That’s also when I began to notice that there were scratches on the walls, deep gouges in the paint that told me that my dreams weren’t entirely captive in my imagination.
When I told my parents about the dreams, they came to the same conclusion that I had – the curse was coming for me, and they had to prepare.
They never left me alone after that. My mother became my constant companion. She sat in my room with me while I watched TV, worked on homework. After a few days, she stopped letting me go to school – she wanted to keep me home until this whole ordeal was over, whenever that was.
The worst part about it, though, was that they didn’t let me see Max anymore.
My dad took care of him most of the day. He would take him out exploring in the woods near our house. There was a swimming hole somewhere out there and Max absolutely adored swimming. He was damn good at it, too. Dad kept him out of the house as much as possible while my mother guarded me obsessively. It hurt that they didn’t want me near Max, but I couldn’t blame them. After all, what if I somehow infected him with my bad luck?
So I kept to myself. I let my mom move a bed into my room and sleep next to me each night. I tried not to sleep too much so my screams wouldn’t disturb her. I lived in a hell that I couldn’t keep private – it was affecting my whole family.
I prayed day and night that somehow it would change. I wanted Max to live a normal life… even if that meant I was going to have to give up mine.
It happened about two weeks after I first woke up screaming.
A slight sound roused me from sleep at about three in the morning. I glanced over to see that my mother was still sleeping soundly next to me. I noticed with shame that she had dark circles under those eyes. I’m the cause of that, I thought.
But then the sound floated up to me again and my attention was drawn away from my mother.
