NUEVO CONCURSO | "Una imagen, una historia"

Under my feet, a fire starts to blaze. A medieval crowd with rotten teeth and an unrestrained sense of delight and excitement shouts obscene words at me…
My soles feel the heat of the fire. My body is pierced by hellish pain, and I begin to shake as I scream with all my might…
They’re about to burn me at the stake.
How excruciating this pain is…

In a moment, I open my eyes, panic-stricken, throw off the blanket, and look at my feet. They’re fine… What a relief.
I’m whole. It was just a nightmare…

The last three words echo in my mind several times.

But what’s that smell?
The apartment reeks of something burning…

I rush to the kitchen. It’s my grandfather; he’s fallen asleep at the table again while smoking. A black chess knight was smoldering in the ashtray, filling the room with that burning smell.

My grandfather often stays up late playing chess with our neighbor. Now it’s clear why I dreamt that nightmare—it’s all because of the burning smell.

It’s because my grandfather has become so careless that I moved in with him.
Last time, he fell asleep in the bathtub with the water running, and our apartment was slightly flooded.

I helped him to bed, tidied up the kitchen, had some coffee, and realized I was running late for work. I needed to call a taxi.

Today, we have our New Year’s party. After work, we’re heading to a country house. This year, all the company employees are gathering, even from branches in other cities. A big celebration—how I dread going to it…

In the taxi, I sit in the back seat.
Next to me lies the red dress I brought for the party. My boss’s wife, a clothing designer, prepared a dress for each of us. We’re supposed to wear them, and photos taken at the party will be used as advertising for her brand. The dresses are beautiful, so we gladly accepted them.

On the seat, there was a book titled “On Dreams and Death”…
Someone must have left it behind. What a title.
I opened it to where a bookmark with a phoenix was placed.

And I read:

—“On Dreams and Death” by Marie-Louise von Franz.

A vision of the smoldering chess knight flashed through my mind.
I closed the book and put it back where I found it.

At work, I couldn’t stop thinking about those words.
So I looked up the book online and read its description. It was written by a female psychiatrist who studied dreams people had before their deaths.

If I understood correctly, in dreams, the horse symbolized the vehicle of the human soul. Although this wasn’t a dream, the image of the smoldering chess knight from the morning kept coming back to me…

All day, I was steeped in restless thoughts. So I gave my boss the dress and decided not to go to the celebration. Staying home seemed like a better choice—it was impossible to relax and celebrate while ominous forebodings loomed over me like a dark cloud.

The next morning, I immediately ran to my grandfather’s room. He was asleep—everything was fine.
I felt much better…

A notification from a colleague popped up on my phone. It was a link. I clicked it and saw a photograph.

For a moment, I thought it was me in the photo—in that very red dress I had returned to my boss…
In the photo, I saw my colleague.
I realized something terrible had happened the night before.
She wore the dress I was supposed to wear…
I scanned through the text…
She had been attacked and tried to call the police.
But she wasn’t able to…
She was murdered.
My mind fogged over.
Nausea rose to my throat, and I ran to the bathroom.
In my head, a MAN’S voice resounded:

“Well done for correctly interpreting the signs.”

That was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness.

This might be interesting: @cranium @golden-rain

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