The Fear of Stonneville

Chapter 1 Buried In Silence

I dream it again. That day. That terrible, incomprehensible day, etched into my mind like a scar on raw flesh. It rises, unbidden, from the depths of my subconscious—an ancient thing, slumbering until it is not. The dream coils around me, a serpent of memory, its hiss filling the silence of my soul. It is unrelenting. Why must I endure it, over and over again? I never meant for it to happen. I swear I didn’t. And yet, my intentions were nothing against the vast, uncaring design of what came to pass.

There is no escaping it. The dream grows darker, more insidious, each time I succumb to its pull. The day festers in my mind, an infection that will not heal. Why were we so cruel to him? Why did we mock what we did not understand? Why did we treat him like a thing—an aberration—when he was just a boy?

The questions fester like wounds, but no answers come. Only guilt. A guilt that presses on my chest like an iron weight. Is this my punishment, to carry this torment alone? Do the others even remember? Do they feel it like I do, or have they buried it beneath their laughter and lives? Am I the only one haunted?

The dream pulls me deeper still, and I see us again—laughing, running, without a care in the world. Lizzie’s voice rings out like a distant echo, her hand tugging at mine. “Come on, Linda, let’s go!” she says, her smile as bright as the sun above. Rachael races ahead, her hair a banner in the wind. Chives lags behind, mumbling something half-formed, as he always did. Lizzie’s twin, Trent, sticks close, his protective nature as steady as the earth beneath our feet. Michelle’s confidence blazes like a torch as she and Creg take the lead. We were a pack, bound by the simplicity of childhood. A fleeting joy, poisoned by what came next.

And then there was Chase. Always Chase. The outlier, the other. His ginger hair caught the sun in a way that should have been beautiful, but we chose not to see it. His maroon hoodie hung loose on his small frame, a shield against our cruelty. And that mark—the scarlet Y etched into his flesh, a grotesque symbol we could not understand. We made him a monster in our minds, an effigy for our fear and ignorance.

I scream at the memory, but it does not hear me. “Stop!” I beg. “Don’t chase him into the park! Don’t follow him to the construction site!” But my pleas are swallowed by the dream, as they always are. The scene unfolds with a sickening inevitability. Chase stumbles, his small figure trembling as he looks back at us—at me. There is terror in his eyes, and something else, something that sees through me, as if he knows I cannot save him. As if he knows the dream will always end the same.

The construction worker yells. We scatter, cowards that we are. And then, the sound. A grinding, mechanical roar that vibrates through the ground and into my bones. The cement truck. I know what comes next, but I cannot stop it. Chase is swallowed by the churning gray, his cries lost in the chaos.

Ten years have passed, and yet the dream has grown stronger, more relentless. Every night, it drags me back, forces me to relive it. Is it guilt? Or something deeper, something unknowable, clawing at the edges of my understanding? We told no one, kept it buried like Chase himself. And yet, I feel as if the secret has its own life, its own hunger. I wish I knew the truth. But perhaps the truth is worse than the dream.