III.

My name is Mary. And I can dream.

I didn't cry when they showed him to me. And for one, brief moment I thought it was all a big mix-up, some mangled, brown-blue mannequin they had mistaken for a person. For my Liam.

I wanted it to be someone else. Anyone else. I wanted to reach through the glass and fix his stained tie. I wanted to feel his warm, rough hands in mine and his stubble graze my cheek. Instead I nodded and signed the form.
They handed me a paper bag of his things and when I looked up again Liam was gone, lost in a room of white sheets and unspoken shapes.

I didn't cry. Not at the hospital, not on the bus back to our tiny, silent house and not when I opened the bag. Exhausted and drained like everyone else I thought I would cry the whole way home. Instead I sat at the kitchen table with what was left of him; his letter, his battered wallet and his keys.

Had he been any different that morning? I remember his eyes over the rim of the glass. I remember him watching me swallow my Myclocin then kissing my forehead. I remember thinking how solemn a kiss on the forehead was. I stared at his keys. Wondering why he took them if he had planned to do what he did. They loomed in size, my exhausted brain picturing them in his hands, in his pockets, as he stood in line waiting to jump, his suit jacket whipping in the wind-

A shuffling step in the corner of the room. The sound of lips smacking, teeth being licked and I snapped awake. The house sat in darkness, my skin cold and bunched into goose bumps. In my grief and exhaustion I'd almost fallen asleep. A shadow in the corner of the kitchen fluttered briefly into the shape of one of Them, grinning, retreating, waiting. Then it was gone.

I turned on all the lights in the kitchen, the hallways, the front room, afraid to go upstairs alone. And then and the tears came. But not the sad, sobbing, wailing tears I'd expected. They were blistering tears of rage while I roared at Them to come out of the walls and into the light. I spat, I swore, I flung plates and cups and knives into the walls.

This time last year someone would have called the police. A bewildered neighbour would have ran to the door. Instead the silence bloomed over the fragments of porcelain, dented spoons, cracked paint.

The tears stopped but the rage didn't. It was rage that led me to do what I did, not anger. Anger passes by like a sudden ocean storm that can't hold its own shape. Rage changes you though. I didn't take the pill that night, instead I lay on the sofa instead trying to will sleep to come. To take me to them.

I didn’t sleep. And by the time the sky outside started to lighten I had a plan, stumbled back into the kitchen and took my pill. Alone.

I experimented. I dissolved the pill and watered it down time and time again. Edging closer and closer to that thick membrane between sleep and dreams. Anyone can lucid dream. It just takes persistence and training.
Physical cues like pinching yourself only work if you've already realised you're asleep. Instead I asked myself throughout the day 'is this a dream?'. I read everything I could aloud; street signs, shop names, the sides of vans. Words in a dream are fluid. Start reading in a dream and sentences start to shift and melt.

I trained my mind instead of grieving for Liam and his broken body. And while I trained I experimented with the Myclocin, dissolving, diluting, measuring. I kept myself busy, I had a plan, my poor husband was gone but I had a plan.

My first lucid dream was a week ago. Me waist deep in the old family swimming pool before my dad filled it in to build his garage.

My hands played with the scattered summer sunlight on the water's surface, the sound of the chlorinated water slapping the tiled edges as I waded across, trying to get to the other side. To Liam. He sat on the lounger, shorts, Bermuda shirt and straw hat. A get up I had never seen him wear before. My dream had stolen it from a random memory to implant it here.

He was reading, looked up, waved and went back to his book. I tried to see what, for some reason relieved that he’d actually been gone all this time because he’d been so engrossed with whichever book it was. Sorry babe, time slipped away from me.

I read 'The Great-'before the gold letters on the front curled and flexed maddeningly in some unseen air current. In my excitement and realisation I almost woke myself up, instead I concentrated on the smell of the chlorine, the sound of the water, the warmth of the sunlight on my bare shoulders.

They came then. They hissed and splashed behind me, eagerly thrashing in the water trying to get to me. Their long, grey clawing water droplets into the sunlight. I tried to go faster, half swimming, half wading, slow, oh so slow, the water now as thick as a paste. I cried out to Liam but he was far away, reading, unconcerned.

I turned, one of Them almost within reach. Its gaping mouth open, pool water draining out of the holes where its eyes should be, its tongue lolling in excitement.

I stopped struggling and concentrated, felt my skin wrinkle and dry, the bones in my fingers popping and creaking until they were as long as Theirs. My vision darkened, narrowed as I made myself look like one of Them, the sounds of their oncoming slobbering in my ears then-

Liam was gone. I stood on the edge of the pool, now empty and full of dead autumn leaves. They were on the opposite side of the now empty pool, ignoring me. Their long, grey fingers testing the air. They chittered to each other. In anger? In annoyance?

Between them a door I had never seen before folded into view. Black and white and alien, it opened and they walked through.
And after I moment, I did too.

[Part three; i just wanted to say a massive 'thankyou' to everyone that took the time to comment, message me and even create based on this. If I could give you all Gold I would. Instead I'm sending diamonds (check your post).