Dream

                                                Dreams
When I was younger like many people I had dreams, nice dreams about friends, family and my heroes, and like most people I had nightmares, nightmares about monsters I saw on television when I was younger, things I saw in the street, stuff I saw in comics and from books I read. I lived in a small town in Yorkshire called Cleckheaton. Not much of a town really, typical little town the centre a town hall, few shops surrounding it, supermarket 5 minutes away from it, charity shops popping up all over the place and a few local schools near by. Years ago I went to a middle school in Cleckheaton and it was close to a very old graveyard, I think it was a Victorian one. Unfortunately the local kids had done a lot of damage to a lot of the head stones. I used to live 10 minutes walk away from the school, West End Middle School it was called. I used to cut through the graveyard every day to school. Some sunny mornings it was beautiful, as the sunlight shone through the trees on to the head stones showing the plant life on them and the clean cut grass around the graves, it was a beautiful sight. But then there were the cold wet dark mornings were I would walk through the graveyard and all I could see was mist swirling around graves and headstones and just barely see the public footpath. It was also on them days when you would hear voices of the older kids from high school smoking cigarettes from behind headstones in the distance. Them were the days when I ran through the grave yard, terrified I wouldn’t make it, not exactly knowing what I was afraid of, was it ghosts, or older kids in the distance? All I know is those 4 years were the scariest of my life. The graveyard was surrounded by an old stone wall, and when I hit the halfway point I would look for the stone wall and when I saw it I would run like hell to get to it as fast as my legs would carry me. Getting past the stonewall was like a border of safety, a strange thing is that a wall a thing of safety. Anyway back to the dreams and nightmare. Well now am 23 years old and still occasionally have that dream…well its not a dream really it’s a nightmare, and here’s how it goes. It starts as a cold, wet, cloudy and eerie day, then I see the old rusty iron gates of the graveyard, which are covered in a mossy gue, I slowly push them to get in. The gate slowly squeaks partly open, I’m on my own and slowly start walking through and it’s abnormally misty and seems to be getting mistier, and then I hear a voice in front of me. The voice screams “Paul!!! Is that you?” I get super goose bumps all over my body, and start panicking but recognise the voice, as a friends but not sure who it is, the voice is not on the path route though it’s coming from the front left of me, just off of the path. For some reason I always go and look for the person, so then I go off of the path and over the graves. The mist starts to get thicker and the air gets colder. I can now see my breath as I breath and can hear noises all around me.  I hear a loud screech sound just behind me and stop and I cant move, paralysed for at least a minute but it feels like a lifetime and I look behind me and there’s an old man knelt, he looks about 70/80 years old, very little hair, moustache and wearing an old scruffy suit and he’s with a cat and he looks at me and starts laughing. This is the point were I suddenly get full feeling and start running, in what direction I don’t know I just run like a madman and gasping for air and I run in to my friend, well actually its my best friend. He was called Elliott, and id hit him and knocked him over but he got up and he looked slightly different, at first I cant quite tell what different about him but then notice his face features like cheeks and nose are slightly out of proportion and no glasses, Elliott has blond hair and glasses but his face structure seemed different. Elliott then says lets go this way, and as he says that his voice seems to change, get deeper and croakier. The route he was leading us was to the old cremation building, which I think had been shut down for 30/40+ years. But as my best friend I trust him and as we get closer to the building the cremation building is open. The gates are down and there are people stood outside it talking, all seem to be wearing raggy old clothes. When they see Elliott and me they stop and give us a cold stare, then Elliott stops and looks at me, but that’s no longer Elliott, I crap myself and start running but they don’t seem to chase me, the mist is by this point thicker than I’ve ever seen it in my life and I’ve no idea where am going but just running and hoping and suddenly I trip over something. As am laid on the floor I look in front of me, it’s a cobble from the path, I’ve reached the path, so get up and start running, and can feel something very cold following me and getting a cold feeling all on my neck, but I keep running and in the distance I can see a hazy light…looks familiar, yes it’s the gate. My hands start to freeze and my legs seem to be getting cold and going slower and I’m starting to panic, I run towards the gate pushing myself all I can and get to the gate and pull it open and slam it shut.  To my amazement the mist has gone and it has suddenly got bright warm and sunny and I have friends stood there waiting for me and as we all walk away I feel safe and so dammed relieved to be out of there yet I never question what happened I just walk with my friends and they tell me never to walk that route again as danger follows. This is the point when I will always wake up with one hell of a sweat and can never fall back to sleep.