Blue is the warmest color

 There it was, Rick, shifting and trembling in his deep, good night's sleep. The room was pitch black, and so were the streets outside his window. The rain was softly dripping on it, whistling and tapping. Everything was still and usual, except for the lights on the street, which suddenly flickered. The rain, which had been like a swift shower, had turned into a heavy downpour; one would even say that it was raining cats and dogs. The soft dripping had turned into a sharp knocking of Rick’s bedroom window, where the only light reaching was of thunder that was striking sharply and piercing in his ear. The trembling had reached its height, and now he was really having a nightmare, which, not to anyone’s shock, he had almost every day. But that doesn’t make every new one even scarier. His limbs were stretching subconsciously as he was reaching for some sort of support or grip against his horrors. His hands were wrapped around him and shifting against the loose Star Wars sheets.

As he was breathing heavily and leaving traces of his cold sweat against the sheets, there was just the outline of an odd figurine outside his window, who was calculating every inch of the boy who lay in his room, chest heaving and tears at the brink. Suddenly, Rick felt his eyes in his own body and every other part too. He was dreaming of something he dreamt about almost every day since last year, when his friend disappeared into the woods. It started like it always had, Rick with his two friends searching for their friend Cody in the woods. As usual, they were calling out his name, ‘Cody. Cody Rigs, where are ‘ya, man? Look, we have your favourite Halloween candies- Reese’s pieces, 3 Musketeers, Snickers bars, you name it, dude, just come on’ said Dylan. ‘Ignore this big ass foodie, I know what ya like, I got your favourite comic books, eh? The one your mom wouldn’t let you buy- the Sandman-’ said Matt, his words cut by lightning. 

But Rick was ahead of his friends in this stroll, like he always had, ignoring them and their silly tactics and bickering. He knew Cody was not there, but still there; he was not sure. Suddenly, he felt a firm grip on his shoulder, but when he turned around, there was no one, and just as soon, none of his friends were there either. As if they all disappeared like in thin air, leaving their atoms to linger just for a few seconds. He looked around in the dense forest, which was just a few seconds ago lit by sunlight. Still, Rick was calling out Cody’s name, but now it was almost like a cry, like he really wanted Cody to show up right now, because he was scared. Just when he started running to find his friend or just any way out, he heard rustling of bushes and something coming out of them. Rick was left frozen at that, his feet were having a air tight grip on the ground, the sound of rustling was growing in his ears, and then there was just a shadow rising out of it, too far from him to make out anything. But the outline of the person seemed just as tall as Rick, if not shorter. For a second, a relieved sigh was released, and shoulders loosened. Rick thought maybe he finally found his friend, and just as soon, he called out his friend’s name. The lightning unveiled the eyes of that figurine, which were bloody. Not red or anything, but actual blood streaming down the eyes of that person or whatever, by the horror of what he saw, he ran and ran and ran. He was running like prey escaping its predator.

His lungs were inflating and deflating as he was sprinting across the forest, his legs limping from the rare occurrence of this activity, although he runs almost every day in his sleep, neither his physical nor his actual body has adapted to it. As he had covered the whole distance, he reached the very brink of the forest just by the quarry, and he looked down and then back to the forest from where the figurine was still following him. He looked back and forth. But the figure was coming close now, and as he took a final glance down the quarry, he remembered the body that the local police had found in there last year, which looked like Cody, and he saw with his own eyes. He remembered the time when Cody had drawn a picture of himself drowning. The figure was even closer now. He had to decide quickly, his mind spiralling, trying to choose how he would rather die. Though it was a dream, the detailing of it and how everything seemed too real and there, like from every leaf that hung from the tree to every stone he skipped last time he visited, everything was there, exactly like how he left. He had accepted himself as a video game character, with him dying in the end one way or the other, yet waking up still and pale in his bed without any scratch on his body, but right now, in his dream, he had forgotten about his discovery. As the seconds were cutting short, the figure was approaching closer, and he chose to die by falling and to somehow feel how Cody must have felt. 

As his body toppled, the breeze and atmosphere cut through his skin. The pressure was making everything inside him more tense and fragile as he neared the water. Just as soon as he hit the streams, his knees felt the sensation of cold water first, then his head. He was just falling and falling, the water just never ended, it was as if he had somehow forgotten how to swim or take control of his body. He felt dizzy, and his vision had started to blur, and soon his eyes were drifting apart.

 He had never reached this part of his video game; he usually woke up by now, but just as soon, he saw the yellow light from afar, which seemed to call him out, or maybe he thought it did. As he swam towards it, the small trace of light started to form a shape, the shape of a human. It still glowed like a sun inside the deepest part of the ocean. The outline of the person was clearer now as he stood before it. Hair was brown, and eyes too. It was a boy; he had figured that part out. He wore a denim jacket over a striped t-shirt, which was tucked inside pants, and a rhinestone belt, which seemed oddly familiar, with a black calculator watch around his wrist that mirrored the one Rick was wearing. He looked up at that boy’s face again to get an answer, as he lifted his face, and saw a familiarity - he saw his best friend floating in the deepest of waters; he had finally found Cody. 

As soon as he touched the arm of his friend, he seemed to get a pull from above, and he rose from his nightmare, screaming out Cody’s name, and cold sweat running down his neck. His hair was damp, and his night shirt and pyjama were as wet as if he actually took a swim in them.