Marcus woke up with a start, his heart beating so hard he felt like it was going to explode in his chest. His left hand instinctively searched for the alarm clock on the nightstand - 6:23 AM. Those fucking nightmares again.
Except this time, it was different.
He sat up in bed, his mouth dry as sandpaper. The images were still there, sharp as photographs, refusing to fade like dreams usually do upon waking.
The First image was Him, in an alley that smelled of piss and garbage, a guy in a suit planting a knife between his ribs. The cold blade piercing through his shirt, the searing pain, the taste of blood in his mouth. And then the wet asphalt against his cheek, his vision blurring, footsteps walking away. Dead at 11:47 PM.
The Second image quite different in The restaurant "Le Petit Jardin" on Elm Street, the one he sometimes went to on Friday nights when he felt like pretending he had a real social life. He was sitting at his usual table by the window, a fork halfway to his mouth. The niçoise salad he had never finished. Suddenly, his hands shaking, his throat tightening, the impossibility of breathing. Poison. The other customers backing away, terrified, while he collapsed on the table. Dead at 9:15 PM.
And the Third image in His Honda Civic, the one that already had 200,000 kilometers on the odometer and made a weird noise when he turned right. The intersection at Park Avenue, where there were always traffic jams in the evening. The orange light turning red, and him accelerating a bit, just a bit, to get through. The red truck coming from his right, running the red light. The impact. The sound of crumpled metal, exploding glass. Then nothing. Dead at 6:32 PM.
Marcus jumped up and ran to the bathroom. He leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on his face, again and again, as if it could wash those images from his head.
In the mirror, his reflection was normal. Messy brown hair, tired brown eyes, the small scar on his chin he'd gotten on his bike when he was eight. No hole in his chest, no traces of poison on his lips, no blood. He was alive, whole, and he had slept badly. That's all.
But damn, why did these dreams seem so real?
He went back to his room and dressed mechanically - jeans, gray t-shirt, the same clothes as every day. His life was predictable enough that he didn't need to think about this kind of stuff. Subway, office, eight hours staring at columns of numbers, subway, apartment, TV, sleep. Do it again the next day.
A shitty life, but at least a simple one.
He was making coffee when his phone rang. Unknown number. Normally, he never answered unknown numbers - they only brought trouble. But something made him pick up.
- "Marcus Reeves?" said a woman's voice. Soft, with a slight accent he couldn't identify.
- "Yeah, that's me."
- "You saw your death last night, didn't you?"
The phone slipped from his hands and crashed on the kitchen tiles. Marcus stared at it, mouth agape, for a few seconds before bending down to pick it up.
- "Hello? Hello, are you still there?" The voice came from the speaker, perfectly clear despite the fall.
- "I... how do you...?"
- "We need to talk. It's important."
Marcus sat heavily on a chair. His legs wouldn't carry him anymore.
- "Who are you? How do you know that?"
- "Not over the phone. You know the Corner café on Washington Street? The one with the small tables outside?"
He knew it. He sometimes went there on Saturday mornings, when he had nothing else to do and was tired of pacing around his apartment.
- "I know it."
- "Noon. Table by the window. I'm wearing a red jacket, you can't miss me."
- "Wait, I..."
-"Marcus?" Her voice had become more serious, more urgent. "Don't go to the restaurant tonight. Don't take Park Avenue to go home from work. And especially..."
He waited, his heart pounding.
- "Especially, don't trust anyone who claims to want to help you. Not even me."
The line went dead.
Marcus stared at the phone for a good minute. Then he got up, went to the window, and looked down at the street.
He was there.
A man, on the other side of the street, leaning against a streetlamp. Tall, thirties, black hair, and that fucking scar on his left cheek. Exactly like in his "dreams." The man raised his hand, a greeting, or maybe a goodbye. Marcus blinked, and when he looked again, the man had disappeared.
As if he had never existed.
Marcus collapsed in his armchair, head in his hands. He was losing his mind. That was the only logical explanation. Too much stress at work, too much loneliness, too many nights watching crap on TV until three in the morning. His brain was starting to malfunction.
Except that... except that this woman on the phone had known. She had known exactly what he had "dreamed."
He looked at the time on his phone: 7:45 AM. In a little over four hours, he would know if this story was just in his head or if something really weird was happening to him.
Meanwhile, he had a workday to do. A normal day, with normal numbers and normal colleagues who wouldn't talk to him about multiple deaths and mysterious strangers.
A last normal day, maybe.
Marcus grabbed his jacket, his keys, his wallet. In the hallway, he stopped in front of the mirror and looked at himself one last time. He looked the same as usual, but something had changed in his eyes. A new worry, a question that wasn't there the day before.
What's happening to me?
Marcus left his apartment and locked the door, not knowing he would never be the same man when he opened it again.
The trip to the office passed in a strange haze. Usually, he put on his headphones and listened to stupid podcasts to pass the time on the subway. Today, he stayed alert, scrutinizing every face in the car, looking for the man with the scar. Every time someone approached him, his heart accelerated.
Paranoia. That must be it.
