Sweet Dreams

      Could you imagine waking up from a really terrifying nightmare only to discover that it was really happening to you?  Imagine not knowing where you are or how you came to be there.  Only knowing for certain that you were no longer safe at home in your own bed.  Imagine the fear that would be tearing at your heart and the anguish that would be seizing your mind.  Would you be afraid?  Would you close your eyes and wish that you were back in your soft comfortable bed under your blankets?  What would you do?
         Read on and decide for yourself what you would do or how you would react if this were you.  Who knows, maybe our dreams are actually our realities and our realities are just our dreams.  Who knows?
         I went to bed well after midnight in the hopes that I would have a restful sleep.  I was really exhausted from a hard day and was hopeful that a good night of sleep would make me feel better in the morning.  I began to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.  At first my sleep was deep and sound, but soon I began to dream.  It was a pleasant dream.  It involved going to a party thrown by my family and friends.  My brother was there with me and I was having a really nice time.  It was such a wonderful peaceful feeling.  I was happy.
         Suddenly my dream began to change.  Instead of being at the party I was standing alone in the foyer of a large Victorian house.  I was standing on this cold marble flooring looking at a huge carpeted staircase that was directly in front of me.  The staircase led up to the second floor of this house.  There had to be at least thirty steps leading up to the landing and each of the steps had to be eight feet across from banister to banister.
         Above my head in the foyer was the most beautiful chandelier that I had ever seen.  It appeared to be crystal and when the light hit it tiny rainbows were cast onto the cold marble floor all around me.  It was breathtaking.
         To the right of the foyer and slightly behind me, was a small sitting room.  I could hear the sounds of people talking so I ventured over for a closer look.  I looked in and saw a beautifully decorated room full of my family and friends.  I was shocked to see them.  When I said hello though it appeared as if no one heard my greeting.  I said hello louder and still I was ignored.  People were looking directly at me but it was as if they were not seeing me at all.  I couldn’t understand what was happening.  Why couldn’t they see me or if they did why were they ignoring me?
         In confusion, I turned back towards the stairs.  I looked up at its enormous height and realized for the first time that three of my family members were standing on the landing of the second floor.  Were they there before and if so, why didn’t I see them?  I could have sworn that they were not there before.  I was really beginning to be confused and frightened.  My heart started to pound faster in my chest.
         Ignoring my feelings and my better judgment, I decided to climb the stairs to my family above.  My apprehension grew with each step that I took.  The closer I got to my family and the second landing, I realized that they were not even watching me approach.  Once again, I was being ignored.  It was as if I wasn’t even there.  As I reached the landing my family did not react to my presence at all.  I tried to get their attention but it was useless.
         I felt as if I was going crazy.  All that I wanted to do was wake up.  I wanted out of this house and this dream.
         I then noticed that on either side of the landing was a long hallway.  They started at the landing and ran the entire length of the house.  Along each of these hallways were a number of doors.  I walked past my family and ventured down the right hand hallway.  I tried each of the doors as I made my way down the hallway.  All were locked save for one.  Why were the others locked and why not this one?  Was there a purpose to all of this?  I didn’t know but I sure wanted to find out.  I was terrified at what I would find out but I had to know.
         I was about to turn the handle to open the door, when it suddenly opened on its own.  The sight of the room caught me by surprise.  It appeared to be some sort of sick room set up like a hospital room.  I slowly walked to the doorway and had a better look at the room.  Against the wall was an adjustable hospital bed and beside it was a small metal hospital table.  Across from the bed by the door was a dresser with a mirror on top.  Directly across from the doorway was the only window in the room and below it sat an unfolded wheelchair.  Why was this room here in this house?  Who had needed such a room?  I was a little nervous and I had a million questions running through my mind.
         Once I had seen all that I thought there was to see, I slowly started to back out of the doorway.  It was then that I noticed a change in the temperature of the room.  The air had grown heavy and colder.  It was almost like being outside in winter.  A bitter cold that caused my breath to plume out in front of me and chill me to my bones.
         I was still backing out of the room when the window began to open and close by its self.  It was almost as if a pair of invisible hands was causing it to do that.  My heart quickened in my chest and I began to tremble with sheer fright.  I was scared to death and I wanted to run away.  I could feel a scream building up inside of me.  I was so fixated on the window that I didn’t notice that the objects in the room were beginning to move.  They were bouncing around and vibrating by forces unseen.  The table over turned, the bed shook, the drawers in the dresser were being pulled open and the mirror shook so badly that it shattered. 
