt.

I didn't want to think about the strange encounter with the driver of the car that had just been driving along the street, and tried to focus on what the first day of the new semester would be like, but somehow, the unusual being just now kept resurfacing in my thoughts. It was like getting a heavy dosage of déjà vu on something you just couldn't recollect on, but just seemed so reminiscent.Trying to think just where exactly I'd seen that individual before suddenly triggered a piercing sensation that caused my head to throb with acute pain.

The pain was so severe that I crumpled onto the path I had been moving along, and I clutched my head tightly in an attempt to get rid of the afflicting agony. I could feel my vocal cords screaming out as the excruciating burn reached the internal depths of my skull, but I couldn't hear a thing. My vision started to get blur and a dark red color was slowly threatening to take over my sight. The pain from this migraine felt, so, so familiar. Feeling as though my lungs weren't working; I just couldn't inhale or exhale at all, and my consciousness felt as though it was slipping away by the second.

A firm hand gripped my left shoulder so tightly it actually hurt more than the splitting migraine , and I breathed in and out, feeling all the torture that stemmed from the headache subside in one fell swoop. Standing up carefully, I turned around to get a good look at the person who was still clenching onto me and had - for some reason - provided an ailment to my painful discomfort.

On a normal day, I would be stunned speechless if I'd run into someone like the person who was clamping on my shoulder, but this wasn't a typical day for me; quite the opposite in fact. About a whole head shorter than I, the girl who had gripped my shoulder had sleek, wavy locks of blonde hair that seemed to glow in the ominous darkness of the night. She had an oval shaped head, her features were impeccable, and you probably wouldn't be able to guess her age correctly just by looking at her face - it was the face of a timeless beauty.

But this wasn't my average day. My head filled with strange bouts and surges of intense memories that would come and go as the moments passed; the migraine I has subsisted probably caused by this strange mental assault bombarded my way. I knew this girl - I don't know when, where, or how I met her, but somehow, but I could certainly say that I recognized her.

"You feeling alright? You were doubling over in pain earlier." Her aquamarine eyes fixated upon mine as she spoke.

I nodded my head in appreciation, but betraying my thanks were my eyebrows - they furrowed suspiciously.

"Have we met?" As the words left my mouth, I realized just how silly that sounded to a stranger who probably didn't even know me. I was never good at talking to others - even my basketball teammates in high school. Relying on my skills and actions to do the talking, I viewed it as both a blessing and a curse to be somewhat of an introvert - on one hand I could be as blunt as ever and have an abundance of free time to myself; on the other it had always been hard for me to make a large social circle of friends.

The girl didn't seem to notice how dumb the question sounded; instead chuckling slightly.

"No, you don't know me - probably not, at least. The name's Melia, and I'm a big fan. Hell, if your name - Brad Porter - was mentioned in a street basketball match, there would be both kids and adults alike trying to impersonate that smooth stroke you always employ for your shooting form. You're really famous in New York for some reason; have you studied there or something?."

A wide smile decorated her mouth when she saw my reaction change to one of surprise. I didn't know I was that polarizing of a star athlete in the rest of the nation because of the fact that the press coverage and media didn't really give me much attention - much to my relief.

Before I had a chance to think up a reply to her question, Melia spoke up once more.

"Looks like we're headed the same way, then. Toren College is just right up ahead, and that's the place you're studying and playing basketball at, am I right?"

Throughout my first semester at Toren, I had never noticed this girl in the corridors, or even on campus grounds, and that was odd because I practically knew almost everyone in the college - perhaps today was the day she started college?

"I didn't know you were a basketball fan, but man - you have just made my day; first, a charming lady like you remedied the intense pain I felt earlier, and then that same girl informs me that people actually try to imitate the basketball style I play with." I grinned broadly while rubbing the back of my head nervously. "Well, shall we go, then?"

Melia nodded almost instantaneously and we resumed walking to Toren, but unless I saw it wrongly - I could've sworn her eyes had briefly glanced at my left pocket. The same pocket that contained my father's cherished jeweled amulet.