Dream Awake

My name is Einan, I’m an 18 year old Jewish boy and I’ve been blind most of my life.

I was born in ideal conditions. There were neither complications in my mother’s pregnancy nor reasons to believe that I would be anything other than a completely healthy baby. Sighs of relief filled the air after the operation concluded without error; my mother gave me my first kiss and held me in her arms. She looked at me and I looked back intently with bright blue eyes that were still getting accustomed to the light. I was toted to the newborn unit as protocol required and placed among a sea of tiny squirming bodies. Lying there peacefully was a short-lived notion, however, and a faint cry began to emanate out of that mass pen. At first, the nurse stationed outside the hall thought it was just another child performing a routine whine, something to be placated and then forgotten. A waving of hands, a few mutterings of old men, a musty ceiling �" all things observable and normal. Her heart-rate quickened, though, a few beads of sweat beginning to glisten on the side of her face. She didn’t know what to do, panicked, and ran to get the nearest doctor on the floor. Tests, more hand waving, mutterings transforming into a dull clamor that evenly spread across the palette of white walls and stagnant air in the hospital. Solemn eyes looked at me and I looked back, but the grey orbs resting in my face told them instantly what would take a lifetime for me to understand.

 

            Panic. Tears. Shouting. “What happened to my baby!? What happened to my child, what did you do to my poor child!?” The doctors all shuffled around looking at their feet. Mumbling half-assed reports and standard procedures. There wasn’t anything anyone could have done, they said. I guess that’s what made the fact so hard to forget and so hard to live with. Sure, my parents loved me, but they weren’t prepared enough to handle me and they weren’t heartless enough to throw me away. They tried their best to provide, but many things inevitably fell to the wayside as a result of their inexperience. I was shunned for my disability. I was scared to talk about my emotions. Most importantly, though… I felt alone. What resulted, was a child being dropped into an empty world grasping out for hands to hold and clinging only to air, finding only blackness as a home. Life was a puzzle; my innards wrenched when I wandered too far off into the void. I was a curious kid, though, and I didn’t know how to stop exploring. When I was still a toddler, I made it through a crack in our backyard’s fence and got lost in the woods just outside the suburbs. It took them almost a day and a half to find me. I was shivering, saying constantly “Get away from me. Leave me alone.” Surviving off of nothing but a half-eaten granola bar that I had in my pocket and the fat left over from my infancy, my parents though I would die of malnourishment. I had scratches all over my face and insect bites all along my ankles and legs. I didn’t say a word about those complications, though. “Stop looking at me. Get away from me. Leave me alone,” I kept saying in a quiet and bitter voice �" almost whispering.

 

            I had one refuge despite all of this. In my dreams, I could see the colors and shapes of the hospital. I could feel the warmth from the lamp above my infant face. I could hear the sound of my mother’s voice telling me hello for the first time. Memories of moments when things were normal. I forced myself to cling to those instances I had witnessed, it was all I had left in a world that didn’t make sense to me. The only solace that I could depend on... As I grew a little older, I finally had the means to communicate, and told my mother about what I could see when I was asleep. Confused and rushed, she grabbed me in order to speed to the nearest clinic. She had even hoped that maybe I was regaining my sight. Suspense was swelling up inside of her, I could feel it. I even felt it when it shattered on the floor as the doctors explained the phenomenon to her in dry syllables. Apparently, those who are not born blind are still able to process visual stigmas. The mind constantly compartmentalizes memories and rearranges them as we sleep, one of the doctors said. This process is what creates dreams and it persists for any of the senses that a person might lose - that’s why people like me who aren’t born blind can still see things when they dream. He told me that it was remarkable that I was seeing the things I had claimed, though. Since I had lost my sight so early, it shouldn’t have been possible. He said that as I grew older, I might start to see less and less when I dreamt. My mind would choose to forget certain packets of information it no longer needed. A part of me rotted away at that very moment. I felt tears forming in my mother’s eyes, but I couldn’t say anything.

