After sleep finally found her, Elise had a wonderful, but unsettling dream that night.
She and Danny were walking across a shallow stream, surrounded by mostly pine forests in all directions. She got the impression they were miles from civilization. She heard splashing and laughter. Two young boys appeared, playing with reckless abandon in the water, when she turned her head.
One boy looked to be about 6 and the other 8. They both had dark brown hair, as if a cross between she and Danny's hair genes. The younger boy especially reminded Elise of herself with the dark reddish tones in his hair that were only noticeable if the sun gleaned upon his head just right. Although the older boy had peculiarly similar eyes to her own. Green eyes were rare, or so she had learned about in biology class, and it felt as if she were looking into a mirror when he briefly locked eyes with her.
The realization sunk in before they even spoke the word.
"Come on, mom. Come play with us," the younger boy pleaded.
"Yah, come on, mom. It feels good after walking so far."
Mom? Were these what her future children would look and sound like? Or was it just her subconscious making shit up? More importantly...Would she marry and have kids with Danny? The two boys certainly looked like the perfect cross between the two of them. The dream was overwhelming her, knowing it was such, but wondering if there was any truth to it, like dejavu. As much as it freaked her out, she wanted to stay there as long as possible.
Elise bent down and splashed the younger boy with water, both of them laughing, not a care in the world. She suddenly felt cold droplets pelting her right arm, the older boy joining in and laughing. She briefly glanced at Danny, not noticeably older than she knew him now in the waking world, but with more gray in his beard, standing next to the creek on the other side. He watched with that same easy, happy, amused look she had loved about him from the beginning.
Wait. The beginning? As much as she wanted to enjoy it longer, her brain was fighting itself. Elise couldn't simply enjoy the dream because she knew it wasn't real...But wasn't it? It certainly felt real. Or she wanted it to, at least. And their boys looked so much like them.
Their boys.
Her subconscious thrashed out and made the pleasant dream take an ugly turn. A wall of water came rushing out of nowhere down the creek. She screamed out Danny and her children's names just as it collided over her...
Elise woke up gasping for air, tears streaming down her face. She had never had such a realistic dream in her life. She was half-tempted to text Danny, but didn't want him to think she was the crazy person that she felt like or, at the very least, wake him up. As she swiped away the wetness from her eyes, she rolled over towards her alarm clock.
3:28am.
She really needed to get some sleep. Her parents would be there in roughly 7 hours. And although her place wasn't messy by any means, she still wanted to get thing ready for them before they arrived in the morning.
Elise took a deep breath and rolled over again...
Being an only child, Elise usually loved having her parents visit, especially for her birthday, but this year felt different. It wasn't that she didn't want them there, but she couldn't shake the nagging feeling that she was supposed to be somewhere else. She felt like Alice in Wonderland, her favorite childhood movie, lost. In a haze, she went through the motions of spending her birthday afternoon and evening together with her beloved parents. Elise hated feeling this way, this disconnect from her family, especially since it had been several months since she had seen them. She tried to act normal, but evidently, at least in some way, this feeling was noticeable to her mother.
"What's troubling you, sweetheart?" her mom asked, concern furrowing her brow the instant her father had retired to her kitchen to make some decaf coffee, his and her mother's evening ritual for years.
"I don't know," Elise sighed heavily and shrugged quickly. "It's the guy I told you about earlier, I guess, that I went on a date with last night."
"Oh? You seemed like you were quite smitten with him."
Elise couldn't help but smile from her mom's choice of words.
"I am," she agreed. "It's just..." she trailed off. "I had this really weird dream about him last night," she spoke in a hushed tone so her father couldn't hear her from the other room.
"What was it about?"
Just then Elise's phone buzzed, a text message.