A Forgotten Past

“No!!”

Jin shot up in her bed, screaming into the darkness. Once silence overcame the room again, she brought her fist down on her pillow, clenching her teeth. Every night was the same: she woke up screaming, sweat trickled down her forehead, she felt sick to her stomach, and she trembled in fear.

She buried her head in her hands, silently sobbing. ‘The same dream.’ she thought. ‘The same damn dream!’

Out of all the dreams she had for the past weeks, this was the worst. Everything was just so vivid, clear as day. There was maniacal laughter, the glint of a knife, a splash of red, screams, and the unmistakable sound of metal piercing skin again, and again, and again. It was all over in a flash, but it still chilled her to the bone.

            Still groggy, she walked into her bathroom. Tiny motion sensors installed in the doorway activated, filling the room with a warm, yellow light. She was never very tech-savvy, even when technology reached a new high with hover cars, robots, and microchips, but she was extremely grateful for these motion sensors. As twitchy as she’s gotten over the past few weeks, she had trouble handling simple things like a lightswitch.

She looked at her mirror, studying her reflection. She was a mess. Crust was built up in her sunken eyes. Her skin, instead of its usual tan, was a sickly pale. Her black hair was unforgivably frizzy, resembling a giant hairball on her head. Great. She felt sick, and she looked even worse, and how couldn’t she? These days, she was lucky to get three straight hours of sleep before the nightmares came back. They would be the death of her. It was clear: she needed help, and needed it soon.

----

Once morning came around, the nightmare still lingering in her mind, Jin stumbled into her living room. When she did, a robotic voice echoed from her personal P.A system.

“Good morning, Ms. Walker.” it greeted in a robotic, female voice. The blinds slid open, allowing stingingly bright light to pour into the room. Jin shielded her eyes from the offending light, groaning in protest.

“Power off!” she growled. The blinds closed back shut immediately, leaving Jin in her shady home. She let out a reluctant sigh. She didn’t want to use that ‘revolutionary helmet’ that got everyone all giddy, not with the way it worked. Apparently, through some technobabble nonsense, it allowed you to enter your nightmare, sort of like ‘living’ in it. That way, you could find the source of your nightmares, confront it, and overcome it. Why anyone would want to meet their nightmare in person, Jin didn’t know. There were even complaints about physical pains experienced in the dream world being carried over to the real world, though those people didn’t seem to mind too much. Then again, those people probably didn’t have nightmares involving death.

On the other hand, Jin wasn’t going to blow five-thousand credits so some jerk in a nice suit would waste three hours of her time just to tell her to ‘take it easy’. It looked like she didn't have much choice. After all, desperate times.

After retrieving the helmet from her closet, Jin sat down on her living room floor. As much as she didn’t like it, she had to admit, the design was appealing. It was round and sleek in design. Its chrome finish seemed to shine even in the shade of her house. At first glance, it seemed to be a very nice-looking hovercycle helmet, with a visor, padding inside, and a chinstrap. The only real difference was a controller connected to the helmet’s side.

Jin picked up the controller. It was small, rectangular, and black. It had only a switch and a dial, so it seemed simple enough. There was the ‘On’ and ‘Off’ switch, and the dial seemed to be for setting the time.

“Okay. Let’s give it a try.” Jin said, though doubt lingered in her mind. Was this thing really going to help end all of this? Could it? Only one way to find out.

“Now, let’s see…” She picked up the helmet and placed it on her head. The next thing she grabbed was the controller, focusing on the time dial. “Let’s go for a…thirty minute test-run.” She turned the dial until it was pointing at the 30-minute mark. All she had to do now was turn the power on.

“This had better work.” With a deep breath, she slowly flicked the switch to ‘On’.

Immediately, a tingling sensation wrap around her head as the machine hummed to life. The feeling persisted for nearly ten seconds until Jin felt a sudden drowsiness overcome her. Her body became weak, her eyes became near impossible to keep open, and soon enough, she fell back on the floor, eyes shut as she drifted into sleep.

----

            Jin’s eyes snapped open as she shot up from her place on the ground. Her vision was blurry and her head was aching. Did it work? Was she dreaming? Once her vision came back, a quick look around gave her an answer. She was no longer within the confines of her home; she was sitting on the cold, hard driveway of an average, two-story house. As plain as it was, Jin recognized it. It was the home where she grew up. Strangely enough, she couldn’t remember much of her childhood. The only real significant things she could remember were that her mother was ill, and her father, a doctor, was trying to find a cure that always eluded him. Everything else was a blur. But what was she doing here in the first place? What was so important about it?