 

            On the car ride home, I could hear the summer breeze through the cracks in the window. I remember feeling greatly relieved when it grazed my cheeks. A strange sense of resolve came over me and I made a promise to myself that I would never forget. I would focus my mind on my memories every night. Soon, I found myself being able to see new formations of shapes that I hadn’t before. Different colors would arise in the corners of my memory where previously nothing had existed. I thought to myself some days that it was a miracle, but I never wanted to tell anyone about it. Even though my dreams brought me comfort in a very anxious life, they felt forbidden. I got uneasy thinking about it sometimes, trying to figure it out. Deep down, I knew I never would.

            Years passed in a blink of the eye. I went through my boyish years like most middle-class average human beings. I had gone through all the emotions and scenarios as expected, but with a few extra challenges of course. The teasing was hard for me, but I soon realized that the kids around me were just ignorant. They didn’t understand what they had. They didn’t understand what I lacked. I could tell that the kids who never picked on me had something that they were suffering from. None of them ever had the courage to stand up for me, though. Soon, I became numb to it �" sometimes the teacher would scold someone for making fun of me as I would just blankly gaze into the distance. After a while, kids became teenagers and there were far more offensive things to mock me for. Sure, I had friends to help me get through the tough times, but I never really felt like part of the gang. Instead, I devoted most of my time to personal development. I read braille quite often and had a passion for music, among other things. It was lonely, but I got through it just like anyone else…

 

            Meanwhile, I hadn’t stopped my personal regiment of mental training. Each night I would make it a goal to see something new. Each morning, I would audio-record what I could remember from the previous night and listen to it repeatedly throughout the day. I found that by building off of previous dreams, it was easier to form more complex images the following night. I felt like an artist, carefully painting a dreamscape of my own choosing. I would create a masterpiece that only I could observe, even if it meant shutting myself from the outside world. The outside world didn’t matter to me anymore, after all. I wanted to know the secrets of myself. I wanted to explore the regions of life that cannot be found on any map.

 

            My longing, quickly turned to obsession. I skipped out on a date to homecoming dance so that I could get to bed early. I ignored idle chatter and any sort of contact outside the realm of necessity. I remained cordial, but nothing more. My waking self was merely a husk of the person I was when asleep. I remember telling myself that I would rather die than to lose my dreams. I even began to develop a process of night-time rituals to facilitate my goals. I would make sure the temperature in my room was brisk. Then, I would cushion the space between my closed door and the carpet with a damp towel to cancel out any potential noise. I would also light a few candles or a pillar of incense depending on my mood. Afterwards, I would make sure that my body was cleansed of any distractions both bodily and mental. Performing a casual meditation and getting into the most relaxing position possible had been my favorite step of the process since its creation. Lastly, I would ease my muscles and let every worry leave my cognizance as the last breaths of air escaped from my nostrils. These things and more I did every night religiously. I had no other choice.

 

            I also created several techniques to aid me in my endeavors to utilize during the day. I couldn’t help having to go to school and participating in regular life, but it was a chore to me. If I was going to be forced to stay awake, I would have to find ways to make use of the time. I would feel the contours of my body, creating a mental outline for me to remember. I did the same with all manner of objects and locations as I would go about my daily schedule. The more time I spent concentrating on my surroundings, the easier it became to conjure them in three dimensional space within the confines of my mind. I would often pester my friends to describe things for me in order to begin filling the visual blanks as best I could. It was only a matter of months after my sophomore year that I could create a mental model of my immediate surroundings. A few months later I had committed my entire hometown to memory both spatially and pseudo-visually.

