Dream World

by Jodi Newman
(Callao,VA)

~You can hear the scratching on the walls as it comes for you. You hold your breath praying that it can not hear. You can hear it loving calling your name and you know it’s a false tenderness. You press closer to the wall as a dark shape stands in the hallway... a scream escapes your lips as it creeps toward you.~

A scream pulls you from your nightmare and your body feels numb with needle points everywhere. As you open your eyes, you slowly realize that you are still safe in your own room. You blink to shield your eyes from light coming from your window as you swing your feet off the bed. Sighing, you shake your head to clear the thoughts and get ready for the day.

You rise from the bed and head for the bathroom that is adjacent to your room wondering about that dream. Still baffled, you walk into the bathroom and reach for the sink handle. An awful sound comes the pipes but nothing comes from the faucet. You quickly turn it off and on again with the same result. Sighing again, you give up on the sink and try the shower, but that was useless too. You open up the door and head toward the stairs to ask your parents what is going on. An ominous silence has overcome your home as you make your way down the stairs.

By the time you reach the bottom, the silence has become thick in the air as you yell out again louder. You decide that maybe they are still in their room and haven‘t gotten up yet. As you enter to the opening of the hallway that leads to their bedroom, everything goes black expect for a light shown underneath the bedroom door. A scream rips through the silence making you jump against the wall and you realize it is coming from your parents room. Before thinking, you take off running toward the door screaming for your parents.

As you reach the door, a sharp pain shots through your body into your mind making you drop to the ground. A scream tears through again invading your mind and soul, you try to get up but you can not bring yourself to. Another wave of pain shots through you as you wither on the ground. When the pain subsides, you hear moaning coming from the bedroom. You pull yourself onto your knees and use the wall as support to stand up. Blinking away the tears, you start to gain your composure again.

Looking around you, you can smell a metallic scent drifting in and out of the area. You can see that there is only broken pieces of walls floating around you with blackness. Seeing that you can not go back, you start to walk closer to the door and is surprised to finally reach it without fail. As you reach for the door handle, you wrap your hand around it but the thought of what is behind it stops you. Breathing in, you turn the handle but it won’t open for you. Realizing it is not working, you let out a cry of frustration and slam against it over and over till you suddenly feel it give with you clashing to the floor.

Coughing from the dirt in the air, you stand up and take in your surroundings. It is no more a room but an open area with floating pieces of ground for a path and walls. You can hear screams and animalistic sounds echoing through the area. Uneasy, You walk further into the area hoping to see your parents but you can only see blood pools with drag marks. Panicking now, you call out for your parents but the response is more screams far-away. You start to run toward the screams calling out, but you can not tell where they are coming from. You come to an intersection with the path leading to the left or right but a earth-shaking bellow seems to come from the ground stopping you in your tracks. You turn to see an dark mist forming behind you. A deep sound comes from the mist as takes creature-like forms. You realize that the sound is a word and they seem to be saying, “Why? Why?”.

You yell, “what do you want?” and start to run back to the door. Another bellow shakes the ground as you watch a dark mass arise from the ground blocking the door. You stop in fear as you watch it take form into a huge shadow with yellow eyes. Its arms hang down almost touching the ground and stands almost 7 feet. A deep laugh erupts from it as it creeps toward you. You start to back up when you smack into a wall and you quickly look around for an escape but you look back to the mass knowing there is no way out.

“Where are my parents? Why am I here?”, You plead to the mass when it stops moving and looks at you with its yellow eyes.

“You know why! ”, it’s deep voice says with a cruel smile. “You and I are the same”.

“What are you talking about?”, You scream at it as you watch a bed appear next to the wall and you see that it is covered in blood. You can feel your heart hitting your chest as the mass starts to move toward the bed.

“Tsk,tsk, our parents are here”, it says as it points a claw to two bodies on the bed. “but I was always in here,” it points to its head, “but you never listen to my voice. They told you to ignore me”, it said with a growl, “but now we will ALWAYS be together”.

You start to cry at the sight of your parents and your run over to them. You can see they have claw marks on their bodies. You kneel down beside the bed praying that it is just a dream. You notice now that there is a knife sitting beside your leg and you push it away from you. Through your blurry eyes you can see that the room is back to normal but the monster is still there smiling at you and your parents. You cover your ears to block its laughing and the sirens as you start to scream for it to leave you alone.

All of sudden, everything goes white and you can not move your arms. You look around to see a plain room with one door. You hear a quiet laugh in the corner and start to laugh when you see the yellow eyes staring at you. Your laugher becomes so much deeper and louder that it finally matches the monster's laugh. As your laugher dies, the monster smiles and says, "Forever".