Visions Pt.1
By Marissa Horning


I was sitting at my regular table. Our school served lunch in the auditorium, eight round tables on the floor and three more on the stage. The floor was a light brown linoleum, the walls painted white with red trim. The stage was round and only two feet above the floor with one step. There was no backstage, or side dressing rooms, but it worked well enough for assemblies. I had tuned out the others at my table. They were making small talk about classes, peers, and what they were doing when school ended in two weeks. I was more focused on drawing. I had had a dream two nights previous that didn't make any sense but still burned in my memory. I had started drawing certain aspects of it; the lady with striking gray eyes that teemed with knowledge, the teenage boy with messy black hair that stood in the surf, the columned building that glowed with power. I was currently working on a trident that rippled energy. It was just an outline so far, but I was frustrated because I couldn't get the middle spike right.

One of the tables on the stage, one that was usually quiet, was gradually getting louder. I couldn't tell what they were saying, but everyone else was starting to notice too. Within a couple of seconds the whole lunch room was silent except that table. There were about eight people, and they were all yelling at each other, their words lost in the argument. The only one who wasn't participating was a girl who was standing at the edge. She had her hands on the table and her head hung low. She stood there quiet while her tablemates yelled at each other. I wanted to do something to stop them, but I was transfixed in my seat, my pencil still hovering over the paper. All I could do was watch. After about a minute the girl looked up. Her long black hair framed her face. Her complexion was a smooth olive tone. She was beautiful, but her eyes stood out the most. They were a brilliant shade of sea green that looked at the situation, calculating the different outcomes. I forced myself to look away. The rest of the students were focused on the ones arguing. As far as I could tell, none of them noticed the girl. I was just wondering why none of the staff were getting themselves involved when the girl spoke. "Enough!" It was only one word, but it was spoken with so much power that it left my ears ringing. Silence instantly overcame the table. It was obvious they saw the girl as a leader. They all sat down with their eyes looking up at her, though not quite meeting her eyes. The girl looked like she was about to lecture them when I realized that it wasn't necessary. As her eyes pasted over each individual, they hung their heads. Finally the girl sighed and said "meeting adjourned." This time her voice was tired, as if she had been through this before and not being able to fix it was exhausting. Altogether, the seven who had been arguing got up and left, disappearing down the hallway. One, who looked a lot like the boy I had drawn, hesitated, like he was going to say something to the girl. After a moment he seemed to change his mind and left. The girl sat down at the table putting her head in her hands. She stayed like that for a count of five before lifting her head and looking at something on the table. Slowly, she folded it up. I could now see that it was a cloth tanned with age. She put the folded square in a pocket inside her leather jacket and walked down the same hall the others had. A few seconds passed before people started to whisper about what had just happened. Soon the lunchroom was back to its busy self. I gathered my papers and pencils and stood. I walked out of the lunch room and headed for the art room. I wanted to think, and I couldn't with all the noise of my peers.

I turned the round door knob of the classroom. I breathed in the welcoming smell of paint and marker fumes and smiled. This was my favorite place in the school, if not my favorite place in the world. It was an open room with shelves lining three walls top to bottom filled with supplies and half finished projects. The fourth wall was rounded with floor to ceiling windows that let in natural light. Our art program had more money than most schools, purely due to that fact that a sophomore's dad was some rich art dealer. As soon as that kid graduated, the only good thing left for the art class would be the room that his money built. Being a junior, I intended to utilize as much of the expensive pencils, paint, and fancy paper as I could. I walked over to the corner in the far left, stepping around desks that were in no clear pattern. It had a small desk with an easel balanced on top. Behind the desk was a shelf dedicated to Prismacolor pencils and Chroma acrylic paint tubes. The front of the desk faced the window away from the class. On the other side was a canvas rack filled with drying paintings. This was my space.

