Imprint (5 page)

And then w
ith a sudden jolt of memory
, that last image of himself lying in the hospital bed came back to him.

Maybe it had
just
been
a weird dream. He felt
a little calmer at the
thought, but waited until the voices from outsi
de the curtain had faded away
before attempting
to push himself up. He made it to his feet and tried to lean on the bed again. Except this time, something strange happened. He let out a gasp of shock as his arm slid
into
the bed. He stared, eyes wide
and horror sprouting inside of him from seeds of fear
, at his hand which had now
disappeared
into
the
covers. The top half of his arm
was still protruding from it.
For a terrifying second, t
he world spun and blurred in front of his eyes. He stumbled, nearly topplin
g over, but then he heard a
voice invading his chaotic thoughts.

“Just calm down and pull your arm out of
my
bed, would you?”

The words were
utterly surreal and Sean’s legs threatened to give out again when he realised that it sounded
like his
voice.
Exactly
like his voice.
He turned, still unable to s
peak, to the owner.
Propped up against the pillows was his own body; the same unruly dark hair, the same ashen skin, th
e same untidy eyebrows and
light freckles. There was only one big difference. Instead of his normal icy blue eyes, he found himself staring into two
identical
pools of dark
burgundy.

He was vaguely aware of sliding his hand out of the bed, not feeling anything at all, and then staring down at it in wonder. None of this felt real.
How could it be when he was having a staring match with himself and his hand had just phased into a solid object?

So he laughed at the absurdity of it all.

His laugh sounded crazed, even maniacal, to his own ears. This was certainly the strangest dream he had ever had, and the most vivid. His other self – his body, or whatever else he could call it – frowned from the bed in bemusement.

“What the hell’s so funny?” it as
ked, sounding affronted.

“This is all
just a nightmare, that’s it,” Sean
said, trying to convince himself
most of all. “None of this is even real.
I’ll
just force myself to wake up.”
He
raised
a hand, in an attempt to pinch himself awake. Yet w
hen his fingers literally passed
part way into his arm again, and he still could not feel anything solid, he began to get worried.

“It’s not going to work, don’t bother,” came
the unhelpful comment from his
body.

Of course this was going to work.
It was just a nightmare a
nd nightmares ended sooner o
r later, even the worst ones. Sean
turned back to the bed’s occupant, searching those unfamiliar eyes for answers. They were
still
amused, he noticed with some aggravation.

“What do you know?” he asked scathingly,
voice hoarse
. “You’re just a figment of my imagination, so either sa
y something useful or shut up.”
It was a strange experience, talking to his own body as though it were someone else.

“I know this must be hard for you to accept,” it said in a patronising tone. “But face it: this isn’t a nightmare, and
I’m certainly
not
any part of your
lacking imagination. Don’t insult me
.”

Sean glared. “Of course it’s
a nightmare, how else is any of this possible?”

“If you won’t listen to me and would prefer to spend the next few days trying to ‘wake yourself up’ then be my guest.”

Sean just ignored it. The room looked real,
it
looked real, but it was just a mind game
. He tried to pinch himself again, tried
to hit himself across the face
, but it was all in vain. Every time he tried he would never feel any physical contact whatsoever
and the hand would simply pass
through his skin. He became steadily mor
e agitated as his actions grew
urgent and reckles
s, until his hand began to pass
right through his arm and came out the other side looking no different.

Finally he s
topped and
close
d
his eyes, hoping that when he opened them again
he would have ‘woken up’. I
t
didn’t work
. He tried again and again, but seven tries later and nothing had changed. His head felt like it would burst. A surge of fear was clawing at his insides
like a caged animal
, threatening to rupture his chest.
He wanted to cry and
scream at the same time
. Most of all, he wanted to wake up. Except now he was starting to lose faith that he ever would. A part of him – the logical part – had an inkling that this might actually be
real
, but he couldn’t believe that.

“Why isn’t it working?” he cried out desperately.
“What’s going on? And…and
who are you?”

Finally
the amused grin
dimmed
. “This is my body
now,” it said
simply
. “I expelled y
ou from it.
Now I control it
,
and you’re just an I
mprint
. That’s all you need to know.”

Sean looked to the side, to see the heart monitor beeping. He looked to the bedside table, to see ‘get well soon’ cards in intricate detail and a pretty vase of daffodils. How could this be a
nightmare? When you’re dreaming
you’re not supposed to be consciously aware o
f it, he told himself.
Everything shouldn’t be in so much detail, everything shouldn’t seem so realistic.

