HOME | DD

Description
Sasha could never remember her dreams, so she decided to maintain a Dream Diary. Every once in a while, she would wake up in the middle of the night, switch on her night lamp, scrawl a series of incoherent words and sentences on the first blank page she found, and promptly fall asleep again.

Sasha's dreams didn't affect her day to day life. It was as though a thick mist had clouded her memory, but forgetfulness was sometimes a wonderful thing. When she squinted at her first few scribbles, she found that they made very little sense. 'Lake scared' and a few pages later, 'Moonlight'. As the nights went by, Sasha's notes became more intelligible. She would read everything she wrote without fail the next morning, although she still had no recollection of ever dreaming about anything she had written.

Page 2 –The middle of the lake. We're standing on the reflection of the moon. Safe.
Page 4 - Mistherd. Calm and quiet.
Page 5 – I am bleeding. Thorns. Forest. Torn clothes.
Page 6 – Run. Run run run.

On a whim, one morning, Sasha decided to get herself a dog. She would never know what urged her to do it, but she lived alone anyway and she loved dogs. She didn't see why she shouldn't. The first time she laid eyes on Shadow, she knew they had a connection. Shadow was a huge, jet black Labrador, with the most unusual eyes that were like round aquamarines. He had been abandoned the previous week outside Zander's Pet Shelter down the street. Zander supposed that he was about two years old or twenty one in dog years. Shadow instantly took to Sasha. Not only did he wag his tail rapidly but he also jumped on her the minute he was released from his cage and slobbered all over her face.

The dreams never ceased but she paid lesser and lesser attention to them. She still made entries every night, but she hardly ever read them the next morning. Shadow wouldn't allow it. Even before daybreak, he would drag her blanket away with his teeth and bark till she stirred. If she fell asleep again, he would then proceed to jump on to the bed and lick her face. If that failed as well, he would paw her until she sat up and scratched his ears.

'You silly dog, go away!' she would say and break into a smile. Her love for Shadow had grown right from the time she decided to adopt him. She was still getting over a relationship that had abruptly ended, and Shadow was helping her put her past behind her. What she needed was someone who would be faithful, understanding, kind, and caring, and more importantly, she needed commitment.  Sasha had now found everything she wanted in Shadow.

Her days now revolved completely around him. At 6 every morning, she would take him to the park and they would jog together. It ached her to leave him behind at home when she left for work every day, but her only comfort was that he would be waiting for her, scratching at the door, even before she was up the stairs that led up to their apartment. One day, two months after Shadow had become an integral part of her life, he wasn't waiting for her at the door. Already a little worried, she frantically fumbled for her keys. 'Shadow,' she shouted, expecting him to come bounding towards her. Her call was met with silence. 'Shadow,' she choked as she looked behind the couch, under the table, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, under the bed, in the closet, behind the door, and even under a pile of unwashed clothes. There was no trace of him.

Three days later, there was still no sign of Shadow. By now Sasha had put up over a hundred posters that said MISSING in big, bold letters, with a picture of Shadow under it, and Sasha's number at the bottom. A short text read, 'This dog means the world to me. He responds to the name Shadow. If spotted, please contact Sasha Mack'.

After a week of futile efforts to locate Shadow and making calls to everyone she knew in the neighbourhood, Sasha let go of the strand of hope she had desperately held on to and broke down. She wept profusely for hours on end until she finally cried herself to sleep.

It began with a stranger bathed in moonlight. Mistherd, she could hear a voice whisper in her ear, although she could barely make out the stranger's lips moving. He was a young man, naked to the waist, and wearing nothing but what seemed like a pair of shorts that seemed to be made of mist. If you watched closely, you would notice that the shorts seemed to swirl around him, with a mist-like quality, except that it looked as dense as condensed milk. His presence was ethereal and he was beautiful, yet however hard she tried, Sasha couldn't remember his face, even if she looked away for a few seconds.

That morning when she woke up, Sasha looked as terrible as she felt. She didn't go to work that day, but instead opened the Dream Diary. She needed to take her mind off Shadow and she had neglected the notebook ever since she got him. Since she didn't write in any particular order, it didn't matter which page she read first, but she decided to go from front to back and pick up where she had left off.

Page 10 – The people of the moon.
Page 11 – Whispers. What am I running from?
Page 14 - They are coming for me.
Page  15 – My star.

Something lay on the periphery of Sasha's memory, waiting to be remembered. There was a dull throb in her temples. She started carefully tearing off the pages she'd written on and placed them all on the floor. She sat cross-legged in front of them, and is if with a life of their own, her hands started rearranging them.
6 - Run. Run run run. 5 - I am bleeding. Thorns. Forest. Torn clothes.  11 – Whispers. What am I running from? 4 - Mistherd. Calm and quiet.  2 –The middle of the lake. We're standing on the reflection of the moon. Safe.  10 – The people of the moon. 14 - They are coming for me. 15 – My star. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. The deep breath that followed carried a rush of images and understanding dawned on her. She was beginning to see. The young man she had dreamed of was Mistherd. She was running through a dense forest of thorns, away from a nameless terror that had made her break into a cold sweat as she tossed and turned in bed. She ran headfirst into Mistherd when she finally emerged from the forest, scathed and bleeding. He held her by the arms until she caught her breath. Her legs were tired and wobbly, and threatened to give way. His eyes were like deep pools of tranquillity, and when he spoke, it felt like he was standing right next to her, whispering in her ear.

Mistherd told Sasha that whatever was chasing her was only doing so because it knew that he would save her. He was meant to. What it really wanted was him. She was safe for now. He led her to the middle of a lake, not more than a few strides from where they stood. They simply walked on the water and stood on the reflection of the moon in its icy waters. Why was this thing after him, she asked. He only shook his head and remained silent, while another wave of serenity washed over her. She felt safe with him.

Sasha and Mistherd spent two cycles of the moon together on the inky lake, which was large and seemed to stretch into eternity. They became the unsuspecting prisoners of a bondage called love, one that was deeper than Mistherd's moonlake. On the night of the third cycle, he became restless all of a sudden. I ran away from my people, he confessed. It was foretold that I would fall in love with a star, and this was against the creed of the moonpeople. I ran away before they could sentence me to my own death. They will never stop hunting me, and if they find us, we will both die. On the following night, he disappeared and Sasha never saw him again.

Sasha didn't know what to make of it. She looked at the date of her last entry, scribbled in a hurry in the bottom right corner – it was the same day that Shadow disappeared.