I had a scary dream last night.
It started off with me buying ingredients from an Indian Supermarket for a meal I was going to make that night. My Indian friends taught me how to make a proper indian dish, so I needed the right ingredients.
The meal was for my parents and I was preparing it in the kitchen they had when I was about 18. I was not in a particularly good mood, everything in the kitchen felt strange and all wrong somehow. i was also feeling some emotional pain being at my mum and step dad's house, I only ever visited once a week.
I was trying to get the rice just right, but it had congealed into a sticky gloopy mess, and I felt really angry with the saucepan, which was all wrong!!
Totally absorbed I was annoyed when the kitchen door, which was attached to a porch, opened, with the sound of voices.
I heard my stepfather, in an overloud voice, as if he wanted me to hear, saying ''absolutely our pleasure, we enjoyed it didn't we love'' presumably to my mother who replied "oh yes, yes" in a polite false tone. I gathered they had someone with them, to whom they were saying goodbye, but as I had my back to the door I couldn't see who it was. It felt like they were trying to keep the visitor longer and I had a dreadful feeling they wanted to invite them in, but were waiting for my approval. I remembered they had gone off earlier to show a friend of a friend around an art gallery. This isn't the sort of thing they usually did, so it had struck me as odd. I was feeling very tetchy and the last thing I wanted was having to pretend to be happy to meet someone.
Then I heard Nic's voice. "We will definitely have to do it again". "yes, yes that would be lovely" gushed my mother. This is the odd bit. I didn't feel excitement, I felt dread. Because these was something in Nic's voice that didn't sound quite right. It had this almost metallic twang which filled me with a sense of absolute horror for some reason. I turned round, my stepfather was almost in the kitchen, and he took that as a signal to introduce the visitor. It was as if they had all planned it, but had to do it carefully. "This is our daughter." Nic stepped into the kitchen, except it wasn't Nic. He looked exactly like him in every way, same features, same height, same everything. But I knew it wasn't him. "hello" he said holding out his hand. His voice was the same except there was this strange twang to it, like a harmonic, a strange accompanying frequency which sounded almost..robotic! i was absolutely chilled to the bone. Frozen with fear. His eyes were the right colour, but there was no life in them, no shine, it was as if they had been painted with matt paint. I tried to indicate with my eyes to my parents "it isn't him!" but they were just smiling all flushed with embarrassing starstruck awe about their 'conquest'. A wave of anger at them flooded through me, for not noticing this monster who was pretending to be Nic.
By this time they were all in the kitchen and as Nic turned his head I saw under his hairline what looked like a small flashing red light! I felt like I was going to be sick...
Then I woke up.
I still don't feel right, it's one of those nightmares where the flavour stays with you. I hope I go back to my NICe or naughty Nicky dreams soon!