         I let out a high pitched scream of fear and ran.  Due to being blinded by fear I ran into the railing directly across from the door.  I turned around and noticed that the wheelchair too was moving.  I could hear its wheels as it rolled itself towards me.  I screamed and ran down the hallway towards the landing.  When I looked back over my shoulder the wheelchair had once again retreated to the room.  As I ran I heard the door slam shut and lock.
         I ran screaming to the landing and my family.  They didn’t seem to notice that I was running as if the devil himself were chasing me, so I just ran past them and down the stairs.  When I reached the foyer, I turned and ran towards the sitting room.  I noticed that during my screams no one had ventured out to see what was happening.  Once again I was being ignored.  I was absolutely terrified.  I was screaming, crying and shaking uncontrollably.  What was happening to me?  What was wrong with this house?  What the hell was going on?  Why couldn’t I get out of this nightmare?  Why couldn’t I wake up?
         I finally gained some control of myself and managed to stop screaming.  I ran past the sitting room in hopes of finding a way out of this place.  I ran down a narrow hall that seemed to go on forever.  When I finally reached the end, I came to a set of French doors.  I peeked through one of the panes of glass and saw a small bedroom.  Since there was no where else to go except back I decided to enter the room.  When I opened the doors, a pair of chocolate brown Dobermans ran past me.  I jumped and let out a startled scream.  I had not heard their approach behind me.  Where had they come from?  Why didn’t I hear their nails has they hit the bare floor?  They were just suddenly there.
         Once I had calmed down, I looked around the room.  There was a smaller room attached to this room and that is where the dogs had headed.  It too had a set of French doors that were standing open.  In this smaller room was a large dresser and there were a bunch of throw pillows scattered on the floor around it.  Nothing else but the dogs was in that room.
         In the larger room was a bed with a red velvet bedspread, a dresser and a night table with an old lamp on it.  There was also a small book sitting on the night table.  I walked over to the bed and sat down upon it.  I picked up the book and looked at its cover.  It had a name engraved on the cover in gold but it was too badly faded to make it out clearly.  It appeared to be either Melissa or Alicia.  The book was a diary.  I opened the diary and began to flip through its pages.
         I found the bed to be very comfortable so I decided to lay down and read.  While I was reading I could hear the dogs in the other room playing with each other.  I paid no attention to them and eventually became engrossed in the story that I was reading.
         I had only read a few pages when once again I could feel that the air in the room had suddenly grown cold.  With each breath of air it felt as if my lungs were freezing.  I began to get goose bumps all over my body and I began to shake.
         I knew that this meant that something was going to happen so I jumped off the bed with the sole purpose of leaving, when I looked over to the smaller room.  I noticed that the French doors were now closed and that the dogs were lying on their sides as if they were dead.  I ran over to the doors and tore them open.  The dogs at first didn’t move but eventually they slowly began to shiver.  They stood up, shook themselves and ran from the room.  They ran out and past me into the hall.  They never looked back at me or the room they had just left.
         As I turned to leave, I noticed the window for the first time.  It stood open and the cold air was blowing fiercely into the room.  Everything in the room began to blow around.  The pages of the diary that I had left on the bed flipped open and closed.  The drawers were opening and closing and things shook.
         I ran from the room without looking back screaming.  I ran down the hall at my top speed.  I didn’t stop screaming or running until I ran head long into my brother.  I almost knocked him down in my haste to escape.  At first I didn’t know that it was he holding me in his arms and I fought to get away.  He held tight until I recognized him and until I had calmed down.  I cried as he held me.
         I looked up at him through my tears and was relived to be in his arms that I smiled in spite of everything that had just happened.  He smiled back at me.  Once he knew that I was calm enough to explain things to him, he let me go.  I couldn’t believe that he was really here and that he was paying attention to me.  It was such a relief to know that at least one of my family members still cared about me.  I was so happy to be with him.
         Together we walked down the hallway towards the foyer.  I felt safe and secure for the first time and I was a little more relaxed as we walked.  I tried to explain what had happened in both of the rooms that I had encountered thus far.  He listened closely to me, but didn’t ask any questions.  I knew that he believed me so I just took his silence as belief in my story.
