Darkest Night
Ever have a dream so real you could have sworn that it happened?
My eyes snap open. The creaking noise I heard has stopped. Did I actually hear it, or did I just imagine that I did? It’s still night, and the light from the full moon shines through the window, illuminating the blankets on my tiny bed. Except for a spot near the foot of the bed, near the closet door. I stare into the black, straining to see if anything is there. I think I see twin pinpricks of moonlight glinting off something shiny. But it could be my eyes playing tricks on me. I’ve learned that you tend to see what your mind tells you to see when it’s dark. I pull the covers over my head. Nothing can get me inside my protective shell. At least that’s the logic of my six-year-old brain.
I close my eyes. Right before I fully succumb to sleep I feel something hairy brush against the skin on my leg. I startle awake and look down, but all I see is black. Claws dig into my skin as something reaches out from it and grip my leg. It pulls me towards the inky darkness of the closet that has spread to the foot of my bed like someone has doused the area in black paint. I scramble and kick, trying anything to escape this thing’s grasp. I scream for my mom and dad to help me as my hands tear at the bed sheets, struggling to find purchase. Anything to keep me from being pulled into the void. Tears are streaming down my face as I cry out once more, hoping, praying, that anyone will answer my pleas for help.
Just as the darkness begins to envelop me, my parents burst into the room, nearly ripping the door off its hinges. My mom is screaming as they both grab my arms and pull with all of their might. Pain blossoms throughout my body as the thing and my parents pull harder in opposite directions. It feels like they are tearing my body in two. Its claws bite deeper into my skin, and the blood burns as it trickles down my skin. My parents pull harder, and it feels like they are going to yank my arms out of their sockets. It’s no use; the monster is stronger than both of them. I close my eyes and scream as the obsidian abyss closes its fist around me.
I sit up straight in bed, covered in sweat. My throat is raw; have I been screaming? My wife is sleeping soundly on the other side of the bed. Thirty-six years have passed in the blink of an eye. I’m no longer that terrified kid having a nightmare about being pulled into the closet by some monster. Yet, I can’t help but think about how real it felt. My leg feels like the skin has been pulled off it, and the sheets are sticking to it. I look down and my eyes take a moment to focus. Then I see it. I see the blood.
This is loosely based on a dream that I had, or I think I had when I was a kid. Despite being able to remember only bits and pieces of my childhood from that age, I vividly remember this dream, and I always wondered if it was real? Or if it was based on something that actually happened, and my brain just interpreted it like this. I asked my parents about it once, years later, and they had no idea what I was talking about.
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