6:27 am

Summer stared bugged eye at the shivering man the table. The look on his face was hard to describe. His eyes were glazed but his mouth was set to a scream. His expression was one of horror but yet, as if nothing was happening to him, as if he was watching a movie.

“Doctor Cassidy?” Summer asked nervously. She slowly approached the man. Suddenly he gasped for air and shut his eyes. He began breathing heavily. She walked towards him again and noticed there was a large brown-purple spike that ran into his back, pinning him against the table.

“Doctor Cassidy?” Summer repeated again, softly, scared and confused. “Is that you?”

The man on the table certainly looked her father’s friend. He was a tall bespectacled man in his late thirties, with greying brown hair. He and his wife were always over at her house for dinner. He always greeted her with a smile. His glasses were smashed and barely hanging on to his ears and nose. He was wearing a lab coat, as he was wont to do. He always forgot to take it off after he left his lab. The coat was stained with drying blood and purple ooze.

Aside from his breathing, he wasn’t moving.

“Doctor?” Summer said, slightly more quiet than she did before, getting quite close to him. Summer started to panic.

What should I do? He’s still breathing, he must be alive, but there’s a… spike in him. No, you should never take out something out of a person, it could be keeping the bleeding in check and keeping him alive… daddy taught me that.

The man on the table stirred a little. Summer jumped backwards. She was too much on edge.

“Doctor?” she said. “It’s me Summer. Are you…”

Saying “are you okay” would be the most stupidest thing what with the spike coming out of him. A spike. Ow, ow, ow, ow. That doesn’t look good.

She paused for a second trying to figure out what to say. She bit down on the nail in her thumb, thinking hard. Suddenly, there was a small noise from behind her. It sounded like someone light footed landing on the floor after jumping.

There was a cough and then someone from behind her said “I’ve been hearing your screams from the hallway.”

Summer spun around so quickly she nearly tripped over her own feet. She recognised the voice of the speaker.

It was the same one that belonged to the man with the spike in his chest.

“Hello Summer, fancy seeing you here. Did you come after football practice again? Sorry you have to be in the epicentre of this.” He sighed. “You really shouldn’t be here.”

“I… didn’t scream,” Summer blurted out after a pause. She didn’t know what else to say what else to do.

“You didn’t? Oh. Well I’ve been hearing screams anyway. I thought it might have been you. I don’t know who else is out there now anyway.”

The man was standing in the shadows, hidden close to the bookshelf. He pointed to the figure of himself on the desk.

“That spike thing you are seeing? It feeds from me, you know? It’s living through my nightmares. Is this one of them you might be thinking? It might be... Who knows? When you dream you don’t really know you are dreaming. Unless it is lucid of course. Don’t wake me up though. Because if you do, all I’ll ask you to do is for you to kill me and I wouldn’t want to put you through that.”

Summer looked at the figure on the desk and back to the one in the shadows. She was frozen in between unsure what to do.

“Come closer into the shadows. I would like to make sure you are okay. I want to take a look at you. You don’t have anything dangling on you do you? That’s how they get you at first. Let me check.”

Summer shook her head and stepped backwards a little. “Um.. sorry, I ergh…”

The man sighed. “Summer please, don’t be daft. You know me. I go to your house for dinners. I don’t know how much time I have left until the other me wakes up. Please listen to me, I just want to make sure you are okay. If this was a regular day I would wake up once the sunlight hits my face and I don’t think I’ll have… oh… I’m waking up.”

From behind her, Summer heard a scream. Her hairs stood up on end as she twisted herself to see the man on the table.

He was screaming, his face contorted with pain. He was drooling. His eyes were opened and they were bloodshot. He stared at her and screamed and screamed.

When the screaming died down he looked at her and begged.

“Please. Please kill me.” 

Behind her she heard a fleeting whisper of "I told you so..." fade away into nothing.