Chapter 6 - Nightmare

I was standing in my room and I was home alone. I had no idea where my grandparents were or my daughter. They must have gone out. It was dark out and one light was on in the house, it was in the hallway causing a light eerie glow throughout the house. I had no idea what I was doing, but after a second I was sure I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t a familiar feeling; it felt like whoever was there didn’t want me to know they were.

I slowly turned, looking around the room, but I saw nothing. Before I had any time to think about what was going on, my body had already caught on. I was breathing heavily, scared, I knew something wasn’t right. It was beyond not right it was wrong, horribly wrong. I tried to make my way to the door, but I couldn’t get my feet to move. I settled with slowly backing up to sit on edge of my bed. Whoever it was, was in the house and they were coming for me. I couldn’t hear any footsteps, but I could feel them coming my way. They were very careful, as far as they knew; they didn’t know I knew someone was here. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on calming myself, freaking out wasn’t going help at all.

Suddenly I felt someone standing right in front of me, but I did not open my eyes. I didn’t want to see them and they knew that. I started to hear something, but it took a moment to place that sound as laughter. They’re laughing? I thought. I saw nothing funny about this. I felt cold hands on my lower arm, slowly moving upward towards my shoulder. I shivered, their tough was freezing. I knew that kind of touch it was, yet it felt completely unfamiliar. His skin was soft, but his touch wasn’t, his tightened his grip the farther he went up. He had both hands on either one of my shoulders now and he picked me up, I let out a quiet, breathless, scream and he laughed harder.

For a seconded I thought I knew his voice, but that too I didn’t really recognize. I realized then I knew who he was as he held my shoulders in his tight grasp, just inches in front of his face. Maybe not who he was, but what he was. There was no other explanation. He had to be a vampire.

Was this Daniel? I thought, but I knew the answer. It couldn’t have been, Daniel wouldn’t scare me like this, wouldn’t hurt me like this either. 

His cold breath on my face reminded me how close he was and brought me back, back this danger that was holding me so tight it was starting to hurt. He then threw me backwards onto my bed and slowly inched his way back up to my face. His hand was moving even slower up my body, touching everything, starting from my thigh up to my chest. I shivered again at his cold touch and again he enjoyed it. Me being scared amused him, and that was why he was doing this.

He got control of his laughter and stopped his hands right at the start of my neck. He stared straight into my eyes and then slid, from being on top of me, to my side while hold onto the back of my head, turning me to look at him at the same time. He then slowly moved his hands from my neck back down toward my chest stopping at the top of my shirt, while tightening the grip his other hand had on my hair, so tight it hurt and I winced. He smiled and his eyes narrowed, making his enjoyment obvious. The pain in my head was distracted when he suddenly ripped my shirt off with one hand. I screamed causing him to laugh again, even harder than he had before.

I jumped awake. What the hell was that!?  I thought to myself.  I was breathing so hard I was mostly gasping for air. I sat up hoping it would help and noticed it was still dark out. I looked at my clock, it was 4:30am.  Lilly was still in her bed, that was a good sign.

Once my breathing got to normal I got up and went to the kitchen for something to drink. When I got to the hallway and the lamp was on it made me jump a little, but I calmed after a second, when I realized that things felt normal. Everyone was here, and it really was just a dream. I hoped.

I couldn’t go back to sleep so I stayed up and watched some TV, anything to distract me. There really wasn’t anything on, except for cartoons or some weird show about a vampire who tried to save the world from monsters. I decided the vampire show was too coincidental and settled on the cartoons.

I must have fallen asleep on the couch. I woke up to Grams softly shaking my shoulder. She was curious to why I sleeping on the couch. I told her I had a bad dream and couldn’t sleep. I just didn’t tell her what the dream was about when she has asked. Gramps came down the hallway and interrupted the conversation when asking about breakfast and I took that as my chance to get away.

It was about 7am now and I decided to get Lilly up so I could take her out to spend some alone time with her. The past two days have been crazy and I felt bad for not spending more time with her. After all, before coming here, we were with each other all day every day. I didn’t know how she was reacting to me not being here so much, but I was also afraid to ask. So I decided on taking her to a park. I knew that was safe enough to not get lost, plus she would love it.

