Elizabeth Doety had awoken from the worst dream she could ever remember having, feeling oddly refreshed in a way sleep had never seemed to refresh her. In the years since her divorce, her dreams had been far worse than ever in her life. Yet not once in those years of dreaming had she ever felt something as visceral as she had the night before.
In her dream, she had awoken, in her bedroom, but not in her bedroom. She was standing up, looking around, trying to understand what exactly was going on. Looking at the clock next to her bedside, it had read 1:48 AM.
She stood there, dirty blond hair in a mess from the bed, struggling to maintain balance as the world around her spun. The world was tilted on its head.
One time, years prior, she and her now ex-husband Daniel, had taken a boat ride with some friend of some friend of Daniel’s. It had been the first time Elizabeth had ever been on a boat. She had always heard about sea sickness, but it had never been something she took especially seriously.
Within half an hour, her small frame was bent over the side of the boat, spewing out the single canned margarita she had allowed herself to have. Ironically, she had drank it to calm her nerves.
Hours after she was back on dry land, her legs still felt like a baby giraffe’s wobbly legs.
That experience had, somehow, not prepared her for even a fifth of how she felt at this moment.
Extending her hand against the wall, she tried desperately to keep herself upright. Elizabeth had tried doing some amount of exercise, post-divorce. The dating scene for women in their 40’s was scary enough. It would be even worse for someone with her scrawny frame.
She had kept at exercising at her local gym for all of one day. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the wandering eyes of the men or even the act of exercising itself that had scared her away. It was the locker room.
Elizabeth had intentionally gone early in the morning to minimize contact with others as much as possible. And when she first arrived, it had worked. The locker room had been empty. Yet, an hour later, when she entered the room to get out of her sweaty clothes, the room had five gorgeous women in it.
That was when the doubt crept in. Even if she had worked out every single day and gained a toned body, she couldn’t compete with these women. She would still have imperfect cheek bones, a half-crooked smile, and an ugly mole directly beneath her left eye.
Under any circumstance, these women would be considered beautiful.
They didn’t need to be here. She needed this, they didn’t.
Then, the question that had haunted her for so many years reared its ugly head.
“If it won’t work, why try?”
She quickly scrambled to her locker, grabbed her bag, and left as quickly as she could.
While in her car, she realized that she was still stuck in her sweaty, smelly clothes. So, she picked up her phone and called in to work.
Why exercise when she could spend the day in bed, watching random YouTube documentaries and eating chips.
If she had just kept at it, maybe her strength would have been enough to keep herself from falling.
On the way down, she had hit her head on the bedframe. The sharp edges had always been a source of smacked shins for both herself and Daniel. Now, in her dream reality, it had been responsible for splitting her head open.
Her stomach had roiled, trying to crawl, yet unable to figure out where exactly she was going. When she had closed her eyes, she could still feel the room rotating. Or maybe it was the world itself spinning? There was no way for her to know.
Above all, she felt herself choking on her own breath. There was some malevolent force in the room, pressing down on her chest, making it impossible to get any kind of breath. Whatever it was, it had wanted her dead.
She struggled, putting all of her strength into her arms and willing herself to make it to her bedroom door. And even though she had somehow crawled the short distance, the door was closed. She had taken to closing her bedroom door ever since someone had tried to break in a few months earlier. Looking up from the ground, the handle felt as if it were a million miles away from her.
Elizabeth could feel herself leaving her body as she tried to push all of her energy into her arm. If only she could make that little push upwards, she could easily open that door.
Still, she had felt tired. So tired. She thought of her ex-husband, Daniel, the child they had never been able to have, the friend who had betrayed all of her trust, and the other people who had all turned their backs to her ever since.
There was so much pain in her.
And she was so very tired.
Elizabeth Doety let all of the fight leave her body.
The clock read 1:51 AM.
And yet, her she lay in her bed, the bright sun puncturing through the curtains of her bedroom window. Her body had felt refreshed, renewed, invigorated in a way that it hadn’t in years.
The pain in her shoulder blade that had been bothering her the night before was gone completely. She gave her arm a quick rotation and noticed there actually was no pain whatsoever in it.
That was a good sleep.
She imagined herself propping herself up in bed, arms extended wide, smile and perfect makeup on her face, like in some coffee commercial.
But she wasn’t any actress. Pushing her arms against the bed, she lifted her body. To her utter amazement, she felt fully awake. Most days, it took at least a cup of coffee at home and one on the way to work before she even felt half awake.
And there was silence. Pure, unadulterated silence. Not “silence with a bird chirping,” or “silence, but the buzz of the refrigerator is taking over the background.” Hell, it wasn’t even “silence, but the annoying neighbor kids who are too young for school are screaming at the top of their lungs for no discernable reason.”
