Night

Every night it’s the same.

I get into bed and I pray that I don’t dream.

The first thing I’m aware of is the screaming. I think that’s what wakes me up. Only, I know I’m not in my bed. My eyes open to a heavy leaden sky; there’s no definition to it at all. No sign of clouds or the sun - it’s like looking at a wall and I can’t tell how far away from it I am as it fills my vision. My hands can feel the wet, cloying mud that I’m laying in and my ears hear everything. I can’t tell you what’s worse – hearing the sounds or the recognition of the smell you are being overwhelmed by is likely that of seared human flesh.

I sit up. The environment is alien yet familiar; I’ve seen it every night for as long as I can remember now and I can’t recall a time when this wasn’t the case. The ground is uneven and sodden beneath me as I take a few tentative steps; off to my left there’s what look like bleached white tree trunks sticking up from the ground, completely striped of all branches and sheared off about two thirds of the way up in an irregular manner. After beginning to find my feet I hear the first cry for help.

I stop in my tracks, head twisting around to find the source of the plaintive cries for assistance. It’s only a flicker but my eyes pick up some movement off to my right. Something flailing – an arm maybe? I move as quickly as I can in that direction, something akin to half-run, half-stumble type of a movement as my feet keep getting stuck in the mud. After what seems like an eternity I reach him – a man slipping down the side of a mud pit; his legs below the knee mired in the dirty brown slop that’s filling the bottom of the unnatural formation.

My hands grab onto his, holding as tightly as I can. I can feel the weight of his body pulling him down into that filth strewn bog as he begs, pleads, screams for me to pull him up. As hard as I try, he keeps slipping further down. I grab the sleeves of his mud-covered jacket; trying to secure my feet just results in my own body starting to sink into the surface. He’s slipping further down now – his waist is being swallowed up by the hole and everything I try is failing to help. Even now, I’m being pulled further down into the pit myself, my body starting to slide down the slick mixture of soil and water.

His final garbled, fluid filled scream as the water seems to rise up and consumes him fills my ears in a way I never believed possible. His hand – still gripped onto mine – clutches at me for dear life for one final moment before relinquishing its hold on me. I hear another scream – this time my own howl at the fact I was unable to save him – before I scramble around, trying to claw my way out of the mud pit. I can feel the water starting to soak through my shoes and it feels like there’s something pulling at them.

Of course, that’s impossible, I reason to myself but as I clamber my way up the treacherous side of the pit, I find I’m unable to escape fully. Peering over the event horizon, I cry for help, waving my one arm in the air to attract someone’s attention. In the middle distance I see someone; my actions seem to garner their attention and they begin to half-run, half-stumble towards me. As their visage comes into focus, I suddenly realise who I’m looking at…

Every night it’s the same.

I get into bed and I pray that I don’t dream...