Chapter Three
“Marra? Marra, can you hear me?”
Light flooded my irises as soon as I opened my eyes, and it took me a second to realize that I was lying on the floor of the psychiatry room staring up at one of the bug-filled fluorescents on the ceiling. My words probably sounded pretty stupid. “What…the hell?” When I’d first come into that window of remote consciousness, I’d been sure…no, I’d known, undoubtedly known, I’d wake up in bed. I mean, why would I wake up here?
Mr. Shorts grabbed my arm, offering to help me to my feet. I grudgingly accepted, only because of the fact that the bones in my legs seemed to have mutated into Jell-O. Mr. Shorts replied, “You fainted.”
“I think we might have to bring her to the hospital,” Dad said, making me jump, as I just came to the realization that he was by my side. When did he get there? I must’ve really been out of it.
Figures. I was still rubbing my cheek as if that bloody star would actually be there. Weird. Nothing like this had ever happened before; I mean, I’d been having the dream for about a week, but I’d always fallen asleep by my own will, not once having taken a header to the floor.
“Does she have a history of blacking out like this?” Shorts asked.
Dad shook his head. “No, nothing like this has ever happened before. Hey Mars, you feeling alright?”
“Yeah,” I said honestly. “I mean I don‘t think I could run a marathon, but it’s not like I’ve got that 12-minutes-to-live feeling either. I’m just kind of shaky.”
“Either way, not bringing her to see a doctor would be ill-advised, though fainting in teens is relatively common,” Mr. Shorts said. Dad nodded seriously, which was something rare to see outside the courtroom. More for the comfort of me than him, I said, “Dad, don’t worry, I’m fine.”
Completely ignored, Dad turned to Shorts. “I’ll call you about the next session later.”
“Haven’t I suffered enough?” I pleaded, both rolling their eyes in a how-do-we-deal-with-her way.
Dad towed me by the arm as he reached for the door. “Come on, Marra.”
“But I don‘t want--”
“I’ll call you with the doctor’s diagnosis, Rob,” Dad called to Shorts without looking behind us.
“See you Nat. You too, Marra. Stay safe.”
Yeah, that was going to happen.
I was surprised to see that the sky had swollen into a gray bruised clot of clouds since we’d walked inside for my session about…
…how long ago?
“Dad, what time is it?” I asked, looking to the sky as if hoping to calculate the hour by the unseen sun’s trajectory.
“10:02. You weren’t out all that long, or we would’ve called an ambulance.”
“Am I really going to the doctor?”
He looked at me questioningly, as if to ask if I was being serious. “Well, yeah. You might not have noticed, but you passed out in the middle of therapy.”
“Pssh. That.”
“You’re not winning this one, Mars.”
I groaned.
The doctor, like I pretty much expected, found nothing wrong with me, and suggested that I just be careful for a while. Stress was sometimes key in fainting, so passing out during a therapy appointment wasn’t all too weird.
Well, except for the whole psychic-vision thing. But Dad didn’t really have to know about that fact, not yet. I mean, I’d seen a doctor and a psychiatrist in one day, and knowing my dad’s adulation of horror movies I had a feeling that telling him about my so-called “vision” causing a fainting spell would only drive him to hiring an exorcist. That was an appointment I was definitely not ready for.
Actually, I doubted I would ever tell him about my dream. I mean, the only visions I ever had were ones where someone died, and in this one I only saw me. He’d already lost Mom; the least I could do was let him go on for a while without feeling like he’d lost his daughter too.
So he drove home completely clueless. As far as he knew my dreams were still of strangers or acquaintances at most. We’d made a pact that I would keep future fatalities a secret anyway, as they made both of us kind of nauseous. I dozed off to avoid vomiting in my dad’s nice car, which would only dampen the day’s spirits more.
Unfortunately, the same vision came.
Almost.
This time, there was a second voice, and not the killer’s (a bit of information that came purely from the inner-knowing only dreams can supply). It was a guy‘s voice, who only whispered one word:
“Keeper.”
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