Can you both stop fighting? It’s awkward enough being in this car as is.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Current Date: November 6, 2023

Character: Pacific Goodnight
Race: Human
Age: 36
Current residence: Brent, Ontario
 

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I don’t know where the dream came from. It’s been years since I’ve even truly spared a thought to any of my parents, let alone my brothers, and longer yet since I was in a moving vehicle. I mean, when the Silencers landed some seven or so years ago—that’s what I think it was, anyway—there was a worldwide, or so most of us assumed since there was no way to know, EMP event that killed everything out there. Anything that ran on electricity was dead to the world and there was no fixing it.

Some lived on the belief that once the Silencers left—if they ever did, though yeah, they have now as of about two years back—things would go back to the way they once had been. That electricity would be a thing again, that we’d have cars, refrigerators, lights, heating, television and all of the rest. Those people were living in a fantasy world that made no sense to me whatsoever.

Yeah, sure, I think it would have been nice if somehow, we’d have had electricity on our side to be able to keep food longer, or heating because having to worry about the fireplace or the oven took some getting used to in winter but, all in all? I think we’ve adapted to our world as it is, and hearing the returned laughter of children though there are days when I’m still wary, has been just beautiful.

Through all of this, I still don’t know why I dreamed about my family at all. Though, to be fair, I dreamed about my brothers more than my parents. I have no memories of all of us ever being in the same vehicle together. When I was even just four, the older two at close to eighteen and sixteen were already gone from the house more often than not. Thinking back, though I don’t remember that for a fact, I’m pretty sure that most of my brothers left the nest as young as they could manage.

In this dream, though, I probably was only one, maybe two. I was all the way in the back of the minivan in my seat and I was even facing the back because, from faint memory, kids up until the age of four or something, have to be in back-facing seats. That was so long ago though that I’m not sure if that’s really the truth of it, not that it really matters anymore, the whole cars gone and the rest.

Every single one of my brothers was in that car too that I could tell, and it was my mom driving; that makes no sense either because she never drove, and even when I was old enough for her to drive, she didn’t. Dad would be the one driving her to her job, then he’d be off to his, he’d be picking her up, then coming home.

The only other thing that remains with me of this odd dream, other than all of my family being present, was my dad complaining to the oldest two because they were fighting and that it was making what was supposed to be a beautiful trip awkward. It all feels so strange, especially for how young I was in that dream but, it’s almost like I was just viewing the whole thing through a window. I saw myself in the car, I saw everyone, I heard everything, but I wasn’t really living through it.

A car ride, everyone together, little old Pacific in the far end with… no one actually next to me and that just baffles me even more. It’s like the van was longer than it should have been.

At this point, I’ve been awake for a short while and I’m still trying to piece together what I can of the whole dream to try and make it make sense but I’m just going to have to stop. Nothing in that dream makes any sense and I don’t think that trying to piece it all together would make it make any more sense. London would just probably give me odd looks if I started talking about it, I haven’t talked about my family since he came into my life and Chance knows most of what my childhood was like, he probably wouldn’t have much input, though.

There’s so much to do today, anyway. Snow’s already started to come down in small batches and while we’re pretty much ready for the winter, there’s still a whole lot of everything that needs to be worked on. So, time to put that weird, mindless dream aside and focus on getting shit done today.

Focusing on my set tasks is going to make whatever that dream was fade to nothing in a few more hours anyway. I think I just ruminated on it this long because I was waiting for the other two to wake up. They looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn’t have the heart to wake them up myself.

Final Word Count: 835

I’m the youngest here, but no one would know it, what with the way you two act instead.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Characters: Pacific Goodnight
Race: Human
Age: 34
Current residence: Brent, Ontario
Final Word Count: 777 words
 

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Growing up wasn’t always easy. I mean, I can look back now, and I can shake my head at the way everything turned out. I had five siblings, all older than I was. I was the youngest and where the others all had two or so years between them, somehow, my parents had possibly decided that they’d had enough with five kids, and I wasn’t expected. I was a good six years younger than the rest and it showed, in a way.

I mean, by the time I was in my teens, only the twins remained still at home. I was twelve to their eighteen, but there were days when I certainly didn’t feel like the kid in the house because these two always seemed to act like absolutely immature idiots. That’s not to say I didn’t love my siblings, I did. What little time I’d had with them as I was growing up.

I don’t know how normal, or not, my parents’ behaviour was towards me as I grew up. They were fairly lax with more or less all of the potential rules they told me I had to follow. I could get snacks whenever I wanted, not that I did. I learned very early on that snacks other than at certain hours would lead to tummy aches that I had to then mostly deal with on my own as my parents were too busy doing other things and forget trying to get any help from the twins, that was like asking someone for soothing tea and being given a cup of spiced up water.

I could spend as much time outside as I did, and somehow, for some reason, my parents rarely checked in with me to see at what hour I came back home. Not that I stayed out very late either. From a young age, I guess you could say that I already had a fair idea as to what I felt like I was ready for in my life, and I focused on that. I must have picked up this habit from someone at school. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends—I was often told I was too bossy, and it was annoying—and I remember spending a good bit of my time at the library. It kept me occupied while I waited on the opportune time to head back home.

After all, both of my parents worked, only the twins stayed home but it was rare they were there, and while I had a key, I didn’t really like the idea of being home alone. I was that one kid who saw shadows out of the corner of my eyes and my imagination liked getting away from me whenever it could. I might have turned to computers and focusing on all I could figure out of them as a way to get my mind to focus on something more, something that wasn’t imaginary boogeymen.

Not that it didn’t work out in my favour. By the time I was old enough to, I was out of the house, I was doing college courses on the side while I worked and, yeah, it eventually led me to meet up with Dom and that, that changed my life. Darkness and the Silencers coming changed our lives too, but we made the best of that, after that.

From that moment onward—when I left the nest and my parents behind who didn’t seem all that fussed with the idea of keeping in touch—I was free. I was my own person and man, I can tell you that I switched almost instantly to using my middle name instead of my first name. I don’t know where my parents fished that name for me, looking back, the rest of my siblings all had fairly normal names and yes, here I was, Pacific. I’m not saying it’s a bad name, but it wasn’t a great name for me, not while I was growing up.

Once away from the nest, I admit that I found myself surrounded by people whose idea of a normal day didn’t include anything that I would have thought completely immature. It was such a change from the life I’d had up until that point that it took some getting used to, but it was refreshing, and I discovered just how much I appreciated the idea of not having to deal with people that acted as though they still were kids.

Not that I’m saying that letting go now and again and having fun was a bad thing, but not as a constant, day-to-day life, it wasn’t a good thing.