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Lily

T he air is forced from my lungs, which prevents the scream building in my throat from passing, leaving an intense burning deep in my chest. I want to rub it to soothe the sensation, but it’s too hard to pull my arms to my side to reach the spot while the wind holds them hostage.

I squeeze my eyes tight and force myself to relax. The wind whips by, causing my hair to wave erratically. It slaps me in the face so many times and so quickly that it feels like I have tiny cuts all over my cheeks. I open my eyes, but I can’t see anything aside from passing blurs.

Try to relax. This will all be over soon . As much as I tell my body to let go, nothing changes. My muscles stay rigid and taunt as I anticipate my demise.

This is how it always happens. This is how I die .

There are so many things I wish I could change. So many things I wish I could still do. Right before my body slams against the cold, hard ground, his deep gray eyes find me. They’re the color of smoke, with amber surrounding the pupil and flecks of white running through them. I find them calming and alluring.

Suddenly, hope fills my chest.

I jolt awake and sit straight up. It takes a moment to realize where I am and that I’m okay. I reach up and touch my chest, my arms finally free to give myself some semblance of comfort. I rub soothing circles on my sternum as my heart rate comes down to a reasonable pace .

My eyes adjust to the darkness surrounding me, and I see the clothes I laid out across my chair right before I went to bed. I look over to the digital clock sitting on the corner of my dresser by my TV. It’s 2:14 A.M.

I don’t even know why I bothered to look at the clock. When I have that particular dream, it always comes at the same time—2:14 A.M. on the dot. However, I’m relieved I don’t have it every night. From what I can tell, it seems to be caused by stress and exhaustion because that’s when I have it the most. It’s been months since I had it last, but it’s just as intense as it ever was, and it always ends the same way.

With me dead .

Sometimes, like tonight, I wake up just before impact, and sometimes I stick around to see the aftermath. It’s like I’m floating outside my body, forced to watch as people rush up to see if I’m alive. It’s always blurry, and there are no clear details or faces I recognize.

Both endings freaking suck, but if I had to pick one, I would always choose the ending where his eyes are the last thing I see. The crazy thing is, I don’t know who he is. His irises are the most beautiful ones I have ever seen in my life, and I have no idea who they belong to.

He’s most likely a figment of my imagination. However, something about those eyes —about him —feels so real .

When I was younger, the dreams weren't as vivid. I would awaken to the sensation of falling. My mother would rush into my room in a panic after I woke her with my screams. I tried to explain it back then, but the more often it happened and the more details I learned, the more I realized it was better to keep it to myself.

No one understood, not even me.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that those intense gray eyes started appearing right before my body slammed into the hard ground. At first, it scared me because I didn’t know who he was, but after a while, he became a comfort. He was a way to escape the nightmare.

After a deep breath and heavy sigh, I rub my eyes and finally lie back on the bed. The sheets are crumpled underneath me and damp from sweat. I roll over and groan at how sore my muscles are. By now, I know the routine well to relieve it.

I’ll have to stretch when I get up and take an Epsom salt bath as soon as I get home from classes this afternoon to help get rid of the lactic acid in my muscles. After every time I have this dream, it feels like I’ve run a dang marathon. My muscles stay sore for hours, and I usually have a hard time falling back to sleep.

I punch my pillow a few times to help it fluff back up, and then I close my eyes while I focus on my breathing.

Before long, a dreamless sleep finds me.