It was perfect.
Her horrifying dream began to crawl to the back of her mind.
She realized that she was on track for the single best day of her life.
Certainly, the best day since her divorce.
But, as she sat in bed, something small broke the silence.
Any other day, it would have been so small that it wouldn’t have been noticeable. Yet today, it was like a brick shattering through a window.
She lifter her cover as quietly as she could imagine and twisted her legs off the side of the bed. As she moved her feet to the floor, she let the outside of each foot touch first, quietly rolling them inward, to avoid making any stomping sounds. If this was the same person who had broken in before, she was going to make sure they remembered not to do it a third time.
Elizabeth pushed herself up and walked towards her door. From inside, she could still hear the quiet rustling outside of the room. Once or twice, she had heard some part of the house settling and had run out screaming, only to be greeted by silence and an empty house. This time, she knew there was someone there. She reached for the baseball bat next to her door.
It felt like it took her an hour to fully open her bedroom door, as she tried desperately to avoid any creaking or squeaking sounds. Continuing her stealth walk outside into her hall, she could tell the sound was coming from kitchen downstairs. In order to catch them in the act, she’d need to be quiet enough to avoid any creaking in the old steps. She couldn’t run down them. The last thing she wanted was to fall and actually crack her skull open.
As she reached the stairway, she peered downstairs. The space only allowed for her to see a small bit of the kitchen. She still had some vague hope that there wasn’t anyone downstairs, when she noticed a shadow moving over the countertop next to her stove.
Shit.
Keeping her right hand on the baseball bat, she used her left to balance her against the handrail. She wanted to keep herself from making too much noise, so she only gave it the lightest contact she possibly could. Each step was a chore, letting first the ball of her foot hit the step and rolling the front of her foot down. Hours of videos on what to do in case of home break ins had made her feel like a stealth soldier in her own home.
There were only a few steps to the bottom of the stairs, when she was able to get a good look at the person who had broken in to her home. This guy was well over six feet tall. She wouldn’t have doubted if he was closer to seven feet, when they got this guys mugshot. His brown hair had been slicked back, and he was wearing what she had always thought of as a “professor jacket.”
It even had the stupid ass elbow patches on it.
Finally, she made it to the bottom steps. For some reason, this guy was standing over her coffee maker. As she stepped closer, she even thought she could hear it bubbling.
Why the hell would someone break into her home to make coffee?
There would be time for questions later.
She was only a few steps away from him, when he turned around. His face was the kind you could only describe as perfect. Angular and perfectly symmetrical.
Well, by the time she was done, it wouldn’t be.
He was clearly startled by her presence. Elizabeth swung the bat towards him with all of her strength. As he jumped back, she heard him emit a startled “whoa.”
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Elizabeth swung again. This time, he jumped back but turned his body away from the coffee maker and cabinets. If he had been smarter, he could have just grabbed the coffee pot and thrown it at her.
So, either an idiot, a crazy person, or a combination of both.
Great.
“Watch it. Hey, can you not do that, please?”
“I called the cops; they’ll be her any minute you fuck.” Why the hell hadn’t she actually thought to call the cops? She realized that she had left her phone plugged in upstairs. Swinging again, she aimed for his head. Another weave and now their previous positions had been reversed.
“Wait, wait, I can really explain all of this.”
“Oh, I’m sure the police will be really interested in your explanation.” Another swing. Another jump back. “I’m going to bash your fucking skull in.”
“Elizabeth, wait. Just give me a second here.”
This guy knew her name?
The realization made her incredibly uneasy.
She swung again, but this time, his movement was far more reserved. It was as if he didn’t care if she hit him.
“I swear to God, I’m going to kill you if you don’t get the fuck out of here.”
Something about the statement made him visibly cringe. What the hell was this guy’s actual deal? Was it meth? Crack? Maybe he didn’t care if he got hit because he was high as fuck.
His voice calmed when he spoke again. “Look, I can explain this all to you, but I really need you to put down that baseball bat, okay? And I promise I’m not on crack. I’m not on meth. It’s just going to be a lot easier to go through all of this if you put the baseball bat down and we actually talk about this.”
The intruder’s voice wasn’t just calm now. It was damn near soothing. Like she was the crazy person who had broken into his house and he was trying to calm her down.
Fuck this.
She knew where she was.
She knew what she was doing.
She aimed for his nose this time and put all of the force she could into the swing.
This time, there was barely a flinch, and a slight move of his head backwards. Whoever the hell this guy was, he wasn’t scared of her at all.
He spoke again. “Okay. I think it’s going to be easier if we just get this over with. Take a swing at me and I won’t move.”
The sheer bluntness of the statement had shocked her. She struggled to say, “what?”
Calm as can be, he said, “take a swing at me, then we can move on.”