         While we were getting nearer to the end of the hall we heard a tiny sound coming from a room off to our left.  Funny but I never noticed that room on my way by the first time.  We went to the doorway and took a look inside.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I don’t think either of us could.
         Inside this room was a dresser against one wall and a window on the other.  In the center of the room was a small crib.  We heard another tiny sound coming from the direction of the crib.  We walked towards the crib and looked inside.  Lying there in the crib was a tiny child.  It couldn’t have been more than six months old. 
         I gently reached in and picked up the child.  I realized then that it was a little girl with beautiful blue eyes, blond curly hair and soft pink skin.  For some reason I felt as if I should know this child.  It felt as if she were mine.  I knew then that I loved this little girl as a mother would love her child.  She even resembled me in her own way.  So small and so precious that one couldn’t help but love her.
         While I held her in my arms I took a better look around the room.  I noticed that there was a small staircase going down to another room below this one.  All that I could see of it was the beginning of the floor and a couch at the bottom of the stairs.  The rest of what was down there remained a mystery to me.
         I looked down at the baby in my arms and noticed that she was silently crying.  When I reached up to wipe away her tears I felt the coldness of her skin.  It was like touching ice.  She was shaking in my arms, so I held her tighter to me.  I began to feel the coldness in the room myself.  I looked over at my brother and had to stop a scream from escaping my lips.  His face had turned ashen gray and he was shaking too.  I reached out and took hold of his hand.  I gasped as I felt just how cold he was. 
         Due to the coldness, I looked to the window and discovered that it was open.  The curtains on the window were blowing in the wind that entered through it.  Before I could react, things started to blow about the room.  The dresser blocked the door so the only way to escape was to use the stairs.  That’s where we headed.
         On the stairs were a bunch of empty bottles.  As we ran down the stairs the bottles fell over and shattered on the floor below.  When we reached the last step, we had no choice but to jump and hopefully land on the couch.  We all managed to do it.  We landed on the big couch and held on to each other as the commotion up above our heads continued.  We were crying and screaming at the same time.  I did my best to shield the baby from the noise above and to calm us all down.  I was filled with terror and dread.  I couldn’t believe everything that had happened so far in this house of horrors.  Why was it happening? 
         It was here that I woke up screaming.  I was shaking so badly that my teeth were chattering uncontrollably.  Some how during the dream I had sat up in bed and was still that way when I woke up.  Crouched in the corner like some frightened animal.  My eyes were still shut and I was afraid to open them.  I was afraid that what ever had been after me in my dreams was still here with me.
         When I managed to talk myself into opening my eyes, I wished that I hadn’t.  I had to stifle a scream as I realized where I was.  I was still sitting in the corner of the couch with the baby in my arms.  I looked over and discovered my brother beside me.
The baby and my brother had fallen asleep sometime during all the activity.  I couldn’t believe this.  Was I still dreaming?  Was I awake?  What was going on and why was I in the house of my dreams?
         I gently laid the baby beside my sleeping brother and got off the couch.  I carefully walked over the broken glass on the floor and made my way over to the stairs.  I slowly climbed the stairs to the room above.  I couldn’t believe what I was now seeing.  The room appeared as it originally had earlier.  Everything was where it belonged.  It was as if nothing had happened here at all.  I walked through the room to the hallway outside.  The house was deathly quiet.  The only sound that could be heard was my footsteps as I walked along.
         I slowly made my way to the sitting room.  I looked in the doorway and screamed.  It was the sight that beheld my eyes that had made me scream.  In the sitting room I discovered three coffins.  There were two large coffins and one smaller one.  All the coffins had a red rose and a picture sitting upon them.  I walked towards the coffins and looked at the picture on the first one.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  It was a picture of my brother.  The smaller coffin held a picture of the baby girl that at this very moment was sleeping beside my brother downstairs.  When I looked at the last picture I screamed with all my emotions.  On this coffin was a picture of a woman that I recognized.  I have seen her face everyday of my life.  It was a picture of me.  I screamed and screamed until there was no scream left in me.  I collapsed to the floor into the blessed world of darkness.
         Was she the haunted or the one doing the haunting?  What was her reality or her dream?  What would you have done in her situation?  Scream, cry or go crazy.  Would you try to run from your dream or your reality?
         As I said before, who knows maybe our dreams are our actual realities or maybe our realities are just our dreams?  I hope your dreams are pleasant and that they are sweet.
Sweet dreams my friends.  Good night!