56 Nightmares

I wake in my bed with a gasp, only greeted by the warmth of my own body rather than the one I had expected to find beside me. Sunlight is streaming in and I blink my eyes a few times while I calm down from the shock. Sweat has beaded above my brow and hairline, and my heartbeat rate is elevated, both being the only leftover and tangible proof of the nightmare I was just pulled from.

The nightmares are always the same in the sense that they play out my parents' death, but sometimes smaller details change.

This time I killed them.

The storm has passed, but tries that were struck by lightning are still smoldering in the distance. Although they were crushed by the rocks, my parents survived the landslide and were calling to me. I walk towards them slowly, my footsteps heavy in the thick mud.

Drip.