“Lilly baby wake up.” I said and her eyes fluttered open.

She smiled. “Mommy.” Was all she said. She still wasn’t the best at talking, being only two , she was still learning.

“Hey, time to get up.” She sat up and yawned. “Want to go to a park with Mommy today?” I asked. Her smile got bigger and she jumped out of bed and ran up to give me a hug.

We got ready faster than I thought we would have. She was excited to go play and I was just really needing to get that dream off my mind.

Grams tapped on the door while I was putting Lilly’s shoes on and I jumped.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.” Grams said and laughed. “You guys going somewhere?”

“I saw a park not too far away from here and I thought I’d take Lilly there for the afternoon.” I answered.

“Oh, well that would be nice.” She said with a smile. “Ok, be careful and have fun.” she added and then walked away.

After got Lilly buckled up in her seat, I climbed in and started the car. I decided to put on some music to distract myself during the drive to the park. I started singing along, something I would only do alone, or with Lilly, and she started singing alone. She didn’t know the words and she couldn’t say the either, so it was kind of gibberish, but it was cute.

We pulled up to the park and there wasn’t very many people which I was glad for, but also glad there was other people there. That was a better distraction. We played for a couple hours and she enjoyed playing with a couple of the other kids. A couple times, when kids would yell or scream while playing, I would jump a little. As distracted as I was, I was still scared.

 When most of parents had taken the kid home Lilly started getting tired and I decided it was time to get home. We stopped at a McDonalds and I got her some lunch. It wasn’t the healthiest, but spoiling her was something I was definitely good at. After we were done with lunch we headed home and she felt asleep halfway there. That did help me at all, I didn’t want to turn the music up to loud incase I woke her up, so I was stuck with the things that were flickering through my mind.

I thought about the dream, as much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help it. I thought about who it was in my dream. Part of me knew it wasn’t Daniel, but the other part of me couldn’t help but question it and it reminded me of what he had said last night after the kiss. “You shouldn’t trust me so quick. I am what I am, sometimes we can slip.” I shivered a little at that and suddenly I wasn’t so sure of anything. Even though in my dream he wasn’t about to kill me, he was about to do something that would have made me wish he would have. If it was in fact him in my dream and I still wasn’t sure it was.

I was so caught up in my thoughts I passed our driveway. I flipped the car around and went back. While pulling in, I noticed something in the driveway that wasn’t normally there. My heart started thumping so hard my breathing soon started to come to fast, that I almost couldn’t breathe at all. Daniel was standing at the back of his car with a smile on his face, but once he saw whatever expression that was on mine, it faded fast. This wasn’t the same kind of feeling I got when I normally saw him, this was panic. All my feelings and thoughts couldn’t fit together fast enough for me to realize that I was actually terrified when I saw him.

It was just a dream. It. Was. Just. A. Dream.  I told myself over and over. But it didn’t help my reaction any. I don’t know if I was scared of him, or just scared of what he was. Part of me wanted to get out and run to him and let him chase all this horrible things away, just by his touch, but that other part of me wanted to grab Lilly and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I was so torn, I had no idea. I knew was going to give in to that that first part.

I drove the car up to my normal parking spot and shut off the car. I sat there for a minute and was finally able to calm my heart and breathing. I turned and looked back and Lilly was still sleeping. I sighed and got out of the car.

He didn’t meet me at my car like he normally did, I kind of glad, but a little upset. If he wasn’t afraid to come near me, maybe that would have proved all my worries wrong, but the fact that he saw I wasn’t happy like I normally he was and he stayed away, maybe me worry just a little bit more. He wouldn’t really hurt me would he? I asked myself. But I really wasn’t sure. If a normal person had a dream like that, it meant that they were just overly worried about something to begin with, but dream like that for me meant something bad was coming my way, and I had no control over it. I started losing my breath again. I really needed to stop thinking about it. I took a deep breath and released it slowly. He still didn’t move.

