Horror

The Monster Is Laughing

I Knew It Wasn’t A Dream

I don’t know what they are, but they are not dreams. They are events, happenings, real. I think. If I don’t leave my bed, they must be dreams, you insist. But they are not. They are real, vivid, and terrifying.

They are nightmares, you insist. But they are not.

The first came last Tuesday. I had drifted off to a good book and woke at about 11 PM. I needed to take a leak in the worst way. When I was finished, I wandered back to bed; that’s where I thought I was going anyway until I fell off the cliff's edge.

I kept falling and falling. There was no bottom. It was a dream, you say. It wasn’t a dream, I say. The first monster arrived just before I hit bottom, which, in this case, was water. I had read that falling from a great height into the water is like striking concrete. As it turned out, I didn’t want to strike concrete, nor did the monster. It caught me, somehow, as I didn’t see any arms. All I saw was a huge face and teeth like…like nothing I had ever seen. They were like knives — two rows of knives. Yep. Nightmare, you say.

But it was not.

I first realized I had been falling up, not down. The bottom of the spaceship yawned at me like a gaping mouth. I fell in, but how was that possible? Can you fall up? Where was the monster? Then I saw it but didn’t see it, but others, all monsters, were floating about like those things you see in the corners of your eyes when you sneeze too hard.

They had huge, black eyes but no bodies, at least none I could see. They were formless but present. Like something you would see in a nightmare. But not a nightmare. A sudden sound crackled, breaking the night and disrupting the dream, except it wasn’t a dream. It was screaming and begging, begging and screaming for mercy. Mercy? From what? From whom?

Then I woke up. Or not. It was a dream. You had insisted it was a dream. But I was dead, or so I thought because I was in a coffin. There was Mom, leaning over me, weeping. Then there was Mary, my sister, leaning over me, weeping. Then there was the monster. It was leaning over me, not weeping but laughing. Was it a dream? No. It wasn’t a dream. I was dead, and it was death. It wasn’t a dream. The monster is laughing.

About the Author: Professor Mike is a writer and editor at Medium and other platforms. He has never met a Midnight Dog. That makes him sad.