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Narcissus

Delvon T. Mattingly

    A man murdered my ex, Gwen, every night in my dreams. As I pursued the man, I would wake up drenched in sweat—blood escaping my palms, starting at the tips of my fingernails—right before he revealed his face.
    Gwen and I didn’t talk much. I texted her every morning and would not hear back for days. She often posted on social media. It never confirmed she’s alive, but I imagined the chances of someone hacking her accounts and posing as her online were far less than a man committing homicide. Right?
    It was midnight and I hadn’t heard from Gwen for ten days. She blocked me on social media earlier that afternoon, and I assumed the same were true for my phone number. It drove me mad. I couldn’t sleep, and when I did, I took naps not nearly long enough to manifest the nightmares.
    But that night was different, my sandbag-heavy eyes welcoming an intense stinging sensation, as if my contact lenses metamorphosed into sea urchins. I took out the lenses and allowed my eyes to close on their own, dreaming to find Gwen once more before she tried to shut me out forever.

* * *

    I stood in a field of well-trimmed lilac grass. A colossal dragon blood tree sprouted in its crux. My ex usually took naps near the roots of the tree. That time, she wasn’t there.
    Time seemed erratic. Before I knew it, I found Gwen carried off by the man, many meters in front of me, like a sudden glitch in a video game. As I followed, the terrain grew lifeless and barren, and mountains spawned in the distance. They vanished, yet I suspected they were in a familiar cavern near the mountains.
    I heard Gwen’s screams. They were aggressive, similar to when she used to shout at me after I did something wrong. Connecting the two seemed immoral at first, but after reliving these scenarios, I couldn’t help it. The sad part: It took dreaming to admit my mistakes.
    The weirdest thing about the cavern was its vibrant green interior. The sound of a stream soothed, and various wildlife paraded in clusters. The man placed my unconscious ex on a mound in the center of a lake, knife in the air, as I watched from a cliff. He preached, “With this, the seeds of our love will burgeon!” It sounded ridiculous but elicited the same response from me every time.
    “No!” I yelled.
    Leaping, I landed near the mound. Up close, the man appeared incredibly stout. He had hubristic posture, yet his unkempt hair provided a stark contrast. He knew I was behind him but proceeded to kill Gwen anyway. I expected to wake up, to feel twitching in my eyes. But nothing. If anything, my eyes were bulging out of their sockets.
    I caught the man’s arm with my hand. He glanced at me with amiable eyes, turning to unveil his identity.
    He was me from two years ago, days before Gwen and I split. The alcoholic. The verbal abuser. The man who believed that nothing their partner could do would hurt him. Well, he was wrong. I let go of his arm and couldn’t help but to look away.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, fetching for acknowledgement.
    “Why?”
    “To finish what we started.”
    Hesitantly, I peered at Gwen to discover sores around her neck from what appeared to be violent strangulation. “She’s...already dead?”
    He smirked as he offered me the knife. “Not completely.”
    I never wanted to kill Gwen. Emotions overwhelmed me as I blinked for what seemed a thousand times, turning and gazing into the lake only to discover that I had no reflection. My head began to hurt, and my ears ranged louder than the birds chirping around me. I closed my eyes in pain.
    Then, I woke up.

* * *

    The sun radiated through my bedroom blinds and the air in my room felt purer than normal. I sat up, oddly refreshed. There was no blood, no sweat. Just me with sudden resolve.
    For the first time in months, I pulled apart my curtains. I looked at my phone to find no notifications, and that was okay. Next were the windows. Before opening them, I beheld a reflection of a man unlike the one in my dreams.
    Ever since then, I never contacted Gwen again.

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