You see, I was home-schooled all the way up until high school. My parents taught me well enough that I tested into eleventh grade when I was fourteen. However, my mom wanted me with kids my own age, so I didn't skip ahead. Fast forward three years and I had enough credits to graduate last semester. This semester I was only taking three class: AP Biology, Drawing, and Painting. I also was a TA for the Intro to Art class. When I wasn't in those classes, I was still in the art room. My family and teachers praised my talent, as they called it, and I had been approached by several different college scouts offering scholarships. I didn't agree with them. What they called a passion, I called an obsession. I didn't paint and draw constantly because I wanted to, it was because I needed to.

About two years ago, I started having the nightmares. Horrible images of people I didn't know fighting for their lives, half of them failing. I would awake screaming for them. It concerned my parents at first, but after a few months they made my room sound proof and tried to forget about it, sending me to counseling twice a month. I tried to forget with them, but much more unsuccessfully. Eventually I started lying to them, saying that the dreams had stopped. They were hesitant, but believing it was easier for all of us. I stopped going to counseling. And that's when I started drawing; doodling in the margins of my notebook, tracing my fingers in dust, that kind of thing. It helped me release the dreams without talking about them, because if I didn't, it would all build up inside me to the point where screaming was my only cure.


I thought about all of this while I set my supplies at my desk and got to work. I was currently working on a scene from a dream I had a few weeks ago. It was fairly dark with rain beating down on armored teenagers fighting with swords and fists against shadows at twilight. Behind them was a broken down temple that had chips and stone blocks missing. I had been trying a new technique that looked nice but took twice as long. It made the painting look like it was shimmering while still being dark and gave it a 3D look. I started slipping away, focusing on my work. This happened a lot. My mind would go back to the nightmares, this time studying them rather than avoiding them, while my hands worked. I distantly heard a bell ring and barely registered students filling in. By now the art teacher was used to me practically living in his classroom and ignored me. I only came out of this trance when I realized who I was painting. One of the soldiers, the one right in the center of the battle, leading everything, was the girl I saw at lunch. I had been trying to find a shade of green bright enough for her eyes. I realized they were the only bright thing about the entire painting and had inadvertently become the focal point.


“Why’d you stop?” A voice said behind me.


I turned to see about a fourth of the class staring at me. The art teacher stepped forward and told me that he was showing a group who was interested in painting for their summer project my techniques to “inspire them to try new things.” I nodded my head and stepped back a bit so they could look at my piece. Using me as an example wasn’t something new--why create a whole new painting for a class example when you have a student in your room for five out of your seven periods?--but it still made me uncomfortable.


They looked at the painting for a while, pointing out different aspects before dispersing to sketch out their ideas. I picked up my brush again and started with the girl’s eyes. They were an impossible color to replicate. The painting was nearly finished with everything shimmering and realistic, but the eyes fell flat. To someone else they might have looked fine, maybe even better than fine, but to me they were dull in comparison to who they were modelled after. For the rest of the class period, I mixed colors and painted them on scrap paper. By the time the next class came I had found my perfect combination. However, I rarely left the eyes last and was having a difficult time recoloring them. Soon I fell back into my trance. As my hands finished the eyes, mixed more paints, and went across the canvas touching things up, my mind went to the nightmares. They were never like the normal dreams I used to have. They didn’t follow a story, didn’t have any characters. They were flashing images, scenes I’d see for a minute before it went away. It was like someone programmed a TV to play clips from the most intense parts of a movie; I could tell that they were all connected, but it wasn’t enough to give me a story. The particular image I was working on was one that had repeated in the loop several times. I remember the girl being in it, armor clad and blood stained. I could see her fighting with everything she had, the shadows pushing back against her and her forces like they were a solid thing, outnumbering the girl’s side five to one.


