Noah looks at his phone screen. Even though he was looking at the screen, the only thing that kept appearing in front of his eyes was what he saw today.
Noah looked at his clothes that were different from one he was wearing in the morning.
"It wasn't real."
'Everything that happened today was just a dream'
'It was too real to be just a mere nightmare'
The dream—no, the nightmare—had been so vivid, so disturbingly real that it still clouded his thoughts. He could almost feel the presence of the crying man and that strange girl in front him, their images burned into his mind like an afterimage of a bright light. Every time he blinked his eyes, their faces keep appearing in his mind.
Noah still felt that eerie feeling like one he felt in the afternoon when he saw that girl and in the moment before his death that crying man looked at him but it wasn't not as strong as when he saw them it was quite lower but the eerie feeling was still there.
Noah's head was covered in sweat, his throat was thirsty.
"Fuck"
"Fucking dream just gave me trauma of life time."
"Damn it."
Noah grabbed his phone, put it Inside his short pocket and went to the kitchen to drink water. He opened the fridge and held the cold water bottle to drink. After drinking water Noah put the bottle back in the fridge and grabbed the key from the table and went outside their flat.
"What's Lucas doing here? he lives with his mom and he has fear of heights, he doesn't even come to our place normally let alone go to terrace with that asshole Dáithí"
Noah locks the main door and starts to climb the stairs after walking a few steps Noah looks around him and doesn't find anyone around him nor above or below him but feeling of being watched is what he felt now.
Noah ran back to the elevator hastily pushed both elevator buttons, "Why is it taking so much time for the elevator to arrive."
Noah anxiously walked around the corridor waiting for the elevator to come up quickly from ground floor to seventh floor. Within one minute the elevator arrived on the seventh floor.
Noah rushed inside the elevator and quickly pushed the 14th floor button inside elevator and pushed elevator door closing button inside the elevator Noah tried to act cool and normal as CCTV cameras were installed inside elevator.
Noah's mind raced as he stood inside the elevator, trying to piece together the fragments of his day. The images of the crying man and the eerie girl haunting him the most refusing to fade away even in the harsh light of reality.
The event was too vivid, too real to be fake or just a mere nightmare. Yet, here he's trying to convince himself that it was all just a dream.
As the elevator goes up by each floor, Noah couldn't shake the feeling of something is wrong, he couldn't pin point at what is wrong but certainly something isn't right. His hands trembled slightly as he look at the glowing numbers on the elevator panel, each floor ticking by agonizing slowness.
He could feel the cool metal of his phone pressing against his thigh through his pocket, the only thing that reminded him that he's in the real world cause he heard that one doesn't see their phone in dreams. 'Hopes that's true'
If anythings happens to him, it will get captured by the CCTV camera installed inside the elevator and floor of this building.
"Come on, come on." Noah murmur under his breath the tension in his chest kept growing with each passing seconds.
Just as the 14th floor arrived. Noah tighten his fist as he stares at close elevator door, slowly gets opened. The image of some shadowy figure jumping on him didn't happen as thought it would but despite that Noah hesitate for a fraction of a second before slowly stepping outside. Noah didn't look the right and left side of the elevator just straight run towards the stairs in front of him without wasting single second as if his life depends on it.
Nah dash towards the terrace, his heart start beating really fast because of the anxiety and fear despite that he sprinted up to the final set of the stair towards the terrace. The unsettling sense of being watched clung to him but he couldn't find anyone who might be watching him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on with each step echoed ominously in the silent stairwell, amplifying his growing dread.
Noah finally reached to the terrace door, he looks at he close door hesitate for second. What behind this door is really his friends or another nightmare, thinking this his hand hovered above the doorknob. What if opening this door meant stepping back into the nightmare? What if he is still inside the nightmare and beyond this door is that crying man not Lucas and Dáithí.
The terrace door was open as Dáithí and Lucas were still there, Dáithí sat on the parapet wall and Lucas was standing in front of him smoking a cigarette with one hand and the other one in his black leather jacket pocket.