            Jin was so caught up in thought that she nearly failed to notice something else. Looking around, she found herself surrounded by an impenetrable shroud of fog. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see a thing, save for the house, as if she was being directed towards it. Not only that, but Jin couldn't hear a thing either. Nothing, not the chirping of birds, or even gusts of wind, like they didn't even exist. The place was just silent, eerily so.

            Jin tried to shake off the worry, telling herself that it was all just a dream. A nightmare, yes, but still a dream. She got up to her feet, looking up at the house.

She heaved a heavy sigh, trying to dispel the hesitation built up inside. "Okay, let's do this."

            She approached the front door. Aside from the surrounding fog, it seemed safe enough. However, when she tried to open it, she found that it was lock. Of course it was.

            “Couldn’t be that easy, could it?” Jin muttered, chuckling to herself.

            “What have you done?”

            With a shocked gasp, Jin whipped around, darting her head side to side, trying to find the source of the whisper. There was nothing around her, no one in sight. Jin knew that it was a man’s voice, a strangely familiar one at that. Even stranger, Jin could’ve sworn that it was right behind her. She couldn’t be that paranoid already, could she?

Jin turned back around, calming her racing heart only to have it speed up again once she saw that the initially locked front door was open. Well, not open, gone, hinges and everything, like it was never even built in. The new entrance lead into darkness, one that Jin would have to brave if she wanted to find the answers for her nightmares.

“It’s only a dream. It’s only a dream. It’s only a dream.” Jin kept saying, which didn’t help much. With her breath held, she crept into her childhood home, unaware and unprepared for the answers she would find.

As her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, Jin could see that she was in the living room. It was rather cozy, if not antique in design. Instead of the fancy holograms and streamlined furnishings she’s grown used to, the decorations seemed to have come from the 21^st century. A nice, red couch sat in front of a fireplace. If Jin wasn’t scared out of her mind, she may have taken a rest.

Jin observed an end table next to the couch, spotting a framed photograph. Picking it up, she saw that it was a photo of her parents before her mother’s illness. It seemed to be a vacation photo, because they were both at the beach, wearing swimsuits. However, Jin noticed that a piece of the photo was missing, torn out. Jin turned the photo over, looking at its back. Despite the darkness, Jin was able to make out ‘Florida ’59’ written in black felt-tip pen.

“2259?” Jin mumbled to herself. “I was five back then.” Then where was she in the photo? For some reason, her place in the picture was torn out, but by who?

She didn’t have much time to think of an answer before she heard something that nearly made her heart stop. In the dead silence, Jin could hear slow, heavy footsteps. They were faint at first, but slowly grew louder, and louder, and louder. Someone, something was approaching her, each step growing louder as they pounded in her mind. Jin flipped into a silent panic; her body was stiff, but her mind was racing a mile a minute. What was she going to do? Could she run? Would it catch her? Where would she go? All the while, those footsteps were getting louder, getting closer, until...they stopped. They stopped behind her. Jin froze up; she didn’t move, didn’t even breath. It took all she had not to shriek as she felt cold, musty breath brush against the back of her neck. She could feel it staring down at her with its cold, dead eyes. This was unbearable! Why wouldn’t it just leave?

Then, for reasons Jin couldn’t describe, maybe stupidity, she found herself slowly turning around, keeping her eyes shut as she did. Only when she was certain that she was facing her stalker did she muster up the courage to open her eyes. She expected to see a ghost, a demon, a man slapping a goat, anything but what she did find: nothing. Again. Even after the fear passed and her heart calmed down, she was still left speechless, confused, and above all, angry. Really angry. Angry that this place was teasing her, toying with her emotions like it was all some sick joke. There was no way in this nightmarish hell that there was nothing the whole time!

Jin clenched her fists, trying and failing to contain the anger bottling up inside. Just when she was about to explode, a door next to her swung open, slamming into the plaster wall. In an instant, all of Jin’s rage left her in a very shocked, not-angry yelp. Once she got a hold of herself, she stared into the darkness of the room beyond. Somehow, it was even darker than the living room, but Jin could hear something coming from it. Whispering? Yeah, it was whispering. Jin couldn’t make it out, but it sounded like something was calling her. That was when it hit her. This place, this dream, was leaving signs and signals for her to follow. They were leading her somewhere, but to what? Jin just had to decide whether or not she wanted to find out.

She didn’t have much time to come to a decision. A sudden sense of drowsiness came over her, making her brain numb. Her legs became jelly, her eyes became heavy, and her whole body in general just grew weak. It didn’t take very long before Jin collapsed, unconscious before she even hit the ground.

Her thirty minutes were up.