I decided I would go over and get Lilly out and take her inside before I did anything. I wouldn’t want here to be there, regardless of what was about to happen. Especially if it turned out bad. Plus it would give me a little extra time to calm myself. Well, as much as I could anyways. I got Lilly out slowly and closed the door quietly. I glanced up at Daniel and he just stared at me. His expression held many emotions. Nervous, confused, scared, distant. Confusion was what I figured I would see most, but scared? Why would he be scared?  He readjusted his arms and I held up one finger for him to wait. Hoping he would listen. He nodded.

I went into the house and my Grams was in the kitchen cleaning up. I walked passed her without saying anything and went to my room. I laid Lilly on her bed and closed the door as I walked out. Grams caught me heading back out.

“Did you girls have fun?” she asked and I jumped. I wasn’t really expecting her to say anything, though I should have.

“Yes.” I said and the smile I tried to show didn’t work.

“Where are you going?” she asked sounding and looking worried.

“Um, Daniel is here. I’m going out to talk to him.” I said while I moved my head in his direction.

“Oh ok. Yeah he got here about 10 minutes before you got home. He asked if he could wait and I told him he could. That’s ok isn’t it?” Her eyes narrowed as she glanced outside at Daniel and then looked back at me.

“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you. I’ll be back in a little bit.” I told her and turned around to leave.

“If your leaving, don’t be gone too long.” She said as I was closing the screen door. I just nodded and kept walking.

As I got closer to him I tried to keep my breathing under control. I did ok until I met his eyes a few yards away from him and my breathing stopped. I stopped about 3 feet in front of him. I opened my mouth to say hi, but the words got caught in my through since I never actually started breathing. I choked and started coughing. Great, I’m such an idiot. I thought to myself. I took in slow short breaths trying to get myself to stop coughing and finally got it under control, but now my throat hurt and my eyes were all teary. Idiot!  I yelled at myself. And looked up to meet his eyes again and reminded myself to keep breathing. Why is this so damn hard? I asked myself.

“Are you ok Rayanne?” he asked sounding worried. All other expressions were still there and I searched to find the words to ask, hoping I would choke again.

“Y-yeah I’m fine.” Thanks to my stuttering and my voice breaking on the last word, I knew he wouldn’t believe me. I sighed. “Yes.” And I nodded, not like that was much better.

“Are you sure? You looked terrified.” He looked deeper into my eyes as if he was trying to see what was bothering me and for some reason, I was worried he could. “Did something happen while you were out today?” he asked sounding even more worried than before.

“No.” I answered easily. Nothing did happen, today. Last night, was a different story.

“Something happen last night after I dropped you off?” he asked.

I gasped as he said that. He couldn’t know, could he? I asked myself. Thought I know there was no way possible… right?

His eyes widened as if I had answered him and I looked away, breaking whatever connection we might have had. I may have been crazy, but things like this is what made me that way. Weird things, too weird for normal people to deal with, you had to be crazy to deal with these things and believe them to begin with.

He made an unidentifiable noise and my eyes shot straight up to him, trying to figure what it was. It sounded like a growl or something. I still wasn’t sure. He looked back into my eyes then looked away and turned away from me to lean, on the trunk of his car, on his elbow. He put his head in his hands and I heard a weird moaning sound. A sounds that came from someone who was hurt, but he wasn’t hurt from what I could tell. The next thing he said caught me totally off guard.

“What did you dream about Rayanne?” he asked with a muffled voice while his face was still buried in his hands.

 I don’t exactly know why, but I took a step backwards and my hand came up to my forehead to put my hair out of my eyes. I closed my eyes and just stood there. I should have known he’d guess right, but it still took me totally by surprise. I couldn’t even find the words to answer him, my thoughts weren’t even on track to think about what to say. I just stood there with my hand still on my forehead, now staring off at the trees at the side of the garage, but not really seeing them, I wasn’t really seeing anything.