The offices of Hartwell & Associates occupied three floors of a charmless building in the business district. Marcus had been working there for two years, in an open space on the second floor, stuck between Jennifer who talked too loudly on the phone and David who always smelled like tuna sandwich.
- "Hi Marcus! You look like death warmed over this morning." Jennifer smiled at him over her partition. "Bad night?"
-"Something like that."
He turned on his computer and tried to concentrate on the accounting statements waiting for him. Columns of numbers, calculations, verifications. Normally, this kind of repetitive work helped him clear his head. Today, the numbers danced before his eyes, and he couldn't stop thinking about that voice on the phone.
- "You saw your death last night, didn't you?"
How could someone know that? And especially, how could someone know something he wasn't even sure he had really experienced?
At 10:30 AM, his work phone rang. Internal number.
-"Marcus? This is Sarah from reception. There's someone asking to see you."
Marcus's blood froze.
- "Someone? Who?"
- "He didn't give a name. A man, thirties, he says it's personal and urgent."
The scar. Marcus was certain before he had even asked the question.
- "Does he have... does he have a scar on his face?"
Sarah hesitated.
- "I... yes, how do you know that? Do you know him?"
Marcus hung up without answering. He got up so abruptly that his chair rolled back and hit David's desk.
- "Hey, watch it!" David protested.
But Marcus wasn't listening anymore. He was already heading toward the toilets, the only place where he could think for two minutes without being asked questions.
He locked himself in a stall and took out his personal phone. No new calls, no messages. He dialed the last number that had called him, but went straight to an automated voicemail.
- "Shit, shit, shit."
What was he supposed to do? Go back down and see this man? Escape through the emergency exit? Call the police and tell them what - that a stranger with a scar wanted to see him and it scared him because he had seen him in a dream?
His phone vibrated. A message.
- "Don't go down. Exit through the emergency staircase. Take your things and go home. We'll meet at the café as planned. - V.R."
V.R.? Who was V.R.?
Marcus reread the message three times. Someone else knew about his situation. Someone who was watching his back. But was it the woman on the phone or someone else?
- "Don't trust anyone who claims to want to help you. Not even me."
Fuck, what was he supposed to do in a situation like this?
He left the toilets and discreetly returned to his desk. Jennifer was on the phone, David was already eating his tuna sandwich even though it was only eleven o'clock. No one was paying attention to him.
Marcus turned off his computer, took his jacket and bag, and headed toward the emergency staircase at the end of the corridor. He had never used this exit, but he knew it led to the alley behind the building.
- "Marcus? Where are you going?" Jennifer had hung up and was looking at him with surprise.
- "I... I have a doctor's appointment. Dental emergency."
He was lying terribly, but Jennifer nodded sympathetically.
- "Oh, toothaches are hell. Go on, see you tomorrow."
Marcus pushed the emergency staircase door and rushed down the steps four at a time. His heart was beating so hard it hurt in his chest. When he reached the ground floor, he cracked open the door that led to the alley and peeked outside.
Nobody. Just some garbage cans and a delivery van parked further away.
He went out and walked along the building to the main street. From there, he could see the entrance to his office. A man was indeed standing in front of it, talking with Sarah at reception. Even from far away, Marcus could make out the scar on his left cheek.
The man suddenly turned his head in his direction, as if he had sensed he was being watched. Their eyes met through the glass.
Marcus felt like he had been punched in the stomach. This man's eyes... he knew them. Not just because of the dreams. He had seen them somewhere before, in a mirror maybe, or in an old photo.
The man took a step toward the exit.
Marcus started running.
He ran without looking back, pushing past pedestrians, ignoring car horns when he crossed streets without looking. He ran as if he had the devil on his heels, and in a way, maybe he did.
He only stopped when he was sure he was far enough away, in a small park he didn't even know. He collapsed on a bench, out of breath, and checked the time on his phone.
11:47 AM. Still thirteen minutes before the meeting at the café.
Thirteen minutes to decide if he was ready to discover what was really happening to him, or if he preferred to keep believing that all this was just a passing delusion.
He looked around him. The park was peaceful, some mothers with their children, an old man feeding pigeons. A normal world, where people didn't see their death in dreams and weren't chased by strangers with mysterious scars.
A world he had still belonged to this morning, but from which he felt like he was moving away with each passing minute.
His phone vibrated again. This time, it was a call. The same number as this morning.
- "You did well to leave," said the woman's voice before he could even say hello. "He didn't mean you any harm, but it wasn't the right time for this meeting."
"Who are you? And who was that man?"
- "Someone who cares about what's going to happen to you. And someone who's trying to prevent it."
Marcus closed his eyes. He felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, and one more step would make him fall into a world he didn't understand.
-"What if I don't come to the meeting? What if I go home and pretend none of this happened?"
The woman paused.
- "Then you'll die tonight, Marcus. One way or another, you'll die. Because now that it has started, it won't stop."
The communication cut off, leaving him alone with this terrifying certainty: his life had just changed, and there was no going back.
He got up from the bench and headed toward the Corner café, because he no longer had a choice.