"It's good to see that you look fine." Said both Lucas and Dáithí to Noah.
"Here take it, if you want to relieve some stress." Lucas pulls out one cigarette from his cigarette case offering cigarette smoke to Noah.
"No, thanks I don't smoke cigarettes." Noah politely declines cigarettes.
"As you wish Noah." Lucas didn't force Noah to smoke cigarettes with him.
Lucas saw Noah face down, he knows the reason why Noah acted this way, "Noah, if you have something on your mind say it, We're here for you."
Noah looked at Lucas and then at Dáithí but for some reason the chattering Dáithí, who never stopped talking, was silent and looking at the full moon in the sky.
Noah leaned onto the parapet wall and looked out beyond the city.
"It's nothing, I'm fine."
"It's just.... it's just that I had a really weird nightmare."
"What did you see in your nightmare, Noah?"
"I saw that three of us were in the old town and train accident happens and many peoples dies inside this dream."
"Such is life Noah. No one can change or fight against fate. What's written in fate is bound to happen."
"I'm sorry."
"Huh"
Noah looked at Dáithí who just said sorry, "What....why you are saying sorry, there's nothing for you to apologize for Dáithí."
"If we hadn't gone there, we wouldn't have had to see what we saw and I also put our lives at risk by taking you unknown person home. Who knows that an alcoholic really might have shot us with his gun."
"It's just a dream."
"No, it wasn't Noah."
"What you saw was real. In the old town that train accident did happen and all those people who died are real too."
Noah didn't say anything because he once again started to feel nauseous as he started to remember the screaming sound of people, blood and flesh of humans scattered around and he vomited again.
Dáithí and Lucas help him, "keep it together, Noah."
"There's nothing we can do about this."
"It's okay, I'm fine you guys don't have to hold me."
"The thing is when the train accident happened, that man's flesh and blood fell on me and that image keeps appearing in my brain."
"I shouldn't say this about death but it felt so horrible, disgusting, filthy and tragic."
"Noah just stopped thinking about this. The more you will think about it. The harder it would be for you to forget this accident." Lucas said as he put his hand on Noah's shoulder to make him feel less stress.
"You won't understand, it was me who got stained by flesh and blood of the person who died." Noah said that in a loud voice but Lucas and Dáithí didn't take this offense as they understood the thing Noah is going through and it was hard for them to but they can't change the past.
"Just take a deep breath man, just take a deep breath and calm down." Lucas said with a calm voice to Noah.
Noah took a deep breath as Lucas told him and tried to relax his mind by thinking positive thoughts. It's hard to forget about things like this but they can at least accept and continue to move in future. Noah started to imagine green scenery and calm blue ocean to replace the thought of terror and death he saw today.
Then suddenly Noah realized something, "Then who changed my clothes? I was wearing a different one in the morning."
"Don't worry, Noah. It was me and Lucas who changed your clothes. We remove your t-shirt and shorts and clean your face, hands and legs with a wet towel."
"Yeah and you don't have to thank us for that." Dáithí and Lucas said while smiling kindly.
"Then you guys saw me butt naked?" Noah bit awkwardly and furiously.
"Nah, dude why would we do that. That's so wrong and disgusting, we didn't even touch your underwear bro."
"Noah we are your friends, you know us and we are not into man you know that we like woman's real women like Lucas mum."
"Yeah."
"Wait what?"
"What the Fuck did you just said, you shit face ginger head. Keep my mum name out of your fucking mouth." Lucas said with a loud and angry voice as he can't stand someone making fun of his mum.
"Dude, I'm just kidding Lucas making the situation a bit chill as everything seems depressing."
Seeing them fight, Noah just laughs a little, "Both of you should stop now."
"How did you guys get me here?"
Dáithí nodded his head and said it calmly.
"Well, at first we were bringing you here on a scooter but an ambulance came to the accident site and they did check-up everyone who was Injured at site and you were the only one who lost consciousness."
"So, they were the one who brought you up here in an ambulance and don't worry about it, it wasn't a private hospital ambulance but the government one."