He looked back into the eyes that weren’t his own, searching
for something. Whatever it was
he did not find it. Those eyes were deep and guarded, wearied yet still alight with a curiosity that he couldn’t pinpoint. They were too real to be a dream. All of it was.

And with that realisation, he welcomed the darkness back again for the second time.

Chapter 4:
C
’
est la vie.

Dark figures haunted his dreams
after that, dreams in which he was running blindly into miles of endless darkness while the shadows with their piercing burgundy eyes followed silently. It was worse than the previous dreams about the door. By the time he was consciously aware again, he could feel pure, untainted fear and adrenaline rushing through him and numbing his senses. A
lthough now that he thought about it
, his senses hadn’t been working much lately anyway.

He waited for
a
long while, eyes closed just because he was scared of what he might find if he opened them. Everything that he could remember last seemed like a dream; just a continuation of this endless nightmare that had been going on for far too long. But maybe if he just opened his eyes now…maybe it would be over. With this dashing hope, he gathered the last of his frayed nerves and cracked his eyelids apart.

The first thing he saw was grey; b
lank, stubborn grey that glared
back at him looking posit
ively ordinary. And then he noticed
s
omething small and barely noticeable
that marred
the blank grey. It was a
piece of mould, in the shape of a musical note, in the corner of what he realised now was a ceiling. Wait –
his
ceiling. Immediately he felt a wave of relief rush through him and sighed. Everything would be okay. He was awake now and back at home. Any minute his alarm would go off and he would hit the snooze button and slee
p for another ten minutes to make sure he was late for
school.

I
t never did.

When he realised this, some of the previous anxiety
and doubt
returned
.
Strangely enough
he
still
didn’t
feel any pain – or anything, for that matter. Shrugging this thought away
he
pushed
him
self
into a sitting position. He could
see his whole room from his position on the floor (the floor? Why wasn’t he on a bed?)
.
With a grimace he noticed someone had obviously attempted to tidy it and hadn’t done a very good job. They seemed to
have given up half way through. He stood up, managing to maintain his balance, and inspected the room. When h
e noticed something – or more precisely someone – lying in what was supposed to be
his
bed however, the recent memories suddenly returned full force an
d he stumbled backwards
in shock, straight onto a piece of mouldy toast.

He s
tared at the figure in the bed
, his head pounding
erratically and sudden anticipation coursing through his body. He could remember it all clearly now – everything that had happened in the hospital, the fact that his arm had phased through a
solid object
and
that he’d
had a conversation with
himself.
If Sean didn’t already have
experience
with new and
frightening
situations such as these,
he would have screamed. Hell, he was still considering that po
ssibility. But
despite the fact that no one was even around to see his loss of composure, he refused to give in to every single one of his senses which told him to run. So he stayed there, rooted to the
spot
, and simply stared.

In the end, he
took to
subconsciously wringing his hands in desperation.
He didn’t
know how long he stood there, simply watching and waiting for something to happen, but he was surpris
ed to find that his legs didn’t
ache with tiredness, h
is head didn’t throb anymore
, and dammit why could he still not feel his limbs?
A
glimpse at
the alarm clock beside the bed told him that it was quite late, nearly eight in the evening. Would Hayden still be around? At this time, he was normally
out with his large collection of equally abnormal friends, or at parties. Recently he had grown accustomed to scaling the house and bringing a small telescope with him up onto the roof, to observe the stars. Mother would just be starting her night shift at the 24 hour corner shop.
She got a higher salary for taking the night shift.

Suddenly
a barely audible yet clearly a
nguished moan came from the bed
and dark
eye
lashes fluttered
. Sean
held his breath, waiting for other signs of movement. That came a few minutes later in the form of anothe
r twitch of the eyelids, which
opened to reveal those same eyes which
had
haunted his nightmares.
They were wearied, he noted
, and bloodshot.
There was
a piercing sense of emptiness
about them
. Slowly, the
head lolled to the side with
a
soft hiss
of pain
. The eyes,
exhausted and
out of place, flittered across Sean briefly before closing again as though deciding that he was not worth their time.

“I forgot what physical pain is like, after all these years you know,”
it
murmured in a
coarse
, raspy voice.

“What do you mean?”

“The
bruising is
pretty bad
, but luckily noth
ing’s broken. It’s the head injury that knocked you out for so long.”

“I don’t mean that,” Sean snarled, raising his voice in aggravation.
“E
xplain. Who are you? What’s happening? Why am I here and you…there?”