 

            These abilities transferred into my dream world, but they were somehow amplified. When I was asleep, everything possessed a more vivid quality. The colors were brighter and sharper, the sounds crisper. Details and intricacies were present in my resting mind that I had no account of while awake. I felt attached to something. Almost as if it was being poured onto me and clinging to my essence. I could sometimes move my fingers, toes, and then onto limbs. They would appear in front of my eyes as if I were normal. I could look down and see my chest, waist, legs… did they really look like that? There was a certain uneasiness about it, disorientating to say the least. Yet, I felt like there was a balance �" unexplainable, but it’s true. Of course, I had seen my limbs before in my dreams, but I was merely a spectator. During my junior year, however, I began taking control of my own dreams, experimenting with different techniques that I had learned about on the internet and in various books from the local library.

 

            At one point, I had even considered telling my friends and family about what I had been experiencing. I was an anxious child back then though, so I quickly overthought and forgot. How would I tell them? How could I explain to my friends and family that I had been dedicating a very large portion of my life to only my dreams? I couldn’t prove anything to anyone, but in the inner sanctum of my mind I knew that it was real. I quickly came to the conclusion that they would simply laugh in my face if I tried to tell my story. In hindsight, exchanging thoughts with them back then probably would have saved me… but I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted to plunge further into the baselessness that was my dreaming mind.

 

            I began skipping school on days where both my parents were at work to practice more intently. It wasn’t long before I had mastered the art of lucidity, achieving it more than 95% of the times I would dream over the course of several more months. The power I possessed seemed too remarkable to be reality; I could control anything I wanted. I could do anything I wanted. I was a god. I was a creative genius. I was everything at once. I could fly. I could create structures from sheer will. I could even write things down and commit them to memory for my waking self to benefit from. The feat was liberating for a kid who felt trapped within himself, but it had its downfalls. Firstly, it wasn’t exactly reliable. Sometimes it felt like it would last years in a single night. Other times, I felt like only moments were in my grasp before dawn emanated from my window. I also started to experience abnormal fatigue during the day. It wasn’t my body that was tired, though; it was only my mind, throbbing with each task I was forced to think about.

 

            I started to grow paler and thinner. My parents brought me in to see a specialist, but I didn’t tell her anything. She couldn’t figure out anything that was wrong with me either and came back to my mom empty handed; she was pretty pissed. I laughed on the inside because I knew she was helpless to control me. I was a perfect child - I got straight A’s even though I was skipping class because I made up for it tenfold in my dreams and kept out of trouble all at the same time. I didn’t go out late at night or spend time destroying my brain with drugs and debauchery. I didn’t even talk back or start arguments for no reason as most teenagers would. She had nothing to suspect of me and she cared little for causing trouble where it was not warranted.

 

            After a while, though, I started to notice things that actually bothered me. In my dreams I would hear voices. At first they were subtle, too muffled to make out coherent thoughts. I tried to ignore them, but I couldn’t. I even tried to will them out of existence, thinking surely that I had the fortitude. The mutterings rose to chatter, however, and the chatter to full-fledged clamor. The volume did not help the incomprehensibleness, though; the voices were still as clouded as ever. They sounded as if from coming behind a wall, trapped within a separate plane but still poking through by some unseen force. Piercing and omnipresent, yet nowhere to be found, the voices never ceased their cruel torture. I tried ignoring them for a week, pondering each day how I would survive another night. When that weekend came, however, the voices vanished. I still heard them from time to time, but they only showed up when they wanted to. Sometimes I would even hear them while I was awake.

 

            Other strange occurrences began frequenting my dreams during this time as well. While asleep, there would occasionally be a blacked-out area in my peripheral vision where I’m sure it had escaped me before without my knowing. When I gazed into it, I felt hollow. I knew that it wasn’t just black paint covering a surface. It was a hole, a doorway to some other place. I knew this instinctively… I had to. I wouldn’t dare go close enough to find out for sure. Unfortunately, I came to find that I hadn’t a choice in the matter. Days came and went, the darkness spreading little by little each night so subtly that I never would have noticed one from another. This went on for the majority of the second half of my junior year until finally one night, I dreamt in complete blindness. I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t understand what I needed to do. I was completely helpless.

