In the dead of night, Bibi was trapped in a dark forest, her clothes were drenched from the intense downpour.
She was wet to the bone by the unrelenting rain, and the surrounding darkness made it difficult for her to see, when suddenly, through the trees came the sound of a woman's anguished cries above the clamor of the storm.
“Help! Help me, please, someone," the voice shouted in tears into the night.
Bibi was lost in the forest and couldn’t find a way out, but she understood that someone was in trouble, so she ran and hurried through the thick undergrowth, feeling the sludge under her bare feet slowing her down.
The voice, initially resembling her mother's, morphed into an echo of her sister's, inducing confusion and panic. Each step forward seemed to carry her farther away from the elusive source of distress,
“Mom?!” Bibi yelled, “Vivian?!” but she couldn’t find her mother and sister.
She kept running deeper into the woods when she suddenly found herself standing in the middle of an open field. The rain had suddenly stopped, yet, her heart beat fast against her chest.
Right in the middle of the field was an enormous cage that held a shackled and soaked girl wearing a flowing white robe. The strange woman’s face was covered by her rain-damped hair as she sat still, sobbing and chained like an animal.
Driven by a combination of fear and resolve, Bibi approached with caution as she cried out to the stranger, her voice echoing with the rhythmic patter of rains. “Hey!” she called out, “are you alright?” she said as she approached, yet, there was no response.
Bibi carefully approached until she got close enough to peer into the cage, straining to look into the darkened face of the strange woman who was completely soaked with legs in shackled to the cage.
When suddenly, the woman lifted her head and stared Bibi in the face, and as soon as their eyes locked, shock gripped Bibi – the captive was identical to her, in looks and everything else, ensnared in chains and distress.
“Help! Help us Bibi,” the enslaved woman muttered breathlessly.
When suddenly, a surge of panic jolted Bibi awake from her nightmare as her body drenched in a cold sweat while her heart pounded against her chest.
She barely had enough time to make out what the dream meant when her cell phone rang abruptly. Startled by the nightmare, she sat up and looked at her phone. Her mother's caller ID appeared on the screen, and she hesitated before responding, praying to God that her mother and sister were alright.
“Mom?” Bibi spoke,
Her mother's voice, laced with tears, delivered news that shattered the fragile boundaries between dream and reality.
“Bibi, it's your father,” her mother sobbed, “oh, Bibi, your father is dead, and it's all over the news.”
Bibi clutched the phone, frozen with disbelief as her mind grappled with the weight of her mother’s words as she reached for the TV remote and turned it on with trembling hands.
The TV headlines corroborated her mother's words, “THE CEO OF THE RENOWNED ETERNAL ENTERPRISE, STEVEN STONE, PASSES ON TODAY AFTER SUFFERING A CARDIAC ARREST IN HIS HOME.”