Finally I pulled away. I had finished. My cheeks were wet. I had been silently crying without realizing. I quickly wiped them away, glad my desk faced the back so no one had noticed. Then I started to gather my supplies. I cleaned the brushes and palette using the sink at the front of the room and put away the paint tubes, careful to put them with their respective colors like so many of peers neglected to do. I set my easel on the drawing rack by the teacher’s desk and started to scrub the drying paint off of my desk when the teacher came over, delicately holding my painting. He set it on the holder and silently stared at it, as if trying to find the words he wanted to say. As he looked over it, I did the same. I had done a good job incorporating the rain without it overpower the piece. The temple was a nice base as well. And the shadows looked like physical beings rather than black blobs as they had in my previous attempts. The girl was definitely the focal point, with her black hair blowing around her face, her helmet fallen at her feet, her sword stained dark red, and the same color seeping from a cut in her shoulder where her golden armor had been damaged. Her bright eyes made it seem as if her whole body was glowing in the same intense power. The more I looked at it the more I liked it, the opposite usually being true with my other paintings. Finally, my teacher spoke:


“I am very impressed,” He started. “Your work has always been nice, and you’ve been improving since you came into my classroom, but this...if I hadn’t watched you paint it myself, I would have never believed you did it. It’s breathtaking.” I didn’t know what to say. He was usually the kind of teacher that always had criticism to match his compliments. He pushed kids to do better and learn more; that’s why I liked him so much. Receiving only praise was something I didn’t know how to respond to. A flat “Thank you, sir” was pretty much all I could manage.


“You know, if you weren’t so young, I would suggest for you to start planning to get your work displayed in a gallery.”


I thanked him again and he pointed out a few more things before taking the painting back to the rack and sitting at his desk. I thought about what he said as I finished cleaning up and realized that I don’t want my work in a gallery. Sharing my nightmares with my teacher is uncomfortable enough. An array of art critics whose goal is to pick apart the meaning of every brush stroke? No thanks.


Except now I can’t get the idea out of my head. I don’t want to put my work in a gallery where someone will look at it, or buy it, and it will never have the same meaning to them as it does me. But showing someone has it’s appeal. A way to communicate something that I don’t even understand. I wouldn’t want to show my parents; they know enough about my nightmares to know that’s what I’m replicating. I thought about it, but no ideas came.


I was just putting away the now clean equipment when the bell rang. Quickly, I gathered my things and left with the class. I walked down the hall and out the front door, wishing I could stay longer. Lately my parents had initiated a ‘new tradition’ of Friday night dinners. They both worked a lot, so family dinners weren’t really a thing in our family. However, with a promotion my mom received, a newfound sense of family had been discovered. So, every Friday one of us would attempt to cook, fail, and order pizza. This would then we followed by silence that was supposed to be filled with laughter and heartfelt chatter.


As I waited at the curb for my father, the girl walked up beside me. She had pulled her hair back into a high ponytail. She looked so much like my painting, it was simultaneously hard for me not to look at her and embarrassed to be next to her. Rather than introducing myself, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and pretended to text. She, too, was silent and made no move to interact. We sat there awkwardly for a bit, students rushing around us, until a sleek black, compact car pulled up in front of us. Before she got in, she reached into her coat and produced a white envelope. She shoved it into my arms and got into the car before I could ask her what it was.


After staring at the car for a minute, I shook myself out of the my daze and looked at the envelope. It was standard size, with the flap tucked into the pouch. Written one the center front was “Johnson”, my last name, in barely legible handwriting. I stared at it a moment longer before tearing open the flap and pulling out the letter inside. It was just one page, and didn’t say much:

Tonight, the distillery, 8pm

That was frustratingly vague. The distillery part was obvious, it was abandoned and a place were seniors and juniors went to drink stolen liquor and pretend they don’t exist for a night. However, it didn’t explain who it was from. The girl, or someone the girl knew? And it, most frustrating of all, it didn’t explain why.