 

            I tried to hide my depression from my friends but the tears just kept flowing. Caked into my face were the remnants of my hardships. I was a terrible liar too, so that certainly didn’t aid my cause. What hurt the most, though, was how none of them seemed that concerned. We talked about it one day at lunch, but it wasn’t brought up again. It was like they were ashamed of me. My parents were a little more helpful. They would talk to me often about my feelings, but whenever I would bring up what was actually bothering me, they would cast it aside as nonsense. What was the point of living anymore? What was the point of my life?

 

            I began to contemplate suicide on a regular basis. I had even gathered the necessary ingredients: a rope, a chair, and some guts that I had misplaced. I was tired of having things taken away from me, so I convinced myself that if anything was going to be taken from me again �" it would be everything and I would do it myself. The night before the date of my scheduled departure, however, I was blessed with something. I could see myself laying there in the dark sea. I couldn’t move anything except my eyes, but I could see myself and that was all that mattered. Everything was not lost, it just needed to be rebuilt and stabilized. I had hope again until I heard the voices clearly for the first time.

“We’ve been watching you.” “Follow the footsteps.” “We know what you are.” “Retrieve what’s yours.” “We know you can hear us.” “Accept the deniers.” “We know what you’re thinking.”

 

            The voices were off-kilter as if resonating with a detuned piano key. There was a certain duplicity about their pronunciation. It sounded like they were meaning to say something else, but they didn’t know how to. Some voices were deep and plosive while others were shrill, callous tongues. I could hear the gravity of their message. I knew it wasn’t just my mind dreaming; I understood from the beginning that they existed outside the realm of myself. A dialogue of sorts between two parties, only I was too afraid to respond. I didn’t know if they wanted to hurt me, the animosity in their utterances enhancing my doubts. All-together there might have been 10 voices, give or take a few. The rhythm in which they spoke matched perfectly with the muffled voices behind those invisible walls from nights before. They must have said those phrases uncountable times up until that point, waiting for the moment when I would finally understand them clearly.

 

            Laying in the black ocean became increasingly taxing on my psyche. The voices eventually died down, but I remained there in that fold between worlds. The edges of my body encroached with numbness, a prickling sensation scraping up against my spine from my tailbone all the way up to the crown of my head. Panicking started to set in, would I ever wake up? My eyes darted around the endless space for any signs of release. I tried with every last ounce of determination to break free from my entrapment. I was a sitting duck and I was beginning to feel ill. Defeated, I shut my eyes and simply waited for the nightmare to end. As my eyes closed in endless night, however, so did they open to find newfound light. 

 

            I was groggy, my eyes heavy with fatigue. My head ached and my arms failed to support me when I first tried to roll over from my bed. I felt dirty, my body smelled of sweat. I stumbled onto my floor which was riddled with various articles of clothing left over from the previous evening. I pressed up against my threshold, barely managing to open the door without hurting myself. I crawled over to my bathroom across the hall and turned the shower on scalding hot water. As I got in, I felt the hot mist entering my nostrils, clearing up the passages to my lungs. I concentrated on each and every droplet of water that splashed against my skin. Slouched over, I pressed my forehead on my arms which were resting on the bathroom tile as the water cascaded over my neck and back. My heart was still racing from the night before, I was experiencing a nervous breakdown of sorts.

 

            The entire day I was on edge, passing off a menacing disposition as disguise for utter terror. The voices were loudest that day, I remember that they sounded very angry with me as if I had personally wronged them. Sitting at the lunch table, I merely listened while my friends talked about their regular activities. Only it wasn’t my friends’ voices speaking… it was theirs. I could hear a cacophony of messages in between the mundane bustle of the cafeteria. I felt their touch along my spine. With mental anarchy reigning in my skull, there wasn’t a chance for me to gain composure. I snapped at the dinner table that night when the voices started to mock me.

“We know what you are.” “Do you think you can run away?” “You have undone the order.”

