"Ha!!"
I woke up with a gasp, I looked up the sun was still out I looked around and everything was the same as before, the shade had grown bigger but aside from that the park was the same.
Still my head hurt, it hurt a lot.
"What was that?" I questioned again bringing my hand to the bridge of my nose and massaging my forehead a bit. I tried to recall what I had dreamed about, yet it wasn't long before almost everything I had experienced was deleted from my mind.
The only thing I did remember was that I had been Louise, I had been tortured some way and died at the end in a shed. But why did I dream that? Was it just because I had just told Louise that I wouldn't be able to go to high school with her.
I looked up the same star was shining but it was dimmer than before I had to squint my eyes just to catch it. I slowly stood up on my own as I kept on massaging my forehead.
"It's getting late I really should go back home," yet as I said that a feeling of nausea overcame me making me lurch. I brought my hand to my mouth feeling like I was about to vomit.
Home, home was a bad place. No it wasn't my home that was bad place it was Louise's. Then I realized something I had never actually gone into Louise's house I always left her at the door. A feeling of dread overcame me and I suddenly wanted to go to Louise's house, to check on her.
I began to run as fast as my legs could carry me, across the park, through the gates, through the streets I pushed my body as hard as it could go until I reached the wooden door with the crooked 23 on it.
The feeling of dread became stronger, so I did the only thing I could think of I began to bang on the door.
BAM
"Louise you there!!"
BAM
"I need to talk to you!!"
BAM
"Louise!"
BAM BAM BAM BAM
I knocked the door over and over and over.
"Louise open the -"
Before I could finish the door opened slowly. Just when there was a little space a head with curly short brown hair stuck it's head outside.
"What is it Felix?"
"Are you okay Louise?" I asked almost gasping for breath, I really should do more exercise.
"I'm fine," she replied quickly.
"Oh that's good." I sighed with relief.
Yet a vision of Louise in the shed freezing to death crossed to my mind.
So I spoke again. "Do you want to have a sleepover at my house?"
"Not today Felix I'm not feeling for it."
She rejected my invitation she never rejected my invitation. Was she that mad with me?
"Come on please."
"Sorry Felix not today."
And without even letting me reply she closed the door in my face. Dread filled me even more, so I began to walk around the house trying to make things through the windows but most were closed with curtains allowing me to see basically nothing.
So I began to rationalize what I had dreamed.
"Come on Felix it was just a dream you're overreacting," I muttered to myself slowly calming myself down.
I pulled my bangs up a bit, my hand almost clawing at my hair.
"It's okay Felix, everything is fine."
I trudged home from Louise's, my feet feeling heavier with each step. The familiar streets of London seemed different somehow, as if that strange dream had cast everything in a different light.
When I finally reached home, Mum was in the kitchen, humming to herself as she arranged what looked suspiciously like tea leaves into patterns. Dad sat at the table, deeply engrossed in what appeared to be a French cookbook, though judging by his furrowed brow, he was having trouble probably because most of his books were from grandma's and she didn't write rules more like careful suggestions.
"There's my little wizard!" Mum exclaimed, looking up from her leaves with that familiar sparkle in her golden eyes. "The cards told me you'd be home exactly now."
"The cards or the clock on the wall?" Dad muttered, not looking up from his cookbook.
I managed a weak smile, but Mum's keen eyes caught something in my expression. She set down her tea leaves and studied me with the same intensity she usually reserved for her divination practices.
"Everything alright, love?" she asked, her head tilting slightly to one side.
"Fine," I replied, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Just tired."
"Hm." Mum's eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn't press further. Instead, she gestured to the kitchen counter where several sandwiches sat waiting. "Lunch is ready. Your father made them, but don't worry they are edible."
"Oi!" Dad protested, finally looking up from his cookbook. "I'll have you know my cooking is getting better. I have been able to make five different dishes in the last two weeks and four of them actually turned out well."
"We know dad," I said, grateful for the familiar banter that helped push away the lingering unease from my dream.
Lunch passed in a blur of conversation about Hogwarts preparations and Dad's latest culinary aspirations. Mum kept shooting me concerned glances, but I avoided her eyes, focusing instead on my sandwich.
The afternoon dragged on, filled with half-hearted attempts at playing some chess by myself and dodging Dad's determined efforts to squeeze in another French lesson.
By dinner time, the dream had begun to fade, but the feeling of wrongness remained, like an itch I couldn't quite reach. We ate Dad's latest experiment – something he claimed was Coq au Vin but looked more like chicken swimming in grape juice – while Mum regaled us with stories about her own first year at Hogwarts.
But even Mum's animated storytelling couldn't fully distract me from the growing sense of dread that seemed to claw at the edge of my mind, constantly, over and over. After dinner, I retreated to my room, changed into my pajamas, and lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
The feeling wouldn't leave me alone. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flashes of that shed, felt the bitter cold, the pain from being pulled by my hair, the burning sensation of the slap, Louise's mother's drunken shouts.
It didn't make sense – I'd never even been inside Louise's house, never met her mother. Yet something about that dream felt more real than any dream had a right to.
I rolled over, trying to force myself to sleep, but the unease only grew stronger. The moon cast long shadows across my bedroom floor, and in their darkness, I could almost see Louise huddled in that shed, alone and frightened.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of bed and pulling on my trainers. I grabbed my jacket from the hook behind my door, wincing at every creak of the floorboards as I crept down the stairs. The house was silent save for Dad's muffled snoring and the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
I paused at the front door, my hand hovering over the handle. This was mad. It was just a dream. Louise was fine. She had to be fine.
But what if she wasn't?
The night air bit at my face as I slipped out into the darkness. My pajama bottoms fluttered around my ankles as I walked, then jogged, then ran through the empty streets. The few people still out gave me odd looks – a boy in striped pajamas and a jacket, running through the streets of nighttime London.
When I finally made it back to Louise's house, that sense of dread had grown into something almost tangible. Then I heard it – a crash.
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