chapter 1: how'd you guess?

The smell of fresh coffee knocked the sand from my eyes and the dreams from my mind as my partner Tom walked into the office carrying a tray complimented with our mornings breakfast. I sat up straight, the moans and creeks from my chair murdering the already strung out and weak man that was my ears, my eyes burned and my mouth ached, my shoulders collapsed onto the desk and I let out a whimper. "Same dream again Robert?" Tom asked as he sat down the tray. I stared logningly at the coffee cake...wanting to do nothing more than to lay my head down in it and feel just a small ounce of comfort in its soft and fresh smelling cushion, Instead I answered. "Same...." I told him, as if he didnt already know. " Its been the same one for 13 years now Tom I thought you'd wise up by now and stop asking me stupid questions." I managed to squeeze out before the scolding coffee lovingly stabbed at me tounge. " Well I just like to ask, Ive know you since we were just kids rob and still I never know what to expect from you, just seems brotherly to ask what ails you, you know what I mean?" he said as he always has since I started to have these nightmares as a child, all the way up to when we got into business together, just like when we were kids, always wanting and finnaly getting to be detectives. "I know Tom I know....Im sorry ok Its just you know how much I hate the mornings ok? I can't even stand you, my best friend and believe me its much more of a challenge than I let on." I say with a hint of hillarity and a smidgen of animosity. "Hey man its hard dealing with you sometimes you know? really yer so jumpy and and random and my god you complain worse than my mother and you know how she can be !" Tom laughed as he bit into his slice of coffee cake. " heh' right, right..." I laughed and trailed out " So its still the same ? same street, same foggy night?-" tom started but as fast as he did I interupted, " same damn street lights, same tall guy in his suit, and those same damn white eyes of his Tom you know this, Ive told you over a 1000 times already..." I finnished coldly........" He say the same thing too ?" he asked....sometimes I truly wanted to hit him but like I always do I answered with my words instead " Yeah...same sentence....same tone of voice......same dead blank stare.........'I cant wait'.....thats all he ever says.....I still never understand what it means..and frankly I don't want to" I finnished and took a bite out of my crumb cake, watering it down with now luke warm coffee. " Well man im great at deciferring the patters of a criminal and predicting his next victim but when it comes to the horrid ball of monsters, paranoia, addiction, and dementia torn straight from the pages of lovecraft that you call a mind well sir I am for one flabbergasted. " he said with a deserved chuckle. Before I could raise a verbal sword against him my eyes drew downward for a reason I could not explain and under my cup sat a file marked simply "morpheus" As my hands touch its smooth cardboard form I now chastise myself for not just dropping it, not throwing it in the trash, for not burning it......for here is where the horror begins and the dreams evolve.