Chapter 11: Episode 11 - The dream before the nightmare

Episode 11 - The dream before the nightmare

Joe - Hey, changing the subject completely, I was thinking about what you told me happened with James the other day, and it occurred to me that maybe he never liked you, but he became obsessed with you after what happened at the beginning of last year.

Ness - Hmm?

Joe - Maybe it wasn't like that from your point of view, but when you met him, you acted like a fool every time you talked about him, you accompanied him after school, you went with him to the bus stop even though you lived on the other side of town.

Ness - But... any friend would do that.

Joe - A good friend, yes, but he never did the same for you. Don't forget that time you told me what happened in his city.

Ness - Uh, yeah, the time I decided I wasn't going to be his friend anymore?

Joe - Yeah. The day he left you alone in the middle of the night, in another city you didn't know, and...

Ness - Yeah. Yeah, I know. Not only that, he also did a lot of things that proved he wasn't worth it.

Joe - If you want to talk about James, this is the time. This trip is the perfect time for you to put him behind you and start a lot of things over again, like your romantic life, for example.

A lot of things went through my mind the moment Joe told me to talk about James. I closed my eyes slightly, feeling a lot of pent-up anger. I felt my hands ball into fists and my nails digging into them. I breathed deeply and opened my eyes.

Ness - Do you want me to tell you the whole truth?

Joe - Yeah..?

Ness - Before that trip where I stopped noticing him, I had a long dream... I don't think you want to hear that.

Joe - No, tell me...

Ness - Okay, I...

I remember going through a different experience at university, problems with my parents made me distracted from my studies, I felt very bad all the time, and at that moment James became my support and my good trusted friend, just 6 months after meeting we started dating, and then we got to know each other more and more. We dated for about two years, when he did something similar to what he did in real life.

It was New Year's, and we went with his family to his town. His family was hostile toward me, but at night he went out with his childhood friends. He left me at his house hanging out with his family, who spent the entire time criticizing me. He came home at 1:00 a.m. drunk, pretending nothing had happened. Then I went to sleep, and just a few minutes after I went to bed, he left again. I don't even remember what time he came back. And that was the first time it was so obvious.

After that, for months afterward, he would travel to his city without telling me, sometimes going days without answering the phone, and every day he became a stranger to me. After almost two years of dating, one day he told me we should break up; he didn't like me anymore. He told me he'd been living with me for months just for convenience, that he hadn't had feelings for me in a while, and that he only saw me as a friend. In my dream, I cried nonstop for days, while Joe, who was also living with me in the dream, supported me through the breakup.While crying on one of those occasions, I felt like I was almost drowning, and I couldn't stop crying, I kept drowning until everything went black and when I came to, I was waking up from my dream, in real life.

Ness - That was like a premonition for me. I just knew that even though it was a dream, it seemed like a possibility, and I vividly remember how I felt after the breakup. I still remember the feeling of loneliness and abandonment, of feeling like I wasn't enough for someone, or that I just wasn't enough for him, that I wasn't worth it.

Joe - Ness..

Ness - You know what the worst part is? He had a different name. I was different, too. I liked to draw, just like I did. It was all so similar and different in the same way. It felt like an alternate reality. Not only that, but it was such a long, yet so real dream.

Joe - Hmm, some people say dreams can show you other versions of yourself.

Ness - I know! I wondered if that actually happened in another reality, or if my mind just created it to warn me... I didn't want to risk feeling that again.

Joe - I know it was just a dream for you, but I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you.

Ness - Yes, and I understand that no one should ever go through that, it's one of the most horrible feelings, feeling like you're not enough for anyone, not even yourself. But at least it was enough to save me from a bad experience, if that could have been a reality.

Joe - You like spiritual things and all that, right?

Ness - Yeah, you know that.

Joe - The other day I saw a video that said certain spirits can take pity on you and show you what might have happened, like a dream, a vision, or a story about something that could happen to someone else. I mean, like in your case, you could imagine the story of one of your characters and know what not to do yourself

Ness - Like one of the characters in my comic?

Joe - Yes, exactly. So they warn you like this because they want to prevent you from suffering the same thing, either because they interacted with you in some way in that other life, or simply because someone they loved or they themselves remember going through a similar situation.

Ness - So someone told me everything that was going to happen so I could avoid it?

Joe - It's just a theory, but if your dream seems so real...

To be continued..