The nightmare broke through Mia's concentration, leaving her gasping in the predawn light. Water. Lots of water. She grasped her sheets, her arms burrowing into the fabric, still feeling the phantom wave of the torrent that had overwhelmed her dreamworld. The dam's concrete face had broken like an eggshell, causing a tidal wave of destruction.
Her forehead was moist with sweat when she looked at her phone. 6:47 AM. Every other early start, thanks of her unconscious. The window framed typhoon clouds forming on the horizon—dark, threatening shapes that shouldn't exist in the middle of July.
"Nightmares don't pay bills," she grumbled, pushing herself up. The wood floor creaked beneath her weight, a common sound in their old Victorian home.
As she entered the kitchen, she was welcomed by the strong aroma of freshly prepared coffee. Zoe was already standing at the counter, her hair in a tidy ponytail, carefully spreading jam on toast. Everything about Zoe screamed manipulation, from her pressed workout clothes to the precise way she prepared breakfast.
"You had that dream again, didn't you?" Zoe asked without looking up.
Mia fell onto a chair and reached for the coffee pot. "They are growing worse, Zo. This time, I saw the dam cracking."
"The Henderson Dam?" Zoe's eyebrows furrowed as she finally stood up to Mia. "That's an issue with stable concrete. Been status for fifty years." Zoe leaned against the counter, her equal eyes narrowed in terror. "perhaps you should speak to a person."
"A therapist?" Mia scoffed and poured herself a cup. "'Hello, I keep dreaming about catastrophic flooding and the end of civilization.'" That isn't exactly going to improve my mental wellness."
Thunder rumbled in the distance, bringing both of their gazes towards the window. The anchor's voice irritated Zoe as she watched the morning news on her tablet. The anchor mentioned unusual seismic activity in three states. Scientists are puzzled by the strange patterns.
Mia said, "flip it up," but Zoe turned the device off instead.
"You will be late for the paintings. Once again. Zoe grabbed her exercise bag and gave Mia a sharp look. "some of us must preserve normalcy even as you chase apocalyptic visions."
"They sense real, Zo," Mia responded, a hint of urgency in her voice.
"goals usually do." Zoe's countenance softened just little. "Appearance, I've been meeting with customers all morning, but how about we get lunch? "That new region on the fifth?"
Mia nodded, seeing her sister walk out the door. They had grown up side by side, finishing each other's sentences, sharing clothes, minds, and anxieties. However, other days it felt as if they were strangers sharing DNA.
A strange anxiousness permeated the air as the pressure to paint mounted. Visitors crawled at a snail's pace, and pedestrians hurried with unusual hurry, the environment pushing down as if beneath an invisible weight. Mia's pores and skin prickled when she parked outside the library where she worked. Birds swooped over her, their screams cutting through the rising clouds.
"Morning, sunshine!" Lisa, her coworker, called Mia out as she entered. "You appear to be you've seen a ghost."
"Simply tired," Mia said with a smile, moving towards the front desk. The library became alive with the calm buzz of leisure—college students browsing shelves, elderly customers reading over newspapers, a mother wrestling with twin infants nearing the toddler stage.
regular. The entire situation felt gloriously, reassuringly ordinary.
Until it didn't.
The inventive and clairvoyant struck without hesitation. She went from skimming books to shattering facts in a matter of seconds. The library melted and changed as a result of a thundering wall of water, the sound of crumbling concrete and tearing metal. She saw the dam break, a spider web of damage spreading across its face. The streets below turned into raging rivers. Shadows moved through the turmoil, beings with useless eyes and voracious expressions.
"Mia! Mia!"
Lisa's voice drew her again. The library rebuilt around her, but books were scattered on the floor, and her hands trembled in antagonism to the desk.
"I'm calling an ambulance," Lisa said, reaching for the telephone.
"No!" Mia grasped her wrist with desperation in her eyes. "I'm great, just a little dizzy."
But she was not pleasant. The image had left something in the back of her mind—a burning reality that weighed heavily on her chest. This was not a dream or a fabrication of her troubled mind. It was a warning, as real as the trembling floor beneath her feet.
Her phone vibrated, interrupting the silence. Zoe sent a message: bizarre earthquake reviews are flooding in. Are you okay?
Mia began to form a reaction as a deep rumble vibrated through the library floor. It began quietly, like if a distant teacher had passed away. But then the vibrations became more difficult and insistent. Books toppled off shelves. The woman near by drew her twins closer, her face bright. An elderly guy looked up from his newspaper, perplexity written in the creases of his face.
Mia's phone buzzed again, this time with a harsh emergency alert: "IMMEDIATE EVACUATION ORDER FOR HENDERSON DAM PLACE. "This is not a drill.
The ground rattled harder beneath her, knocking down stacks of books. And Mia heard it in the distance, somewhere beyond the partitions: the low, gutwrenching groan of concrete under insurmountable tension. It became the sound of her aspirations, the unmistakable death wail of a dam on the edge of collapse.
She appeared round, unconcerned about the danger that was approaching. The mother clutched her twins. The elderly man had frozen, along with his newspaper. Lisa's face had faded with concern.
In her imagination, she saw them all being washed away by the river.
Her face was pale and tense with terror as she gazed through the library's glass doors. Beyond them, the sky had turned the color of bruises, with clouds boiling over with darkness. Thunder cracked above, reverberating throughout the structure like broken bones.
Mia's arms had stopped shaking. A strong determination took over, centering her in the midst of pandemonium. She knew what she needed to do.
However, time began to slip through her fingers.
Her smartphone vibrated once more. Zoe: Something is wrong. The clientele are performing unusually. Nearly feral. Do not leave the library. I'm coming to grab you.
The ground shook violently, almost throwing her off her feet, and in the distance, the rising howl of sirens broke through the air, a legitimate sound that pierced through the growing dread around her.