 

            The hellish voices were mangled together in some sort of demonic amalgamation. I knew I had heard them spout from my mother’s throat like billowing smoke. Gritting my teeth, I told her to shut the f**k up and to leave me alone. I saw her mouth the words repeatedly and yet she had only asked me to pass the butter for her roll. Embarrassment hit me like a cold wave, I excused myself from the table in order to go to sleep a little earlier. I didn’t exactly give them time to react, but what other choice did I have? I was a danger to myself and to anything that came in contact with me.

 

            I tried to relax as best I could, sleep fell upon me swiftly because of my earlier exertion. I was scared to fall asleep, but I knew I couldn’t run away from it for long. I began counting backwards from 100 and around halfway through I opened my eyes to see myself laying my bed in my room. Everything matched exactly how I had left it before I went to sleep, except now I could actually see it. I could hear the faint noise of my parents arguing over me from the kitchen where they were most likely cleaning up. I began to question whether or not I had fallen asleep, but my inability to move my own body guaranteed my suspicions. I heard my mother scream from across the house “Go back to sleep Einan” in a tone that wasn’t quite her own. Mortified, my heart rate hastened. I began sweating and shaking under my skin. I knew that if I wanted to, I could close my eyes and wake up, but I wanted to see what was in store for me. Maintaining the mental state was exhausting, though, and I was beginning to consider giving up. Just then, I heard a faint whisper coming from behind me. Cold breath pierced through my neck as a sharp knife through flesh. Everything inside of me was begging to turn around, but I couldn’t.

 

“Awaken.” “Open your eyes.” “See what you’ve wrought.”

 

            I woke up to the sound of my mother’s voice as she stood at the foot of my door. “Wake up honey, you’re going to be late for school.” I would have been relieved to know that my mother didn’t hate me for the previous night’s insult, but I knew that she had work that particular morning and even though I was blind, I knew that it wasn’t her. I could tell by the way she looked at me, with a fake smile that only an actor could possess. She didn’t blink either, and I noticed that her eyes followed me as I got out of bed. She was motionless, standing directly in the middle of the door with her arm propped up on one side. “Wake up honey, you’re going to be late for school,” she said again with the same exact enunciation and inflection as before. “Go take your shower and meet me downstairs,” she continued as I approached her. I tried to motion to her casually so that I could get through, but she wouldn’t move. Her eyes followed every move I made, she turned her head as I squeezed myself between her and the frame. She even turned around and watched me go into the bathroom, never leaving her initial placement until after I had already closed the door. All these things I felt intuitively, I didn’t have to see a thing.

 

            I locked the door and panicked. I didn’t want to let it know that I knew, so I turned on the water and took a shower as instructed. The water was blisteringly hot just as I liked it and I immediately began to think of a plan. Lathering soap into my hair, I thought of the possibility that I was still asleep �" but then why couldn’t I see? I started to rinse my hair, closing my eyes as I did so. Subtly, the water got colder… it was still warm but not nearly as hot as before. It also felt thicker, I could taste iron in my mouth. I opened my eyes to find my entire body coated in coagulated blood. I could see a fiendish visage vomiting sanguine liquid and bile from where the showerhead had once been.

 

            I woke up gasping for breath and clutching my covers. I could barely breathe fast enough to prevent fainting. My head felt like it was being prodded from the inside out. A sensation of surreal vibrations combined with intense pain arced across every nerve in my body. I was writhing on my bed and fell to my floor with a sickening thud. I could smell and taste blood in my mouth. I could feel my spine twisting underneath my flesh. My clothes were ripped in certain places and I felt soreness around my eyes.

 

            I frantically tried to explain these events and more to my friends, but they ignored me just as I had anticipated. I feared for my life, but they scoffed at me, assuming that I was trying to get attention from them. Secluded in my discoveries, discouragement almost engulfed me… but I had to fight back. Each and every night I would have the same dream as before. I thought I was in control, but I wasn’t. My days were plagued with visitations by the voices and my nights were cursed with never-ending nightmares. Soon the school year ended, the reoccurring dreams persisted for that entire summer up until my 18^th birthday in August.

