Asia's POV
"What was all of that, Mama?" I said, "Why was the doctor asking me questions and also why were we at the psychiatrist? Weren't you supposed to get go to a general physician or maybe even a cardiologist because you occasionally suffer from high blood pressure? Ah ah ah did you look at that Birkin bag because I really want it. Why aren't you saying something? Is something wrong?"
"I need to tell you something, let's get home first and then I will tell you everything" she looked at me oddly.
The right ride back home was so tense that you could slice up the air the shape of pizza slices and eat them. And those slices will surely be poisonous. Dread was spreading its vines deep into her chest.
The moment I reached home I started looking at my mother anticipating some sort of really bad diagnosis. Maybe she had cancer or something. I almost didn't want to know but of course, it was important to know.
My voice trembled as I spoke, "What is it? Is everything alright? She looked at me and said "You'll have to listen to this calmly" I nodded a bit, "last night you woke up around 4:00 and came out to your door and started screaming. I was probably in the non-REM stage of my sleep your screams made me wake up, thinking that some robber is beating you. But when I came to see you I saw that you were clawing at yourself, screaming frantically. Maybe something has stressed you out and maybe that is why you were doing this strange activity in the middle of the night. The psychiatrist thinks the same."
I was rubbing my temples roughly to help reduce the throbbing pain that had started to boil my brain.
"Why didn't you tell me this before getting an appointment? I don't even remember any of this. I literally do not remember it." I felt as if my mind was going to explode. Hopefully, I said to mama, "What if it's like some sort of dream you had?" I smiled weakly through the pain.
"Unfortunately, sweetie, it's not a dream. Me and your brother, both of us, saw you screaming and clawing at your face. After we tried to calm you down you lost consciousness."
I was extremely perplexed and annoyed with myself because no matter how much I searched my brain I couldn't find a single thread that led me to that moment of frantic wailing and screaming and clawing at myself. I sort of didn't believe my mother I felt as if she was lying. Maybe. I don't know. Why would she lie? I thought to myself. I mean I know that I'm not her favourite kid but she wouldn't want to strangle me to death or plot some sort of psychological poison drama to kill me. I've seen so many tv series where people try to introduce some sort of psychological poison in somebody's bodies to deteriorate their mental and physical health.
I went to Ali's room to ask him what he saw. I know I had just fought with him to not to keep the cat in the house but we've always been like this we fight and then we just forget about it. I barged in his room to see him lying on his bed staring at the ceiling.
"Hey, so mom told me about this thing that I woke up in the middle of the night and started screaming and wailing and clawing at my face did that actually happen? Or are you guys playing a deep dark joke on me?"
"No, that actually happened." He said, impassively running his long fingers through his hair," I really need to tell you something and I'm very scared and it's...it's making my mind numb. I don't wanna talk about it but I know I have to talk about it because it is important." he rubbed his face roughly, "The thing that happened to you...ah..I saw it in my dream."
"What do you mean?"
"The exact same thing at the very same time. Your screams actually broke the trance which that dream had drawn me in. I was you in my dream I was you."
His voice was trembling as he told the details of that horrifying dream. I wondered if that happened to me in real life. Probably not because there are no bite marks on my tongue.
"If I even think about it gives me goosebumps look at my neck all goosebump it's so scary and I can literally feel the smell. I feel as if I reek of that smell."
"No, you don't. You always smell of Tom Ford's Noir Extreme. Don't worry." I smiled weakly.
"Did you tell Mama?"
"No. I didn't tell Mama. She was already so upset."
"She took me to a psychiatrist. I might not know much but I think this is not something related to a psychiatrist." I said looking up and down the room as if something might just come out and jump at me. I still couldn't remember a thing that had happened. Maybe I had some modified sort of dual personality but what does somebody's dual personality have to do with another person's dreams.
"Do you think this could be this is some sort of weird ghost-person situation? I'm kind of scared talking about it right now." Ali looked nervous as if saying that out loud will make it true.