Definitely crazy.
Yet now, she found herself doubting if she really should or not. Why was this guy this calm, this sincere in his voice, about the idea of getting his head smashed in with a baseball bat?
Was the guy going to try and grab the bat from her? Was he trying to play chicken, so he could dodge just right and get under her guard? This guy had some kind of plan. She just couldn’t play into it.
Then she remembered hearing the coffee pot boiling behind her. If she did it just right, she could throw it right at him, then move in and hit him with the bat. No way in hell was she going to play into his game.
Twisting her body, as if to swing, Elizabeth held the bat with her left hand and quickly reached behind her. Thankfully, the handle of the pot had been sticking out. She looped her hand into it and twisted back towards this intruder.
She lowered the bat, twisted her body, and lobbed the coffee pot directly at him. Even if she missed, at the very least he would be hit with the coff…water? The pot was clear. She had felt the heft of a coffee pot with liquid in it, but had just assumed it was coffee until she saw the pot floating in the air, clear as the sea.
It was still boiling. Brown or clear, it didn’t matter to her. All it needed to do was hit him.
Then, something peculiar happened. This intruder simply stood there. There was no change in his reaction. No movement to get out of the way. He simply stood there looking at Elizabeth.
The coffee pot hit him. But it didn’t. It kept going beyond him. Through him.
She heard the glass pot shatter behind him.
No time to figure that out. If she didn’t move now, she wouldn’t get another chance.
Pushing forward, Elizabeth gripped the bat with both of her hands and swung at him again.
Still, nothing. No movement. No dodging.
No contact when the bat flew where his head was.
She was near the end of her swing, when she felt herself losing balance. All of the effort she had put into her swing had been completely upended when there was no contact. Elizabeth felt her right foot leave the ground, only to be followed by the rest of her leg. The sudden shift in weight made her leg wobble.
The action of trying to hit this man had felt like it was in slow motion.
The falling was significantly faster.
Her body thudded against the ground. She felt dazed for a second, before remembering that the hulking intruder was now behind her. Twisting her to face up, she realized she held the bat in her hands. Pointing the bat upwards, she said, “don’t come any closer, whatever the hell you are.”
Almost as an afterthought, she realized that neither the boiling hot water, nor clubbing this guy in the head with a baseball bat had worked.
The light behind him was fully eclipsed by his form. He stepped forward and crouched to her level. Elizabeth felt like she needed to move, needed to get the hell out of her. He extended his hand.
If she stayed there for even a second more, she had no doubt that she’d be dead. Rolling her body forward, she slipped beneath his arm and crawled as fast as she could. Sliding from her kitchen into her living room, she pushed her hands beneath her. Elizabeth knew that she needed to manifest the strength she had been unable to in her nightmare.
Pushing herself up, she stumbled as her feet caught beneath her. Placing the bat beneath her, she used it like a cane to keep herself upright. She was only a few feet from the living room door. Yet, the silence was back. Not even the sound of this intruder following her.
The guy was gutsy; she had to give him that.
If nothing can touch you, you’d be gutsy too she thought.
Once the door, her hands trembled as they found the door knob. She tried to turn it, but nothing happened. Outside, the bright world existed. Outside was safety. Why the hell wouldn’t this thing open?
In a moment, she realized her problem. She found the small lock on the door handle and turned it to the side. This time, the knob twisted.
Looking back, the intruder had only stood up and was watching her with a vague sense of amusement on his face.
What the fuck is your problem, buddy?
As she looked back and she pushed the door open, she knew something was off. Her front step had been about an inch beneath the door frame. As her foot came down, though, she immediately noticed that there was no depth to the step. It was as if the ground were level with her door frame.
Turning her head to look, she realized that the brightness was not from the outside sun.
The lack of noise wasn’t from the kids next door deciding to be quiet for once.
In front of her, was a vast, endless seeming nothing. A massive white void. Looking up, she saw that where the sky was supposed to be, there was nothing but pure white. The ground beneath her was all white.
There was nothing at all.
It was all wrong.
That was when she heard him stepping towards her.
She turned around and, for the second time this day, found herself losing her balance and falling. Panic gripped her chest.
Had she gotten it all wrong?
Was she the one who had been drugged?
Turning up, she saw the man, his hands folded in at his chest.
“What the fuck is this?” The words were shaky as she spoke. Then, a pit opened in her stomach.
“Elizabeth Dotey,” the man spoke.
No, no, no. It couldn’t be.
“Ex-wife of one Daniel Dotey,” he continued.
If before, her panic had been rising, it was now fully overflowing.
“Daughter of Martha and Theodore Dotey.”
She knew what he was going to say before he even spoke the words.
“I am sorry to inform you, but you are dead.”
Leave a comment