The Odd One Out

“I...I’d rather not talk about this...But well, a deal’s a deal. I used to get these nightmares every two days or so. Nowadays they’re...well, they’re not gone, per sé. They’re thinning out. I get them every month these days, and I couldn’t be happier. Well, obviously I’d be happier if I wouldn’t have them, at all. But...well, what can you do.”

“Right, right. The dreams. Look, the thing you have to understand it about it all is that the desperation...the despair, the fear makes you...do things. The dreams themselves were generally tame. Or rather, not directly hurtful or painful, as others. I’ve heard and read things about some dreams...they made you hurt, on and on, for what felt like years, all in the span of a short night. But my own dreams were nothing like that. They were real. Or well, realistic. That was the maddening thing about them. The first night I started having those dreams, it felp like just a stupid stuff a dormant subconscious would make up as you sleep. By the end of the week it began to turn frightening. There were...common elements, let’s say. Things that always stayed the same, or at least similar, every time. They were always in some familiar setting, something I’d see either the day before or a place I’ve spent a lot of time in. There were always paintings, of people and landscapes. But these paintings were never like anything I’d seen in my waking hours. The people in the portraits...I’ve met them all. I even saw you one night, some time ago. The paintings were of people I would meet in real life. And I would, invariably, meet them, at one point or another.”

“Then there were the situations. Like I said, it was all real. The experiences, the people, everything, stuff I had seen or went through in real life. From break-ups to family fights to work meetings, the dreams made me go through them again. But...there were always the paintings. And...and this one thing I’ve never figured out. The one thing that remained uniquely constant everywhere in my dreams. The odd one out. It was a person, invariably, but they’d...their face would never be clear. It was either hidden behind something or simply blurry, but it or they always watched me. Think of it like watching rewinds of your life, but every time there’s something out the corner of your eye, always present. Always standing still, seeming to stare straight at you. The first few times, this just seemed odd. Eventually, it became frightening. And the dreams just kept getting more and more...real.”

“This kept up until I was tired enough to not be able to distinguish between what was a dream and a reality. Until that thing watching me, the Odd One Out..God, what a stupid name...was getting closer by the dream. I kept my eye on it all throughout a week. The first night, it was maybe ten meters away, half-hidden behind an open door. The next, it was in open field, standing closer. And so on, until the last night, a Sunday, it was standing two paces away from me, arms stretched outwards. I remember the dream ended just when it was taking one more step towards me. That was the ‘breaking’ point for me. When I woke up, I felt so tired it felt like I was still dreaming and...well, as I said, that was the breaking point. It was a Thursday, the day before my sister’s birthday. I...was still scared from the dream, and jumpy. I had just taken a shower, I was supposed to take my sister to my parents’ house, the next town over. The...heh, that was so stupid...the bathroom mirror was fogged and blurry...Yeah, you know where this is going, don’t you? My sister, ever the silent wonder, came in without knocking. I saw this figure standing in the doorway with a blurry head and...I acted.”

“I grabbed some scissors I used for cutting my hair, still open wide and I sliced, scared as s**t. She died half an hour later, from blood loss. I cut open her neck and jugular without thinking. I hid her body in a cave close to the house, a cave in a forest with bears about. Then I set the house on fire. The next day I pretended not to know anything about her, or where she was, saying that I ran outside as the house caught fire, bit by bit. Being in the middle of nowhere, the firefighters took half an hour to arrive. The house was ashes by then. I told the police I hadn’t seen my sister since before the fire, but they didn’t find any charred corpse, other than her dog. Two weeks later they found her skeleton in a certain cave in the forest nearby. I was later told they suspected arson, but had no way to back it up. What can I say, my sister loved candles.”

“The week after...after that happened, I went back to work. The dreams kept on going, but...the Odd One Out was missing. It was missing until one day I dreamed about the day I killed my sister. After that, it came back, still lurking in my dreams, still being...there. It wasn’t the only time I killed. It happened at work, too. I forgot my glasses at my cubicle and I went to have a smoke. I was used to the way to the smoking room, so I didn’t notice my glasses were missing until I was looking for my pack and lighter. I always kept a switch-blade on me, ‘cause you never know. I was smoking merrily and someone came in. No glasses, everything blurry...again, I acted. Again the throat. This time I left whoever the poor sod was on the floor of the smoking room and ran. They caught me half an hour later, blood splatter all over my shirt.”

“You know what the weird thing is? I don’t remember any of this. I know it happened because I saw it in my dreams, later on. I don’t remember killing my sister, I don’t remember killing whoever it was in the smoking room. I just know it happened because I dreamed it. Or...did I dream it all and nothing really happened? Well, I suppose I must’ve done something wrong, or else I wouldn’t be in jail. Or well, in this straightjacket. I was told I jump at anyone that gets too close to me. It’s their fault, if that’s true. They should give me some glasses, so that I don’t see the Odd b*****d everywhere.”

Author's Note

Odd bastard here, Odd bastard there, Odd bastard everywhere.