Page 74 of In Her Bed

Jenna moved through her familiar space, dropping her keys on the kitchen counter, checking the nearly empty refrigerator out of habit rather than hunger.The events of the morning—Frank’s wisdom, Jake’s kiss, her mother’s progress—swirled in her mind, demanding analysis and consideration.

But exhaustion crashed over her in a sudden wave.The previous night’s sleep, while restorative, hadn’t erased the deep fatigue.

She kicked off her shoes and sank onto her bed fully clothed, not bothering to draw the curtains against the sun.

***

Darkness claimed her first, then the cold.It seeped through her clothes and into her bones.Jenna knew, with the strange certainty that came with lucid dreaming, that she was no longer in her bed, no longer in her home, perhaps no longer in her time.Somewhere beyond the reach of her vision, hushed voices murmured in urgent, desperate tones.

She tried to move, to orient herself in the pitch blackness.Her feet slipped slightly on what felt like wet stone, her hands extended before her, grasping at nothing.The darkness was absolute, a void that swallowed her whole.

“Hello?”she called, her voice sounding muffled and strangely flat, as if the space around her absorbed sound itself.“I’m here.I can hear you.”

The murmuring intensified, a dozen voices or more, speaking over each other in frantic whispers.She couldn’t make out individual words, just the rising tide of desperation in their collective sound.

In these lucid dreams, she sometimes had a measure of control, could sometimes guide the interaction.She concentrated on the voices, trying to separate one from the cacophony.

“Please,” she said, more firmly this time.“One at a time.I can’t understand you when you all speak together.”

The whispers didn’t cease, but they seemed to recede slightly.Jenna felt a shifting of air that suggested bodies moving around her.

“I’m Sheriff Jenna Graves,” she tried again.“I’m here to help if I can.”

A single voice spoke near her ear: “No badge matters here.”

She spun toward the sound.“Where is ‘here’?”she asked.“What is this place?”

The answer came as a collective moan.Jenna fought the urge to retreat, reminding herself that her physical body was safe in her bed.This was just a dream, a communication, nothing more.

“What do you want me to know?”she asked, trying to sound calmer than she felt.“Why have you brought me here?”

The whispers swelled again, a tide of anxiety breaking against her.She caught fragments now—” taken,” “forgotten,” “help us.”

“I need more,” she insisted.“I can’t help if I don’t understand.”

Then, without warning, a scratching sound pierced the darkness.It was so mundane, so ordinary, that it took Jenna a moment to recognize it—the sound of a match being struck against its box.

A tiny flame burst to life a few feet away from her, illuminating a face in sharp relief.It was a man, perhaps in his forties, though weariness had aged him prematurely.Deep shadows pooled beneath his eyes, and a week’s growth of beard roughened his hollow cheeks.His eyes reflected the match light, twin points of desperate hope in the darkness.

“They are collecting people,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

The small flame cast just enough light for Jenna to glimpse stone walls that glistened with moisture.Huddled shapes—people—crowded around her, their faces appearing and disappearing at the edges of the match light.

“Who?”Jenna demanded, taking a step toward the man with the match.“Who is collecting people?For what purpose?”

The man opened his mouth to answer, but the match sputtered, the flame dancing wildly as it consumed the last of its fuel.Then the flame winked out.

“No,” she protested, trying to hold onto the dream, to force herself deeper into the lucid state.“Come back!”

But the spirits were gone.

Jenna felt the weight of her own body again, the softness of her bed beneath her, the late afternoon sunlight warm on her face.She pushed herself up on her elbows, the memory of the dream still vivid.

“They are collecting people,” she murmured, repeating the spirit’s words.What did it mean?Who were “they,” and who was being collected?And what could she possibly help?A new challenge opened up in front of her, bringing with it a sinking sense of dread.