How Did You Know.
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Samara Frederiksen, Grade 8, Maleny State High School
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Short Story
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2015
Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition
I need oxygen, I can’t breathe, I’m drowning. Soon my chest will fill with water and my fight will be over, but it never is, because at that exact point, every night, I wake up.
Sweat runs down my cheek and my shirt sticks to my chest. I have been having this dream every night for the past month; no changes, just the exact same dream. I look at my clock, 4am, as always. Usually I’d go back to sleep, but today is different, I decide to get some fresh air.
I open the door quietly while looking behind me for signs of my mum. Nothing. Good. As I turn into the cool breeze of an autumn morning, I am shocked to see a boy, probably a year older than me standing, staring straight into my eyes. I slap my hand to my mouth covering the scream that tries to escape through the gaps in my fingers. I turn my back to him and run to the house, my heart racing out of my chest, I go to slam the door shut in front of him, but he slides his foot in the way. I turn and run into the sitting room, escaping the eyes that follow me.
“Maddi, wait.” I turn to him, my eyes glaring,
“How do you know my name?” I ask firmly.
“Maddi it’s Toby.” He looks at me, like I’m forgetting something. But I can’t answer, my head spins, my eyes go blurry, as I fall to the ground and see Toby running to catch me.
I wake up, with something wet pressed against my forehead, and the voices of my mum and Toby. As I sit up, with the pain of a killer headache, my mum rushes over to me and lays her hand on my head.
“Easy there tiger.” She jokes, as Toby comes walking over.
“Maddi, you’re awake.” he says smiling, but I have to lie back down. My head spins with memories, all ones that I didn’t actually remember until now, but it is all coming back to me. The days of just lying in those beautiful fields of flowers in spring, the first kiss and all the ones after that, and the accident, that caused my amnesia.
On a Sunday night with a bunch of friends, swimming in the dark in a lake near Toby’s house, laughing and having fun, but then the sound of my own scream as one of my friends jumps on me from the dock. Sinking deep into the water, my ears ringing from the depth, trying to scream but not seeing anybody come down to get me, until I go unconscious. This is why the dream always ends there. And the dreams weren’t dreams, they were memories. I remember Toby coming every day after that, explaining the accident again and again, but I never remember.
“I remember.” Toby walks over and hugs me as tears stain my cheeks. I remembered everything. On my own.