He looked at the door to his apartment - paint peeling, scuff marks at the base and doorframe. Repainting the door would accomplish little but his moral. There was no time, there would never be time. He couldn’t sleep. He never felt he could sleep. The soulful rest would not come. Oh, he would sleep, but in his dreams no rest would come. Entering the apartment he dropped the bags covering him and stumbled into the kitchen. Cracker crumbs on a dirty plate with hastily sliced cheddar cheese. Munching mindlessly he felt the heaviness of the past 28 hours settling like wet snow. Sleep was inevitable, the alternate was a slow demise. Facing the nameless hauntings was better than feeling in real time his brain clogging with rot. Unceremoniously dumping the plate back in the sink he stumbled to the bedroom, removing clothing as he went, dropping them in heaps. The bed squealed in protest as he flopped onto it, with stark silence when his movement ceased. His breathing slowed, deepening within minutes and the grasp of nothingness overwhelmed everything. For ages his body did not dream, the weight of too many hours awake. But like they always did, they came at the end. And like always they started as actual dreams, but then the images came fresh and clean. The city was on fire, buildings shattered as far as he could see. Vaporized shadows eteched onto walls, the smell of death lingering. Smoke clogged his vision as he searched for the school. The street was hot, glistening with debris lining the road seared from the explosion. The chances of the children living through this - he pushed the thought away. He had to know if there were survivors. Burnt meat clung to smoldering grass. The school yard was nothing. Those that died did before knowing what happened. Scrambling through the debris, skirting fires he approached the school. The windows were blown out, glass glinting, doors askew. The smell of charred skin, hair was becoming more potent. He stepped into the entrance, hallway empty. The smoke was manageable but there was a fire smoldering inside. Moving through the hallway he turned a corner toward a classroom. The bodies were black, small. Thrashed about in tiny groups. Huddled, the faces that were visible were twisted in pain, agony. The group didn’t appear to die instantly but were shielded enough to die from the pressure wave and subsequent fires. They had no chance. He looked away quickly. These images were too familiar. He continued to wander the halls, looking, hoping. A cry of a kitten startled him. Shining his light suddenly in his hand he saw two tangled bodies. The cry came again. With horror he went to look at the bodies and the eyes of the child opened, peering at him in pain. ‘Help’. He sat on the bed holding his hands to his face, pressing hard until he saw stars - if he held back the tears - sobs cracking through every chink. These images and this reoccurring dream had now plagued him for months. This one was the worst one of any of them, the one he detested the most. It ripped at his soul, tearing at his humanity one small pieace at a time. What killed him every night wasn’t the horror of the images themselves but the knowledge that these clear dreams, when it felt as though he hadn’t slept at all, these were the dreams that would come true. He had them all of his life. Knowing his marriage would fail after marrying his wife, knowing which house to buy, job to take, path to avoid. As the years went on, he grew to detest the night, sleep. He was cursed to know the future, however terrible it would be. War was coming. His slow grasp on sanity was the proof that no one else would ever believe. And why would they. The idea was nonsense to any reasonable person, he alone would carry it. He stood at the window. Time to move on.