Hiding

Date: 10/31/2019

I had a dream I can barely remember where my family and I were running and hiding from someone/something. We couldn’t let anyone find us though, because that would alert whoever was looking for us. Maybe it was the police or something I can’t remember. Anyways we were in this abandoned hotel, there was this tall bunk bed that was only two bunks but as wide as a king bed, and the space between them was about ten feet, and even then there was at least five feet until the ceiling from the top bunk. Everything was old and the room, though tall, was small in terms of floor space. We were hiding in there and we each had a small bag of stuff, mine was mostly food and drink although we were running out. My dad wasn’t there for some reason as well. My mom was telling us to be quiet and lecturing us the way any mom in a post-apocalyptic world would to her children; be quiet at all times, if someone comes and you don’t have time to do very much just drop whatever you’re doing and hide, if you have time grab your stuff so nobody notices you’re there, and whatever you do don’t trust anyone, except for each other. I was feeling more responsible than usual because of the situation but my brother and sister were still just as silly and were playing chopsticks and rock-paper-scissors while swinging around quietly on the top bunk, my mom told us she had to go get food but to stay there and remember what she told us. A few minutes after she left we heard people coming; by the sound of it a couple of teenage boys there on a dare. I silently rushed my brother and sister under the bed and behind some old boxes, and I grabbed my mom’s stuff and went under myself. We all held our breath and I saw the boys enter through the smallest crack by the side of the bed, I had sucked in every part of my body and wasn’t moving. My brother and sister had done the same. They were laughing and stuff and their flashlight swept the room, then they left. It was dark but we were used to the darkness and the abandonment, which made me think that we had been living like this for a while. Like outcasts or something. I got up when the boys left and checked, and found that they left some empty beer bottles. I saved them for my mom. She returned at dusk with some food and we told her what happened and she praised us for being good and promised we’d move soon. The entire day was just us being quiet, exploring the abandoned hotel, like weird wild-children or something. We didn’t leave the building ever, we never went to school and our mom never went to work. It was like we were living in an apocalyptic world and the world was not.