I don't know what to believe and what to think. My mind was numb. All of a sudden that ominous cat barged into the cat by opening the door by herself and jumped into Ali's lap and started snuggling up close to him. It's not that the cat is ugly but it is it's just unhygienic and it stinks. I could seriously just don't like how they smell. Ali started petting the cat slightly and that evil cat stared into his eyes. He smiled and looked lovingly at the cat. It looked like a comically shot romantic. Ew.
This is literally the worst thing ever. Nobody might have ever dealt with anything like this. I'm literally having an existential crisis feet away from my brother and he is staring into a cat's eyes. A four-legged animal that has a tail and licks its butthole to clean it's poop. I got up from Ali's bed and left his room, annoyed. I was scared what could happen if I slept alone what if I do the same thing what if it's like some sort of messed up sleepwalking situation. it's just multiple levels up from sleepwalking. I was worried that what I could potentially do if left alone maybe I could just go to sleep with my mother
"I'm gonna sleep with you tonight because I'm really scared I'm scared that I might do something wrong. I'm scared that I might do something stupid." I announced as I plopped myself on our parents' bed.
"I was thinking the same thing you should sleep here. We should call Ali to have a little movie night and get some popcorn, some nachos have a nice time. Rani is still home and she will make us the most amazing nachos and we will have such a good time. We will watch anything you guys might like" said Mama excitedly. She loves to stay up. She can find any reason to stay up late.
"Yeah, mama, that seems like a great idea. Let me just formally invite Ali. Let's have a sleepover. Let's act like we're best friends."
"This is making me so happy." Mama clapped.
"Okay. Let me go call him and you decide what movie okay mama?"
I went and brought Ali to our grand sleepover party. We need a little bit of relaxation. We have faced a bit too much of thing and we need a little bit of relaxation.
"So what movie are we watching?", Mama asked.
"We can watch Mean Girls?" I said.
"Seriously Mean Girls? Am I a girl? Only girls watch such movies."
"Come on. You are such a sexist person. Art is for everybody. Anybody can watch anything? Okay?"
"Maybe then we can watch..um..Star Wars: The Force Awakens"
"Yeah sounds good let's watch that."
We had the best time. We laughed. We had fun. Rani made the most awesome nachos with nacho cheese, guacamole, green olives, black olives, button mushrooms, shitake mushrooms and beef shredded. It was amazing, heavenly. We ate too much and you know when you eat a lot of carbs you get into that food coma sort of phase resultantly we got drowsy and went to sleep with Mama in between us. We cuddled up with mama and went to sleep like little babies.
I woke up by the sound of the door banging.
I looked around saw that Mama was sleeping with one arm on her waist but Ali was not there He probably went back to his room but I was a little scared since I didn't want him to go to sleep all alone. What if he has another weird dream and then I have to reenact all that. As I was trying to get up it was difficult to since mama's a was a bit heavy. As I was moving mama's arms she woke up.
"Where are you going? Don't go to sleep all alone you're supposed to sleep here." Mama said urgently
" No Mama I think Ali went to sleep on in his room. I just don't think it's the best thing to do right now." I said drowsily."I'll call him." I reached for my phone called him and found out that he had left his phone on the side drawer. I didn't want to just get up to call Ali back and disturb my own sleep since I had an early morning lecture I didn't want to ruin my beauty sleep. All of a sudden we heard a blood-curdling scream but it sounded like it came from outside. Curiously I got up and peeked through the windows. But there was no human no car nothing on the streets.
"Mama there is nobody outside let's go and get Ali. What if Ali's goes to look outside to see the situation is and let's get Ali back to the room. You know he has a borderline saviour complex." I said rolling my eyes.
As we were going to Ali's room we noticed that the main door was wide open. I looked at Mama and we both instinctively went downstairs to close the door. Just as we were about to close the door. I noticed somebody sitting on the porch while there was another person who was lying on the floor next to a puddle of thick red liquid. The somebody that was sitting had his back towards us he was wearing Ali's Pjs.