Nightmares

Imagine yourself in a crowded city street. The air is cold and windy, the wind sending the scent of grimy streets and hundreds of people up your nose. You’re running through the crowd, pushing and shoving your way through. You feel like you’re being chased, you know you’re being chased. You look into the crowd as you push and stumble your way through. You’re crying for the crowd to help you.

            “Please! Anyone! Just help me, please!”

            No one responds and your pleas for help go unnoticed. You look at their faces carefully even though you’re running and crying, you know every last person. You’ve seen them all at some point in your life. They can’t hear you. They can’t see you. They walk blindly down the street, no one talking besides you but yet the streets are filled with noise.

            You hear footsteps above the city noise and they aren’t yours. You feel your pulse and heartbeat quicken as you start to panic. You push through the people, desperate for a place to hide, to run. Then you come to an alley. It’s dark, so dark you can’t see the end of it, and smells of rotting garbage, but you run down there anyway. You think there is a door you can go through and hide. But there isn’t a door.

            You turn around, thinking you may have time to run back out of the alley to seek shelter, but you have none. You see a dark figure appear in the light at the opening of the alleyway. You swallow your saliva, but it feels like cement as it travels down your throat. The figure approaches quickly and you’re frozen with fear. Then soon you’re cornered.

            Your legs crumple beneath your weight and you fall to the ground, thinking this is it. This is the end. But then you wake up and realize that this is only the beginning to many nightmares.