"So, you don't have to pay any money for treatment and yeah they were the ones who remove your clothes and clean you up."
"Yeah Dáithí was with you the whole time, even inside the ambulance he was with you."
"After they take you in an ambulance, I go back to my home and bring some clothes to stay with you guys here for a few days."
Lucas looked at the time in his watch, "I think we should sleep now, it's getting late and I don't wanna be late for lectures tomorrow."
Three of them stood in front of the main door, Noah unlocked the door for them, "Dáithí, Mr. Wayom door is locked. Did they go outside?"
Mr. Wayom is an old man who lives by himself here, he has no family or friends. They talk to him sometimes but he usually doesn't like anyone's company at his home.
Dáithí lowered his head and looked but said, "Mr. Wayom passed away in the afternoon, he had a heart attack and he passed away before the ambulance came."
"This day might be the worst day of my life."
"Don't say this Noah."
After that they didn't talk much, just everyone went to their bed to sleep.
'Dáithí sleeps on his bed, while Lucas sleeps on the couch. Both of them fell asleep quickly while I couldn't as I kept seeing the faces of the people who died and that man and that girl's face kept appearing in my mind just as I closed my eyes.'
Noah is standing in his balcony looking at the city, sea and forest at night everything seems so calm and peaceful.
'I wish everything would remain just as calm and peaceful as this moment.'
Soft and blissful wind is ruffling Noah blonde hair, Noah wide open his arms in air (lol like titanic pose).
Noah's loose t-shirt started to flap because of the wind and he felt a hard object on his chest that he didn't notice before as wind speed grew his t-shirt fluttered violently in the wind, and the hard object pressing against his chest felt cold, as if it had appeared out of nowhere. With trembling hands, he reached beneath the fabric and pulled out a necklace. A small cold piece of metal that he didn't remember putting on.
"When did I get this? It must be Dáithí's stupid luck necklace that he's always talking about." Noah thought, the necklace didn't seem familiar, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. He hastily removed the object connected with thread from his neck, intending to return it to Dáithí as soon as possible.
But when he looked at the necklace in his palm, a wave of terror crashed over him. The black thread now slick with sweat from his clammy hands wasn't just any necklace. It was necklace the one he had seen on that man, drenched in blood, back at the railway crossing. Shiver run down his spine as the memory of that man standing with a maniac smile with crying eyes appears in his mind.
Noah's knees buckled slightly as a terrifying realization gripped him. This wasn't just a coincidence, nor was it Dáithí's necklace. This was something far worse, something he couldn't explain or even begin to understand. The world around him seems to change before he could react.
Noah's eyes went blank without any shine in them like there's no human emotions in his eyes.
He saw himself standing at the same spot he was there before and that man is still standing behind the train wagon's buffer smiling like a maniac, blank eyes with no emotions in them and tears falling from his eyes.
What is happening, why am I here again? Noah look at the man again even though he felt fear facing him.
"What do you want from me?" Noah's voice broke as he shouted at the figure, desperation seeping into every word. But the man didn't move, didn't speak. He just stood there an like eerie statue.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Noah's voice start to crack fear, the anxiety is taking over his body but still the man remained silent. The wind howled through the empty station, carrying Noah's pleas into the void.
"What is wrong with you, say something. Why don't you just leave me alone." His voice was nearly hysterical now, cracking under the weight of his fear. The man's smile never faltered.
"Why….why….Why….why." Noah's voice start to crack as no matter what he says the man won't move or say anything neither this dream is ending.
"Do you have a problem with me, I don't even know you." Noah whispered as his voice become weak and defeated but the man offered no answers, no relief. He simply watched him with a maniac smile and tears falling from his eyes.
More Noah talks to him the more anxious and scared he becomes. Noah's vision began to blur as tears appears in his eyes, the hopelessness overwhelming him as not being able to do anything. He tried to move and break free from whatever force held him in place but he couldn't move from hus standing position not even his muscle bulge. Even his eyelids refused to close and forcing him to stare into the soulless eyes of the dead man before him.