Beach Update “Eyes in the Mirror”

“I didn't really think that there was anything strange about it until I talked to your coworker the other day. She said that she had dreams too, and showed me some of the drawings she had done. When she told me that you have trouble with sleep too, I just couldn't pretend anymore.

Almost every night I dreams about the beach.

The seas are stormy and there is a cold rain falling from the sky. I look out, and I feel a tug, like something out there is trying to get me to come into the water. Sometimes I simply sit there on the beach, looking out at the water, a jacket and a note I cannot read sitting next to me. Other times I feel as if I am being dragged across the sand, trying desperately to stop myself.

But there is no stopping it. Not when all you have to grab is sand.

I hear it. It is calling to us. Calling to me, and it is calling to you. Or maybe it is something else. But we are all feeling it. I know we are. We all know it inside, but none of us really want to admit it. If we admit it, then we are accepting a truth that is far more horrible than we have any real way of understanding.

Sometimes I end up in the water, and the breath leaves me immediately as the cold waters pulse and foam around me. And as the surf and the water shifts and flows and retreats and grows, I see in the distance something in the water. There is something in the water.
There is something in the water, it is calling to me. And when it does, it does in my head. It reaches out to me, and I am not drowning. I am breathing, breathing in a way that I have never breathed before. My mind swirls with so many voices. There is so much joy there. I know there is. But I pull away. Some part of me pulls away.

And then I am drowning again, but I know that drowning is better than what it wishes to take. It looks and it pierces into me, sweeps me off my feet and feeds me all manner of stories, trying to entice me, trying to sate my need to understand.

But I do understand. I know if I let go it will consume me. And when it does, there will be no me anymore. There will be it. Only it. And nothing else. It is legion.

It is legion.

I am so scared, and I don't know who I can trust. Can I trust you?

I have to be able to trust you. If not you, then who is left?

I see its eyes. I see its eyes. I see its eyes.

I see its eyes.

Oh gods...I looked in the mirror this morning and I screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed. Because I looked in the mirror. I was awake this time. I know I was awake, and because I was awake I knew I had to reach out to you. I had to find someone who wouldn't think I am crazy, because that is how this feels.

It is how it feels for all of us.

We are legion.

I looked in the mirror this morning, and I screamed.

Because I saw eyes. So many eyes. Red like blood, piercing into me. Calling out to me. From my head. Into my head. It is there. It has always been there.

It is in my head!

Please...

Please. Please tell me that everything will be alright, that I am not going insane.

Please tell me about your dreams.”

No...

This can't be right. It just can't. But I know that to fight against it is to be foolish, to be accepting ignorance, setting myself up for destruction. Setting us up for destruction.

Her first name didn't really come up the first time we met. Officers don't really use their first names, but now that I have talked to her on several occasions I know that she is the same.

I've known for a long time that it was strange that I knew so many people named Niomi: you, the coworker who's a student, me...

The officer.

We all share the same first name.

We all have trouble with sleep, with dreams, and a feeling that has been with us since birth.

And you...

You dream too. Not the same dreams as the rest, but all of us have dreams that feel less like a dream and more like a calling. And I don't know why. Living here, in this place, it would be more odd for these connections to be simply coincidence wouldn't it? For us to have these things that line up, for us to all connect with one another at this time, and have it be nothing but strange circumstances.

Maybe this really is nothing but coincidence. But then why do I know that it isn't, why have I known from when we first started talking that there was a connection. Not the sort of connection that comes from finding someone with similar life experiences. We certainly live different lives.

And there are the dreams, and there is the trouble sleeping, and there is a calling that seems to be trying to reach out to us all in our own way.

I've felt pulled to the museum, to the smell of it, and to be there is to feel a peace that I know I've been looking for. And the student, she dreams about something looking to draw her away.

I've felt the calling ever since I was little. The costume...I always just thought it was me being strange, that I was trying to spread the fear of childhood, to gain control. But those things that smell of ink and sewage. I know they are real now, and if they are real then what really does that mean?

What does all this mean?

I want you to be able to help me with this, but I know it is so hard to do when you are so far away. I miss you, even though I have never gotten to see you in person. But right now, I could use your company.

Her dreams are getting worse. The student I mean. I've had to adjust my medication, and I have heard from the officer that things are not right with her as well.

But you seem okay, aren't you?

If there is something to it, then I think I can find it, and when I do maybe I will finally be able to feel connected again.

To my body and to my world.

But you haven't been dreaming lately, which means maybe this really is nothing. But I need to treat this like it isn't. I need to explore this and find out what I can.

But...

There is one more thought that bothers me. We four aren't the only ones I have known named Niomi.

I share my mom's name.

She always had the worst headaches, and I always assumed I got my issues with sleep from her.

Maybe it is nothing...

I have to look.

I'll talk to you soon.

Are you dreaming and not telling me?