 

            That night, I finally was able to move again in my dreams. I rose from my bed and scanned the room for any abnormalities. Everything was in order, of course, just like it always was. I began exploring the house, my curiosity overpowering the immense fear coursing through my veins. The walls retracted into the ground as I touched them, swallowed by the earth. Completely surrounding the recreation of my home was a barren wasteland of gray dirt. A gargantuan sphere of fire loamed closely over the horizon, which was a dark orange canvass mixed with streaks of purple. The heat was barring into my brow, I felt weak and saw that my skin was paler. With my legs giving way underneath me, each step felt like a thousand. The sounds in the dream world were deadened by something, as if suppressed under tightly pressed cloth or hidden beneath the floor in some clandestine basement. I stomped on the ground expecting the crisp crunch of coarse dirt, but instead there was only a dull beat. In the distance a colossal plume of fog was inching its way closer to my position. I had to squint my eyes to do so, but I could see a flowing black figure flush with the vanishing point. The wind was flying like daggers, but it brought no relief from the sweltering heat. The fog brought with it the undeniable stench of putrid flesh and caused the figure to be lost within it.

 

            I could barely see five feet in front of me due to the intensity of the fog, but I knew that the figure was watching me, calculating exactly how it would present itself. I felt the same cold breath on my neck as before, but I was too afraid to face it. It grabbed me by the shoulders and slowly, but deliberately turned me around. The creature was a very tall and skinny humanoid with light gray skin. It had no mouth, no ears, no nose, and large pupil-less eyes that refused to blink. I could tell that the entity couldn’t talk, hear, smell, see, or even feel - but it had other, more powerful senses. The figure stared at me with a certain level of wild abandon that made me feel akin to a corpse being dissected. It was intrigued by me, a fact that made my stomach plummet to my ankles. I felt myself becoming prey to its harsh gaze, it was figuring out my weaknesses, it was discerning the qualities of my being. It was almost skeleton-like in its features, bones protruding through its flesh, towering above me easily by 3 feet. The black cloak it wore was riddled with complexities, runes and sigils were stitched into the design in red thread. Strewn across the covering like the blood of a freshly sacrificed lamb across a temple floor, the designs beckoned me. When I gazed at the robes, I had the distinct feeling that they belonged to someone else. The cloths of the creature contrasted greatly with the husk-esque grayness of its skin, accentuating its hideous features and instilling a certain trepidation under my skull.

 

            The entity’s long and sickly fingers slid from my shoulders to its cloak. It began opening the clothing, revealing the nature underneath. There was an incomprehensible allure to the shadows beneath the creatures robe. Similar to a black hole, it pulled me towards it. Voices began to emanate from the void, I could hear the sounds of bone crushing against bone, the noises of people being ripped limb from limb, and the cries of millions through centuries of imprisonment. I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t stop myself from drawing closer.  It was then that the figure slowly raised its right arm, its hand open and ready to clasp. It took a hold my shirt and eased me into the vacuum of its body. I couldn’t breathe as it surrounded me in the confines of its robe and I felt my lifeblood flowing out from every orifice in my body. I closed my eyes and woke up in a cold sweat.

