Flashes

Chapter 1

At first they were just little flashes, harmless things that came to me when I was asleep.

When I was a kid I knew beforehand which kids were gonna be the biggest bullies, what the answers to most of my tests were, how many times I would be sent to detention by my bitch of a teacher, small things like that.

All through middle school and high school the visions got progressively worse. I would wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares filled with gore and screams and eventually I couldn't sleep without medication that kept me from dreaming all together. Thanks to my Mom for the meds, she took me to the doctor, telling him I was suffering from night terrors and after a few annoying tests I got the pills I needed.

I hit college right after I graduated from high school, going to the local college first then to an out of state one, just to get away from home for a little while.

I make it sound like my life sucks but aside from the damn visions everything's pretty cool at home, my brother's a successful business man who owns his own company and my Mom even has her own small online business that she sells stuff she's made through, my Dad died eighteen years ago when I was just three so I never really knew him, Mom says I look just like him.

Once I got to the new college the shit really hit the fan. One night I was lying in bed, I had just taken my meds and was trying to fall asleep but my room mate's Godawful snoring was keeping me up so I got up to get myself a bottle of water from the mini-fridge that resided in the corner of our tiny dorm room. As I got back into bed an excruciating pain shot up my spine and all the way to my brain before exploding somewhere behind my eyeballs. A second and a third followed quickly bringing images with them this time, images of a guy running down a hall being chased by three other people when all of a sudden the guy tripped and the other people caught up to him and began beating him mercilessly. When a fourth pain came I finally saw the face of the man being beaten, it was my room mate. The next thing I knew the room was spinning and slipping away.

The next morning I awoke to a sharp knocking on my door and as I sat up in bed I winced as my entire head throbbed in protest at the movement. The knock sounded again, this time louder.

"I'm comin', I'm comin," I called to whoever the hell was on the other side of the door.

Turns out it was a cop, "Hello Officer, can I help you?"

"Are you Alex Morrison, the room mate of Jason Campbell?" he asked, holding up a picture of Jason for me to see.

Images of my last vision flashed through my mind, "Yeah I am, why?"

"Jason was killed at 2:00 this afternoon in the South wing of the college that is being renovated," the cop explained.

"Oh God," I tried not to puke on the officer's shined shoes, " H-how did he die?" I don't know why I asked, I already knew the answer.

"He was beaten to death by three men who were seen fleeing the building after committing the crime, we currently have all three of them in custody down at the police station."

"Then what do you need from me?"

"I need you to come to station and identify the body of the victim."

"Shouldn't you ask his family members to do that?"

"Jason was an orphan, he doesn't have any family."

I remember now that he mentioned something about that when he was looking at a picture of me and my family that I had on my desk, "O-okay, just let me change clothes first."

To Be Continued