Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
At least she had gotten a room of her own out of it, Torri thought dolefully. Everyone else in the Non-Violent Ward had to share, but nobody wanted to share with a maniac who screamed herself awake at least once—sometimes two or three times a night.
Torri sighed as she looked at herself in the tarnished metal plate bolted to the communal women’s restroom wall that served as a mirror. The Non-Violent Ward was mostly filled with people who were more interested in hurting themselves than others, but you couldn’t have patients committing suicide. So there was no glass anywhere that could be broken and used to cut your wrists. Likewise, no shoestrings, belts, or anything else you might use to hang yourself. The silverware consisted of plastic sporks with tiny tines too short and blunt to poke into a leaf of lettuce—(eating salad, when it was served, was a struggle)—let alone stab yourself or anyone else with.
The cloudy image in the metal wall plate mirror showed a woman with messy, wavy hair in a black cloud around her face and tired brown eyes with dark, bruised-looking circles beneath them. Torri was only thirty, but she felt like she looked much older.
She had always struggled with her weight but she was much plumper now than when she’d been admitted. She’d only been here, eating the institutional food for two and a half months, (or was it three now?) and already she’d gained weight. Chuck would probably barely recognize her…if he ever came to visit. But her dear husband had been MIA for the last two months—it was like he’d stuck her in here and forgotten about her.
Torri stared at her messy reflection in dismay. Could it be that only three months ago she’d been a successful, well-adjusted woman in a reasonably happy marriage, thriving in her career, and happy with her life choices? Was it really only three months ago that she’d been free, living in the outside world? What had happened to her?
She’d been the branch manager of a bank and Chuck was a Government Information Specialist, climbing the ladder at the Dept. of Justice. They weren’t exactly a power couple, but they weren’t far from it either. And if they didn’t always see eye-to-eye and their marriage wasn’t everything Torri had hoped it would be—(there were still no kids, because Chuck wanted to wait)—well, it was still pretty good and it was stable—which was what mattered the most.
Then the Seeing Dreams had started in the forms of fugues during the day—little seconds and minutes of lost time. She had first seen the alien spaceship as a blip in her mind’s eye in the middle of a presentation at work. The vision had caused her to stumble over her words, losing her train of thought for a moment. But then she’d picked right back up and gone on, telling herself to ignore what had to be just a weird, one-time occurrence.
But it had happened again the next day, while she was pouring herself a cup of coffee from the break room coffee pot. Hot coffee had overflowed her mug and flooded the floor as Torri stood there, eyes wide, seeing nothing but a terrifying vision of a black alien ship coming towards Earth.
To her coworkers, it looked like she had poured coffee all over the floor on purpose. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but Torri was afraid to explain what was going on—what she had seen—for fear that people would think she was crazy.
Which is exactly what they thought, in the end, she thought bleakly, staring into the metal mirror again. No matter how hard I tried to hide it.
The fugue states had gotten worse—longer—and the visions had gotten more vivid and more frightening. After nearly causing an accident when she blanked out for a moment while driving home, Torri had started taking Ubers and Lyfts to and from work every day. She told Chuck that she wanted more time to work—that she was doing paperwork during the morning and evening commute. But since they only lived twenty minutes from her bank, it was a lame excuse and she knew it.
Still, Torri had clung to it—the same way she clung to her sanity—or tried to. But everything had come crashing down the night she had the first night terror.
The first time she had seen the glowing red eyes of the AllFather and heard him tell her in his hissing voice that he had “plansss for Earth” she could no longer keep from telling someone she trusted what was happening.
Only it turned out, maybe she shouldn’t have trusted him.
“And you think these…aliens you’re seeing in your dreams are real?” Chuck had asked, raising his eyebrows in disbelief after shaking her awake for the first time.
“I know they are.” Torri had made a effort to choke back the sobs that tried to close her throat—had attempted to talk rationally. “Chuck, I’ve been seeing them for weeks now! Seeing their ships, headed for Earth. We’re all going to be in really big trouble if we don’t do something!”