Chapter Two

Landon Matthews is coming to grips with his most recent nightmare.

 

             When his eyes opened, he half-expected to see prison bars or a padded wall surrounding him, enclosing him. At first, all he saw was darkness, and that scared him more than any cell or institution. His eyes adjusted though, and he was faced with familiar eggshell walls. He had been meaning to paint them for so long, but it seemed like a waste of time recently. Everything had become a waste of time recently. It took him a moment to realize that his body was shrouded in sweat, and another moment after that one to realize he had stopped breathing along the way. His stomach twisted in knots, and he threw the blue quilt off his body and ran down the hallway to the bathroom, where, when he opened his mouth to gasp for breath, vomit poured out.

            When his eyes opened a second time, he felt as though he had been beaten to an inch of his life and then struck with the electric paddles – about six times in a row. His chest hurt, his neck was so stiff he was unsure if he could move without medical assistance, and his throat burned as though he had been doing shots of acid all night. He blinked several times, attempting to get his bearings, and fought against the brightness of the morning. At least, he thought it was morning. He mustered up some courage and moved his head to the right, and his eyes fell on the familiar sight of the white porcelain base of the toilet bowl. Memories of the night before came suddenly rushing to him – the dream, the running, the throwing up in the toilet. He could remember the days when he only threw up during a bout with the flu or on the rare occasion he had drank too much. He never thought he’d long for those days. And here he was, doing just that.

            He pulled himself up as though he were doing a sit-up, although as accomplished this he realized two things: one, he was a bit lightheaded – probably because he didn’t eat anything last night – and two, he needed to use his elbows to give himself a hoist. He used the sink to pull himself up and stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He blanched at his appearance and turned away before he felt another tug in his stomach. The shower head felt cool in his hand as he turned on the water, and his fingerprints were fossilized on the steel as he jumped in, only to jump back out. He was in such a hurry to escape the man in the mirror that he had forgotten to undress.