Chapter I: The Nightmare

You (the Reader), wake up after a wild Spring Break. Only to find that you're dead. NOTE!!!!! This is the FIRST part of a book I am Writing!!! READ THIS FIRST!!!!

      DEET!  DEET!  DEET!  You hear the shrill tone of the jackhammer-like alarm-clock drill painfully into your skull.  The only thought that runs through your exhausted mind at the moment is to turn off that damn alarm and go back to bed!  Seven thirty in the morning is excessively early for school to start, especially the Monday after Spring Break.  Getting up groggily, you keep your eyes shut tight to avoid letting the light in and stumble blindly about, reaching for your night-table, and the alarm.  However, just before you can slam your fist down and crush the “snooze” button, it goes silent as quickly as it came on.

      Confused, you turn around and trudge slowly back to your bed.  Lying back down, you bring your arms and blankets tightly against your chest and pull them away suddenly, stunned at what you feel.  Pushing the blanket back, you hear a crinkling sound, like a tarp full of leaves being pulverized by children.  ‘That’s odd…’  Touching your chest again, a chill runs at breakneck speed along your body from head to toe as your fingertips register a clammy coldness on your bare torso.

      You lie unmoving, trying to recall your activities over the past week.  After a few minutes, you are able to bring back a couple of very fuzzy memories, but all the details are hazy.  Maybe, just maybe, you can remember more after you get rid of this splitting headache.  With your head pounding and heart racing, you strive to remember what happened by asking yourself questions.  Did you drink too much?  Did you make out with that person you have been crushing on since your freshman year of high school?  Did you sleep with that person?!  All these thoughts and more run through your head all at once and you are unable to restrain them all, making your neurons explode torturously, pain and agony making a beeline for the rest of your brain.

      After about half an hour, you’re finally able to clearly remember a few of the wild times you had over the past week; some of these events you dwell upon, while others you don’t.  You can remember binge-drinking with your friends and getting high on weed in a local Hookah bar.  You also remember taking a long hot shower the last day of Break with your next-door neighbor; a girl with whom you’ve been best friends with since kindergarten.  How awkward you felt when she whispered in your ear, confessing to you how she had fallen in love with you over the years and had wanted to get you alone for the longest time.  How she had knelt in front of you and started kissing your hips, caressing your body with her hands.  How you were unable to resist her sensuality, her undying yearn for you.  How you were both excited and bothered by the time you both stumbled out of the shower.  How you both had just finished some wild, kinky sex and were just falling asleep when you saw a shadow enter the room….

      You try hard to remember what happened next, to no avail.  You’re only able to recall one detail; her screams being cut short by an unknown force, possibly by the shadowy apparition you’d seen just seconds before.

      Shaking your head, you roll to face your shade-less window.  You open your eyes, only to realise that it is still dark out.  Confused, you look around wildly…  Nope, still dark.  You close your eyes again and realise you’re sleeping on something other than your bed.  It is hard, cold, and not natural.  You figure it is only just another part of this horrible, awkward nightmare, and close your eyes, praying it will all be over in the morning.

      Suddenly, you wake up again and scream for help upon viewing the scene that has just materialized right before your eyes!  For what you see in front of you is a terrifyingly gruesome scene.  There is a man standing over a table, under you, and holding a scalpel!  You scream louder and louder, trying to get his attention, but then you hear him muttering, and you quiet down to try to hear what he is saying.

      “I’m so sorry for what happened to you, child,” is all you can catch and you start to panic.  You watch helplessly as he pulls back a white sheet covering an oblong shape on the table and reveals a face.  You draw back in horror and shock as you realise it does not have eyes, just empty sockets that stare blankly up at you.

      As the stranger in white peels the sheet farther down, you see the naked torso; bruised and broken.  A silent tear rolls down your cheek as you begin to wonder who this person was, and what happened to them, but you cry most because you do not know what is happening.  You figure this is a nightmare, just a horrible, ugly, completely wrong nightmare, which you’ll wake up from any second.  ‘No more… oh God, please… don’t show me the rest!  Please, let me wake up!’ you plead wordlessly to the still, hushed room around you.  You even try to close your eyes and avert your gaze from the autopsy in front of you, to no avail; your body just does not seem to want to respond to any signals you’re sending it.

      Time seems to slow as your mind processes what is taking place before you and when your grey matter refocuses on the necromantic picture unfolding below you, you see that the “surgeon” has only just pulled the sheet down to the hips of the corpse on the table.  Then you see it; the tattoo you got on your eighteenth birthday, the heart with “I Love _____” engraved inside it, on your chest, right over your own heart, and the blood that covers most of the victim’s cadaver.  Oddly, it seems the tattoo was spared for a reason.

      ‘That cannot be me,’ you whisper to yourself.  ‘It has gotta be just a coincidence; I was not the only person getting that tattoo that day… was I?’  You try to remember, but the memory will not come.  You start to sob uncontrollably, not sure, if what you’re seeing is really a nightmare or something much worse.  When your tears slow to a crawl, your gaze is drawn to the most gruesome part of this entire scene; the smiling throat, sliced literally from ear to ear.  You cover your face with your hands and howl in anguish.

      When you have howled for so long that your throat is sore and your voice is gone, you look up to see the good doctor has cut open the body and begun removing the vital organs.  Just then, a man and woman walk in through a door near the head of the table.  You have no choice but to just float there and hear what they have to say.

      The woman begins, ‘The student’s name is…’  What you hear next is the straw that breaks the camel’s back; your name, followed by your home address, university, and parents’ names!  Everything comes together like the crowd at the first Woodstock in 1969; a jumbled mess that soon comes together in peace and harmony.  It is you on that table; that is why you could not see when you woke up; your eyes were gone.  The blood on your chest was the stickiness you felt.  You are dead.

      The man throws down that day’s paper and turns on a small radio, tuning it to the channel you recognize as the state’s local station.  You read the headline at the same time the reporter on the station reads, ‘A local college student was the fifth victim of the serial killer known only as The Nightmare…’  But that is all you hear, for as the three people down below you look at your mangled, disfigured, prone carcass with the heart tattoo, you curl your ghostly frame up into a ball.  A ball that is so tight, that you disappear inside yourself, and out of this plane of existence forever.

Author's Note

Alright, I'm going to give it to you straight: be harsh, be blunt, but be specific about what you liked and disliked. I will consider all suggestions, and if you find there is anything that should be rewritten or replaced or deleted, tell me using P.S (paragraph #. Sentence # of said paragraph) format, and I will be sure to take your ideas into account!

Thank you!
A. Vidmar

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

You are a writer. I have been working on a few books for years. Still too busy to sit down and finish. I like the opening chapter. Great description and mystery was open in this chapter. I will come back and finish tonight when Grand kids are resting. A excellent opening chapter.
Coyote

[that-little-green-monst..]

Wow excellent job. I love it!

[Pikachu]

Wowowow. (:

I love these kinds of books! Off too read more! :D

[Alana McGuire]

Wooow. You are a really good writer. This is a very interesting idea for a book, and I enjoy it a lot. It's my kind of read. You're very good at captivating the reader's attention and drawing them in to read more and more and more, until before they know it, they've already read the first chapter. Thank you for the read request. :)

[Forgotten]

i really really like it alot i might not read the whole thing but the first chapter is amazing

[hayleee.]

This is... strange. but i love it. when it got to the lying on the table part, it suddenly reminded me of a recent disgusting nightmare i once had... but i loved this piece, and i cannot wait to read more.

[_]

ok a few days i learned to read with my tummy full :3 so after reading the doctor scene my tummy went a little haywire :P this was a pretty wicked read though awesome job!