I couldn’t control my reactions, I couldn’t control anything. The only thing I could really focus on now was the fact that a lot more things were out of my control now. I came here to better my life, to find myself, to control my own life. How the hell did things get so mixed up? My head started spinning and my vision went along right with it. I barely saw Daniel now, but I could tell he was looking at me. I knew what was happening, last time I felt like this I had a pretty good bump on my head the next day. The only thing that interrupted me was Daniel’s voice, I strained to focus on it and not give in to the blackness.

“Rayanne? Rayanne?” he kept saying my name, but it was soft and slow. His hands were on my shoulders now and he was gently shaking me, shaking back to reality. “Rayanne, can you hear me?” he asked.

My tried to open my eyes, but when I did everything was blurry. I could feel that I was still standing up, and I think he was holding me there. I blinked the blurriness away and focused on him. His beautiful strange brown eyes stared straight at me and I smiled. Everything before this was forgotten for the moment. All I cared about was that he was with me, and everything was fine. For that moment.

“Rayanne, answer me please. Are you ok?” he asked still soft and slow, but more worried than before.

I nodded and moved to lean against him. I got halfway there and he stopped me. Pushing me back slowly about a foot away from him, staring at me confused again. Suddenly everything snapped back into place. I stiffened and moved another foot back, he dropped his arms.

“Um…” Was all I could get out. Ok, so back to being a idiot then. I said to myself. I shook my head, to just stopped thinking about everything for second and focus on here and now. Focus on exactly what I was going to say to him. I looked up at him and took in his mixed emotions again. I started with the first thing that came into my mind. “Are you ok?” I asked. Wasn’t exactly what I meant to start with, but I guess it’ll do.

“Yes, but I’m not the one who just had a panic attack.” He said and looked at me with his eyes narrowed in confusion again. His expressions changed so much, that alone would give me a head rush again.

“Right. Well I’m ok. I think.” I said and looked away. Where we were standing was too easily seen from the house and I didn’t like that “Can we go for a drive?” I asked, anything to get away from the house during this, whatever this was.

“Sure, if that’s what you want.” He said and walked to his car, I followed.

It was quiet for a few minutes until we were a safe distance from my house. I could tell he was thinking about something, and thinking hard. I wished he would tell me, but at the same time I was glad he didn’t. After all that back at my house, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he thought.

“Any specific place you want to go?” he asked, still not looking at me.

“Anywhere, it doesn’t matter.” I answered.

It was obvious nothing was going to be said until we were where ever we were going. I just sat there and stared out the window, and focused on thinking about where he would be taking me. It looked like the road to the mountain we saw the sunset at last night, but then he turned and nothing looked familiar. I tried not to worry about that, but of course I did. We kept driving for about another twenty minutes before he pulled over on the side of the road and stopped the car.

“What is this place?” I asked. It was still just the road out in the middle of nowhere. That didn’t help the worrying.

“Well I have no idea where to go, and I cant really think about it. So it was either stopping here or driving to California.” He said.

I stopped to think about that for a second. Talking in the car didn’t seem like such a good idea, but it’ll have to do.

“Ok, that’s fine.” I said and I think he could tell I was worried.

“We can get out an walk if you want. There are some trails around here, the lake isn’t too far from here.” He added. That sounded better.

“Ok.” I said while getting out.

He came over and walked by my side, leading the way to the path. He stayed 3 feet away from me, and never coming any closer. A few minutes went by and then he asked me again.

“What did you dream about last night?” he asked, looking down at his feet, then slowly glancing up at me. His voice wasn’t so soft this time.

“Um,” I paused. I didn’t know exactly what to say. “It was nothing, really.” I lied. I was a bad liar, especially when it came to something that scared me. He didn’t even consider that.

“Rayanne.” He growled it at me. I jumped back a little. He never used this tone with me, and that didn’t help anything.

“Daniel, I really don’t want to talk about it. It was probably nothing.” I said. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince.

“It must be something. You look terrified.” He said and stopped walking. He turned to me, but didn’t come and closer. “When you pulled in the driveway, you looked like something was bothering you, something bad, but then when you saw me, you looked so… So terrified, it sent ice through my veins. That’s a hard thing to do, considering.” he paused for a second and his tone got more serious. “Please, tell me what your dream was about.” He was begging now.

