Chapter 7: The Unwaking Dream

Chapter 7: The Unwaking Dream

Panic is a merciless fuel. It burned away thought, reason, and exhaustion, leaving only the singular, screaming command to run. Liam burst from the clearing into the lightless labyrinth of the forest, his legs pumping with a strength he didn't know he possessed. He didn't dare look back. He knew, with a certainty that was colder than the night air, that the broken, waterlogged version of himself was right behind him, its stolen knife held ready.

The woods that had been a place of quiet nostalgia just yesterday were now an actively malevolent entity. Gnarled roots, invisible in the dark, coiled like tripwires, trying to snatch his ankles. Low-hanging branches whipped at his face like skeletal fingers, clawing at his eyes. He ran blind, guided only by the faint memory of the path that led back to the small gravel lot where his car, his steel and glass escape pod, was parked. He could hear nothing over the thunder of his own heart and the ragged, tearing gasps of his own breath.

He stumbled, falling hard onto a bed of damp leaves, the impact forcing the air from his lungs. For a terrible second, he thought a hand had grabbed him. He rolled and scrambled back to his feet, a low whimper escaping his lips. He pushed on, his body a symphony of pain, his mind a white-hot nova of terror.

Then, through the trees, a flicker. A glint of moonlight on metal and glass.

The car.

A surge of desperate hope, so powerful it was almost painful, flooded his system. He broke through the final line of trees and staggered into the small, empty parking area. The car sat there, solid and real, a beautiful, mundane chariot promising salvation. His hand trembled violently as he jammed it into his pocket, his fingers fumbling for the keys. They were still there, right where he'd left them, a miracle in a night devoid of them.

The electronic chirp of the doors unlocking was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. He wrenched the driver's side door open, threw himself inside, and slammed it shut. He locked it. Then he locked it again. For a frantic moment, he just sat there, chest heaving, his forehead pressed against the cold steering wheel, the contained silence of the car a stark contrast to the wild terror of the woods.

He forced himself to look up. His gaze was drawn to the dark opening of the trailhead he had just burst from. And under the pale moonlight, it stood there.

The doppelgänger.

It was standing just at the edge of the woods, unmoving. It had not pursued him into the open. The stolen knife hung limply from its hand. Its two black, empty eye sockets were fixed on the car, on him. It wasn't angry. It wasn't threatening. It was just watching. A sentry at the border of its domain. It had let him go. The realization was not a comfort; it was a pronouncement. The game wasn't over. It was merely paused.

Liam didn’t wait for it to change its mind. His hands, slick with sweat, fumbled with the ignition. The engine roared to life, shattering the stillness. He slammed the car into reverse, spun the wheel, and stomped on the accelerator. Gravel spit from under the tires as he shot out of the parking area and onto the narrow dirt access road. He glanced in the rearview mirror just once. The figure was gone. The trailhead was empty, a dark, silent mouth.

The drive back to the city was a blur, a disjointed montage of dark roads, streetlights smearing past, and the constant, frantic thrum of adrenaline. He drove too fast, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his eyes constantly flicking to the mirror, expecting to see a bloated, dead face staring back at him from the backseat. He didn't turn on the radio. He couldn't bear the thought of any voice, even a stranger's, filling the car. The silence was safer.

Hours later, he was pulling into his designated spot in the concrete garage beneath his apartment building. The city was asleep. He killed the engine and sat in the sudden quiet, the ticking of the cooling engine the only sound. He was shaking uncontrollably. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His face was pale, scratched, and smeared with dirt. His eyes were wide and haunted. But they were his own.

Getting up to his apartment on the seventh floor was an exercise in slow-motion dread. Every shadow in the garage, every flicker of the hallway lights, was a new threat. But he made it. He unlocked the door to his apartment, stepped inside, and leaned back against it, the deadbolt clicking into place with a sound of profound finality.

He was home. The air smelled of stale coffee and laundry detergent. The beige walls were boring and beautiful. He was safe. The nightmare was contained, miles away, trapped at a cursed lake in the middle of nowhere. He stumbled through his living room, stripping off his fouled clothes as he went, leaving a trail of dirt and fear on his laminate flooring. He didn't shower. He didn't drink. He fell into his bed and the darkness that rushed up to meet him was absolute, a dreamless black abyss.

He awoke slowly, drifting up from the depths of an exhaustion so profound it felt like a death. His first conscious thought was of comfort. The familiar weight of his duvet, the softness of his pillow…

But something was wrong.

The air didn't smell like his apartment. It smelled of damp earth, of pine, of cold morning dew. The texture beneath him wasn't his memory foam mattress; it was the crinkling, synthetic fabric of his sleeping bag over the hard, unforgiving ground.

Denial, thick and syrupy, clogged his throat. No. It's a dream. I'm still asleep. This is the nightmare continuing.

He forced his eyes open.

The ceiling above him was not the familiar white plaster of his bedroom. It was the dark green, curved nylon of his tent.

A low, guttural sound of pure despair was torn from his soul. He sat bolt upright, his heart seizing in his chest. He was back. The roaring fire, the desperate escape, the frantic drive home—it had all been an illusion. A hallucination. An unwaking dream granted to him by the thing in the lake. He had never left.

He scrambled for the tent flap, his movements clumsy and panicked. He ripped it open and stared out at the morning-lit clearing. It was exactly as he had left it to make his mad dash to the car. The embers of the fire were grey and dead. His gear was still scattered. And the lake, Blackwood Lake, was still and glassy, reflecting the pale morning sky like a perfect, dark mirror.

He was trapped. This place was his prison, and the thing was his warden.

Then he saw it. Lying on the damp earth just outside the tent flap, right where the footprints had stopped. A small, white square.

With a trembling hand, he reached out and picked it up. It was an old Polaroid photograph, its colors slightly faded with age. The image showed a man and a young boy, grinning by the edge of this very lake. The man was his father, younger, healthier, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of a twelve-year-old Liam. It was from their last trip together. The last time everything had been right with the world.

A sob caught in his throat. He turned the photograph over.

On the back, written in black ink, were three words. The handwriting was neat, the loops and curves so familiar he could have written them himself. It was his own handwriting. A perfect, undeniable match.

See you soon.