000 - Birth Dream
Birth Dream:
Gunshots peppered the air, loud and sharp, and she felt her body jolt with each one, simply from the sheer impact of the sound. Five gunshots, a cloud of dust, a line of silver circles in the wall. She reached out her hand, long and slender and pale, and her fingertips brushed the first bullet embedded in the wall, the pad of her thumb finding the base of the bullet strangely rough. Leaning in, she squinted, trying to make out the markings on the bullet. It looked like a letter. N?
She stepped to the side, peering at the next bullet. I. The next two bullets had K engraved in the base, and then another I. N-I-K-K-I. Who was Nikki?
The wall whorled away, red and blue lights making her squint as they penetrated the damp, rainy darkness of the sudden night. Her hands were clenched, a painful knot in her throat, and she felt arms encircle her shoulders as the squeaking sound of gurney wheels on sidewalk rattled in her ears, a clattering din like the clamor of dry bones. Someone was crying--was she the one crying? Or was it the man whose arms were around her shoulders? She craned her neck to watch the gurney roll away, pushed into a waiting ambulance by faceless men in uniforms, and the red and blue lights blurred together.
Four more gunshots, and she jumped again, startled by each one. The comforting arms of the man were gone, replaced instead by the feel of a heavy vest, pressing firmly against her chest and back, somehow soothing in its weight. There was a woman standing in front of her, on the other side of an autopsy table, her dark eyes bright with worry and her curly black hair moving surreally around her face as she spoke, but no sound came from her mouth. She shook her head, then gestured to a quartet of bullets on the table between them. W-I-L-L, the engravings read. Was that another name? Or was it meant to go with the first message? Nikki will...? Nikki will what?
The dark-skinned woman with the worried eyes and curly hair turned and waved her hand, as if beckoning to someone behind her, and she lifted her head. Three blurry figures appeared, as if obscured by sheer curtains. They were men, that was apparent from their silhouettes, but she couldn't see their faces. Two of them lifted their hands in casual waves, and the third moved forward, drawing his hand across as if to move the curtain of concealment aside. The shifting silvery obfuscation lifted away, leaving a single, crisp silhouette in a sudden darkness. She couldn't see his face, but his shoulders were broad, his head tilted slightly, and there was a smile in his presence somehow. He held out one hand, a small white coffee cup in his grasp, and she reached for it. She brushed the ceramic cup, and the man's other hand reached forward and closed over her hand, but as soon as she looked up to try and see his face, he was gone, and she was looking in the vanity mirror over a bedroom bureau. Her short dark hair was pulled back and clipped, damp, stray strands framing her face. The coffee cup in her hand was replaced now with a woman's ring on a slender silver necklace, and she peered at it a moment, the bleary light of the bedroom catching the facets of the stone in the ring and reflecting tiny rainbows on her palm.
She pulled open a drawer in the bureau and placed the ring inside, on the soft lining of the drawer. Then she twisted her wrist to unfasten the broad leather band of a watch she wore, placing it in the drawer as well. Her cellular phone rang, and she turned, reaching to answer it.
"Hello?"
"It wasn't him!" a man's frantic voice came, crackled and out of breath from the other end.
Four more gunshots rang through the air, the phone falling from her grasp as she jumped, startled by the sound. There was dust in the air, and she spied four familiar silver circles embedded in the wall of her apartment. Stooping to retrieve the phone, she approached the wall, narrowing her eyes a bit to try and make out the engravings. There was a B...
"He's not the killer!" the voice on the phone shouted, thin and strained and worried.
U...
"The killer's still alive!" She frowned at the phone, at the man's frenzied words.
R...
"The killer's still alive!"
N. ...Burn. Nikki will...burn?
There was a strange sound then, three short beeps, like a microwave finishing its cycle, and she looked down at the phone again, bringing it to her ear.
beep beep beep.
"Goodbye, Nikki," came a very different voice across the line.
Boom.