Just A Nightmare

It started on a Monday morning when I was in the shower. It’ll go away, I thought. An eye twitch developed and occurred every time I closed my eyes, be it when I slept or every time I blinked.

By the next Monday it hadn’t gotten any better; it did quite the opposite. It started to hurt. I quickly forgot about the eye twitch, though. Every night sported the same dream in which I was looking through a giant window that exhibited the empty vacuum of space with nothing but a single white dot that floated in the distance. Every night, it would get a little bit closer. Because of my dreams I got little sleep. During the daytime, I had a constant feeling that I wasn’t alone; that someone was with me, even if I was in a completely empty room. I discarded this as a side-effect from my lack of sleep.

By the third week, the twitching stopped, yet I was plagued by the recurring dream. The small white dot which I once perceived was close enough to see its true form. It appeared to me as the decaying body of a deformed humanoid. It looked as if it may have been burnt beyond recognition at one point, as its arms were charred black. Every time I went to sleep, its black, empty eyes stared solemnly into my soul through the window separating dream from reality. It would appear dormant for the most part, with slow and controlled blinks a few times a minute. Eventually, it would start to take a step towards me. At this point, I would wake up in a state of hyperventilation and sweat, with a feeling of accompaniment in the room occupied only by me.

This night was drastically different. Exactly one month from the day it started, the same dream occurred tonight, yet this night the thing was in touching distance of the window. It had no more room to take a step, and when the time came for it to move, it reached its bent and deformed arm out towards the window and opened it upwards in a slow and robotic movement. As it started to pull its corpse through the window, I jolted upright in the same state of hyperventilation I had been waking up in. As I woke up, a series of rushed thumps surged through the walls of my room and down the hall. I was sure, now more than ever, that whatever infested my dreams made it into this world.

I couldn’t go back to sleep that night. I was trembling out of pure fear, something I had not done since the days growing up when my creative imagination would form a monster to scare me. I needed an escape from the unknown, so I reached under my bed to retrieve my laptop. After propping my laptop on my bed, I opened its monitor to be greeted by the familiar light that illuminated the wall behind me.

I looked down at the laptop’s date and time. 2:08, I read. I reached over to my nightstand and plucked the disk for Sims from its case. As I clicked on the disk drive button, I heard two piercing screams echo throughout my house, followed by the same drumming noise move through the walls towards me like an ambulance zooming by a car, and it disappeared in the same fashion. I froze, and the disk dropped to the carpet. When I realized what was going on, I closed my laptop and mustered up the courage to get out of my bed. I felt that every action I took would ultimately result in my death, but before I commanded myself to do so I found myself standing outside of my door. I walked down the hallway towards my parents’ room, trying to maintain discreet with every action I took, but I felt like the thundering of my heartbeat would give it away.

I creaked open the door to my parents’ room and stared into the complete darkness which reminded me of the void from my nightmares. I fumbled for the light switch, and flicked it on. I saw my parents, both lying perfectly still with a petrified look on their face. Shivering, I took baby steps over to the bed. Mustering up the courage to wrap my fingers around the fluffy blankets, I slowly pried them back, revealing more and more of my parents each second. When it was down to their waist, I cautiously placed two fingers on their chest, and took them off as fast as I could. Both of their hearts were beating normally. I tried a number of things to wake them up, but nothing worked. I flew out of the master bedroom and retreated to my room. I sat in the corner of my bed until night turned to dawn and the grey light of the morning’s sun crept in through my blinds. Consciously aware of the world around me once again, tears of terror flooded my eyes as I remembered the events of the night and tried to imagine what horrible nightmares that creature implanted into their minds. I have a feeling I might find out tomorrow.