6 – Scrapbooking

She ran inside the house, darted up the stairs and into her room, slamming her door in the process. She punched the wall, then woke her computer from standby, killed the music player and the windows she had left open – everything was redundant. Everything could wait. She opened the search engine and punched in the word she wanted to research. A few clicks later, and she had a photo of the Ruger revolver, along with a description easy enough for her to understand.

After printing her findings, she crouched in front of her desk and opened the bottom drawer. Covered by a large amount of random items – bouncy balls, pens, slinkies, hair clips, light bulbs, and batteries – was a dark blue scrapbook. Wrapped in its shiny plastic foil, it looked brand new.

She removed the foil and flipped through more pages of content than she would have liked, until she reached a clean one. Taking a deep breath, she ran her fingers over the white paper, as if asking for permission, then pulled out a small box of utensils and found a comfy spot on the floor to settle down in.

'Sunday, September 19th' she wrote in blue ink. 'Russian Roulette.'

The image from the previous page stared at her – a black Mercedes, entry dated Thursday, September 2nd. Next to the date, she had stuck a round, purple sticker. It was a recurrent nightmare. She gave a shudder, then grabbed her old teddy bear off her bed. The fluffy animal gave her a feeling of security, so she set it on her lap and began cutting the photo of the Ruger out of the sheet of paper.

A short knock came from the door.

'What do you want?'

The door opened, and Chad walked in, carrying her garment bags.

'You left these in the car.'

'Yeah, thanks.' she mumbled. She tossed the bear back on the bed, got on her feet, took the bags from him, and proceeded to put everything in their designated places.

'I still think your room is absurdly tidy,' he said, leaning against the door frame. She snorted, not sparing him a glance.

'Ok, I'm sorry.'

'That's a start,' she mumbled.

'I shouldn't have nagged you. You know what you're doing, it's your sport, not mine.'

'And...?'

'And I'll drop your hip problem.'

'Thank you.'

He crossed the distance to the scrapbook and crouched beside it.

'So that's the Ruger from your dream?'

She glanced at him, then at the picture of the gun, then returned her attention to hanging her exhibition dress in the closet.

'Yeah, an A .357 Magnum, Blued Ruger Blackhawk, with adjustable sights, and a 4 5/8" barrel.'

He stared at her for a moment, then took a seat on the floor.

'How many times did you rehearse saying that?'

She shot him a glare.

'I told you it was familiar. It's almost...' she sighed and bowed her head, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion. 'Almost a natural thing to say.'

He suppressed a shudder and began to flip through her scrapbook, encountering her narrations of nightmares, along with drawings, photos, and other things that helped illustrate them. A page caught his attention, and he took a long moment to appraise it carefully. She had drawn a large dark silhouette, and another, smaller one in front of it, most likely running away from the first. He could tell it was her most horrifying nightmare so far, judging by the blood that stained the paper, mingled with the layers of graphite.

Small hands took the scrapbook from him, and he jumped at the intrusion.

'There must be a pattern.' she said coolly, flipping back to the page she was working on. 'Something connecting all of them. And it has got to do with... whatever it is that I am.'

Chad gave a small sigh and stopped himself before attempting to argue with her. No use telling her she was human when she wasn't. Carefully planned stories had made others believe it. She, however, didn't believe it. He didn't believe it either.

'You need to get some sleep.'

She shook her head.

'Not before I finish this. The memory won't be as fresh later as it is now. I want to get every detail. And...'

She paused, bit her lip, and flipped back to various pages, all marked by a round, purple sticker.

'And you're hoping it won't become a recurrent nightmare.'

She nodded.

'You can't imagine what it's like to put a gun to your head willingly, and pull the trigger willingly, and not know if you'll live or die.'

He watched as her hand gripped an invisible revolver and brought it to her head, her finger twitching in the spot in which the trigger was supposed to be located – and the whole image troubled him deeply. Reaching over to his sister, he took her hand, and she seemed to snap out of a trance.

'Hurry up with the scrapbook then. You really need some sleep.'

She pushed her hair behind her pointed ears, letting her hand linger a little behind her right ear, over the place where he knew was her tattoo.

'And what if I dream again?'

'Let's hope you won't. And if you will, just call me. I'll be in my room.'

She nodded somewhat uneasily, and he smoothed her hair.

Standing, he took another look at her. She ran her fingers over her angel-shaped pendant, then resumed working on the new page in her book of nightmares. He backed quietly out of her room, and shut the door to give her privacy.

'I hope you'll be able to keep her together,' he mumbled to the empty space in front of him. 'Because I'm not doing a very good job at it.'