I look around and see nothing. Then I blink and see my neighborhood. The features and sizes of the houses, trees, and roads seem exaggerated; bigger, somehow. I turn around to the direction where my house is, and I see me. I was standing there, with my hands behind my back, smiling at….well, me. He mouthed four words that echoed through the air in a whisper.
“What did you do?”
I looked at the ground around me. I saw my brother, my parents and my cousins, my closest friends and my worse enemies. Everyone I had ever met, dead, and they all lay here around me, killed in different ways, killed in every way imaginable. I looked back up at the other me. He was three times bigger now, and he was hunched over like some kind of beast. He was grinning with a maddening glimmer in his eyes. He was a monster.
“No.” he said, “You are a monster.” I brought my hands into view and saw that they were soaked in blood. “No.” I heard myself say. “No!” I said; my eyes filled with tears. I looked back at the other me, who was laughing at my misery. I felt anger and fury surge through me; I tackled him and punched him over and over. He was still smiling.
I somehow wrapped my fingers around his huge neck, and I began to squeeze. He made choking sounds, and I felt a hint of satisfaction with each moment that slipped. He didn’t try to fight. He started to shrink, I didn’t let go. He was changing form. I couldn’t recognize who he was turning into. He was already dead, but he kept changing. Short and skinny body, short blond hair, brown eyes, denim jeans with a Gir T-shirt……
Oh my god. It’s Cassidy.
I bolted up in my own bed, gasping for air. I felt like someone had been trying to suffocate me in my sleep, but no, I was alone, and everything was normal. I never killed anyone.
I got up from my bed and walked over to the bathroom. I turned on the water and wiped my face with the freezing coldness of it. As I did this three times, I muttered to myself, “It’s okay, nobody’s dead, you are not a killer.”
At that moment, I looked up at the mirror and saw the other me from the dream. He was wearing the same clothes I was sleeping in. His arms were covered in blood up to the elbows, especially the fingers. When he spoke, I saw his bloody mouth. He said, “No. At least, not yet.” He laughed, and I blacked out.