Could I really tell him? Could I say it without having another panic attack? Saying it was even worse than thinking it. I looked around and found a fallen tree nearby. I decided sitting would be better while telling him. Least I would already be on the ground. He followed me and sat across from me.

“Daniel, it’s not easy for me to tell you this.” I paused and took in a deep breath and exhaled. “I couldn’t tell exactly who it was in my dream, but of course only one person came to mind. It was terrifying. I haven’t been able to think about anything all day. I don’t want to tell you for a few reasons. One, because of whoever was in the dream. Two, because I don’t know if I can even say it. And three, well… just what the dream was about, it makes it hard to describe.” I said while pulling little pieces of grass out of the dirt.

“Please try Rayanne, I want to do what I can to help you, or prevent this. I hate seeing you like this.” He stopped for a second. “I can already tell by your reaction towards me, who you think was in the dream. I won’t take any offense to that, rather it is me or not. Whatever it is about, but I can tell it isn’t good.”

“No, it isn’t. Not at all.” I got the sudden feel of tears building up in my eyes and reached my hand up to wipe them  away before they fell. He noticed and I could tell he wanted to come and comfort me, but he didn’t. I still had mixed feelings about hesitance.

I took a deep breath before I started explain it to him. I started from the beginning, trying my hardest not to leave anything out. It was hard telling him, but also a relief to get it out in the open. He immediately understood why I would have thought of him first, seeing how he is the only vampire I knew. And that was the only think I could tell for sure, that it was definitely a vampire. As I was getting closer to the end of the dream I could see the rage building behind his eyes and that alone comforted me. I believed now that he could never do such a thing to me, and felt stupid for thinking otherwise. Even though the words weren’t out in the open I could tell he felt the same for me as I did for him. That made me happy, very happy.

When I was done with the dream, tears pouring out of my eyes like a damn faucet. He reached over and pulled me into his arms. We sat like that for a few minutes, until my tears stopped and my breathing was back to normal. I looked up at him and he still looked confused. I looked a little harder and noticed he looked a little scared too.

“What’s wrong?” I asked turning to look at him more clearly.

“Um, well… the thing is, it wasn’t me, but who?” he answered and then I started questioning that too.

I never really thought past the fact that it could have been him. Having it be him was worse than the dream itself. If it was someone else, it would be easier to stop. I would have Daniel to help me. It helped, but not a whole lot. Then I thought about the last thing he said. Who could it be?

“Is there any other in the area?” I asked.

“Not now, but occasionally. You get your normal ones who just pass by, not paying attention to anyone. Except for when…” he hesitated a little before he finished. “thirsty.” His voice broke at the word and I understood what he meant. It made me think of a question we haven’t talked about yet, but I would ask later. “I have friends who come visit once and a while too. But none of them would ever-” he stopped, while holding onto me tighter.

We sat there for a while trying to decide if the dream was something that would really happen or not, but decided that instead of taking risks we would assume it was. We talked about some of my other dreams I’ve had and then about how many I’ve noticed really happening. It didn’t help that it wasn’t a lot, but that was also good, in a way. I meant that maybe there was more of a chance that this dream might not happen. Well that’s just what he thinks, and I really hope he’s right.

After a while we just stopped talking, and enjoyed the scene of the area. I really looked at it this time and it was beautiful. I just sat there, leaning against him, and enjoyed the comfort in the moment. After a while I closed my eyes and he started humming. I didn’t recognize the song, but it was nice.

Soon I drifted off to sleep, and dreamt of a sunset just like the one from the night before. I was leaning on Daniel, up against a tree, just like I was now. A gentle breeze was blowing through the trees and spread around the lovely smell of the forest in the spring. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful sunset. All while lying against the most beautiful man I have ever seen.

Author's Note

I'm new at writing and I except any criticism. I just ask that you please be nice about it. There may be some grammar errors, but I haven't made things final yet.