I flipped the letter over and over, folding it up just to pull it back out of the envelope. I saw my father’s white compact car and quickly shoved it into my front pocket. As I climbed into the front seat, absentmindedly answering the basic how are you, what did you do questions with the basic good, same as always answers.
“Hey, Dad?” I started. He gave me a look that suggested he knew I was going to ask for something.
“The...lacrosse team is having a sort of team party, and they...want me to join again, so can I go?” I finished thinking that was the worst excuse in the history of lying teenagers. Luckily, I don’t do much, and my dad was naive enough in it to believe me. He agreed to drop me off at the park, which was about a twenty five minute walk to the distillery, at five. For a moment, the thought that maybe going to an abandoned distillery alone, not sure who else was going to be there and not telling anyone about it, was a bad idea. Unfortunately, the thought passed as soon as it came.


- - -


I stood outside the gray building, waiting on the concert. I had just arrived from the park, with about ten minutes to five. Inside my head was an internal debate on whether or not I should call it quits and walk back or to go inside the increasingly creepy building. Once I remembered that I would have to come up with an excuse to why the ‘la crosse party’ ended early, I lifted my backpack up my shoulder and trudged inside.


It was just as creepy on the inside as it was on the outside, only darker with more aluminium cans scattered about. I walked around the perimeter of the main warehouse, a mostly concert room with various pipes and large steel containers. It was cold. I thought about letting out a “Hello,” into the seemingly empty room, but then decided I didn’t want to be the person at the start of a horror movie.


“Hey,” Someone called out behind me.


I jumped at the voice and quickly spun around. It was the girl. She was in the same outfit as before - worn jeans with a dark t-shirt paired with a black leather jacket and combat boots. She arched her brow up at my jumpiness and walked over to me.


“I’m Gen.” She said, holding her hand out of me to shake. I did, timely, and replied, “Anderson.”
“Sorry about the whole note distillery thing. My idea was to talk to you at the school, but everyone else thought it should be a bit more private.”


“Why?”


“Because we didn’t want others listening.”


“We?”
“My friends. Sorry about the argument earlier. They can be a bit...unsupportive.” She said.


“Okay, but why do you want to talk to me?”


“You’re the one with the visions aren’t you?” I opened my mouth to question what she meant when I suddenly got a flash of images across my eyes.


“The nightmares.” It was meant to be phrased as a question but came out as an answer. She nodded her head then pointed to the wall. There was something wrapped in a back cloth leaning up against the wall that I hadn’t noticed before. Slowly, I walked over to it and pulled the cloth off. It was my painting. Now that the subject of it was in the room, it glowed more. I compared it with her. In the painting she looked angier, but more comfortable at the same time. It was like she was at home there, even if home was in war. Standing a few feet away from me she seemed out of place, like she didn’t belong. Her light skin glowed in comparison to my dark, her eyes too bright to be real.


“How’d--” I started but was interrupted.


“I don’t know. But you have visions, nightmares, of where I’m from. I’ve seen your drawings. You’ve sketched my brother, painted by mother, and put the temple where I was raised into a collage. I don’t know how or why, put you do. And you can help me.”


I gave her a blank stare. Visions? What was she talking about? I wrapped the painting in the cloth again and stood. “Look, I’m not sure what you mean, but I need to go.” I said, half lying. She stepped in front of me, attempting to block my way.


“Look, I don’t have time for you to believe me. I need you.” She grabbed my elbow and pushed me slightly backwards. Before I should get her to let go, there was a tug in my stomach. Lights started circling around us-blue, yellow, green, purple. I felt like I was in a zero-gravity carnival ride. I had to close my eyes. It was hard to think.


I fell down on hard floor. It took a moment for me to regain my senses, but when I did, I found myself in a stone room. It had high ceilings and was heavily decorated with red drapes and paintings of landscapes. I turned around to see the girl walking over to an empty chair, a throne really, and kneeling to pray. Behind the throne was an array of art pieces, all mine. I was about to ask what was happening when a clear voice rang out behind me:


“Hello, Anderson. Welcome to Barccasto, our world.”