 

For the next few weeks, I tried my hardest not to fall asleep. I managed to go a full 3 days before I began fading in and out of consciousness. Under my eyelids, I could see the figure. I could see his visage slowly advancing, I even felt his cold fingers on my shoulders when I nodded off. It was too morbidly realistic to ignore, yet too vivid to believe. I told myself that I was going to quit my obsession. I would do away with all of my struggles and live a normal life. It was all a lie, though. I said it just to make myself feel better. I couldn’t stop because I had to know the secret of my curse. The inner facets of my mind were warping uncontrollably, I counted the seconds to stay awake. My days were synonymous with the memories of my nightmares. The dream world and the real world began to mesh, the line between reality and fantasy blurred. I lost sight of all temporal matters, refused to eat, and went through weeks without speaking to anyone, not even the therapists. I lost all desire to appreciate things in life. I no longer cared what the flowers smelled like outside my bedroom window, it no longer mattered whether or not I could run my fingers though my own dog’s fur. It was as if my brain was shutting off all my other senses to focus on the one it could never truly possess. Finally, I cried myself to sleep one night after putting it off for as long as possible.

The dream went the same as before up until the fog settled in. I noticed that night that as I was looking towards the horizon, several black specks appeared evenly distributed across it. The figure from before must have spread word. Those things all moved in unison, gliding across the ground like wraiths in the hunt. The figures were relentless, but they never pursued with a quick pace �" they didn’t have to. They would always appear in the dense fog in the exact locations they needed in order to trap me. I would run as fast as I could, not daring to ever stop and look to see if I had escaped their clutches, but it was futile. They eventually would find me. After some time, I had given up to exhaustion and collapsed onto the hot, dry dirt. Lying on the ground, I could see that my skin looked sickly and old. My body felt different, as if I had been given a foreign set of bones. I remember thinking that my stride had been longer than usual.

 

Resurrecting myself with newfound determination, I told myself that I would fight till the end as the figures loomed into view. They formed a circle around me, all holding open their cloaks. I felt like I was being pulled apart in all directions. The voices were calling to me, urging me to accept my fate. I woke up. My limbs were sore and I was over-heated from the excursion of running for so long, but I knew that such sensations had no basis in reality. I held my breath secretly hoping that I was still asleep somehow. I knew that I wasn’t though, I knew that I would have to get out of bed and strive through the turmoil of the day.

 

Whenever I had a second to think, their faces would appear. Whenever there was a fleeting second of silence, I heard the terrible screams of those who had already fallen into their cavernous robes. I could feel them around me when I walked, I could sense their eyes watching me even when I was around other people. They were uninterested in the common masses, though; I was the one they wanted. I spent my time formulating a plan to rid myself of them as they mocked me from beneath the shadows, telling me that I would fail. They had invaded and taken everything from me. My world, my sanity, and my dreams were nothing but crude instruments in their dissonant songs of death. Knowing that they would never stop their conquest, I realized that I was running out of options.

 

I felt like I was a mistake, some sort of anomaly that the universe had to balance out. Why had I lost my vision so early in life? Why did I possess the uncanny abilities which aided me in my dreams? I could feel myself being lost in the ambiguity of the infinite possibilities. I tried to rationalize with myself, but it only deluded my thoughts further. Those figures were shades of otherworldly origins, they were meant to be sealed away. While dreaming, I was viewing a plane of existence not meant for eyes to observe. I grew tired of the mental strain, laid down in bed, and dozed off before I had the chance to stop myself.

                      

 

The fear of death branded my mind with agony, my eyes were watery with the weight of my almost ensured demise. A part of me wanted to still go on, of course, but I had been fighting most of my life and I was ready to rest. Their cruel words had gotten to me, their mutterings scarred the bones beneath my skin. I was the same poor child afraid of the dark, I was the same helpless kid wandering through the blankness of life’s maze. As the figures emerged from the fogged wall just outside my field of vision, there was a certain beauty to it. The way they moved, their robes undulating in the wind. It was raining, there were cracked mirrors in the sky all pointed towards me. I felt the same warm breeze touching my face as I did in that car ride home so long ago.

 

The figures slithered deliberately towards me, their eyes wider than usual, expectantly anxious. Dread surged out from my heart, because I knew the sensed my desperation. I wanted to be brave, though, I wanted to end my life different from how I had lived it. I was tired of running away, but the shaking was hard to contain. My statuesque efforts betrayed by my weak spirit. I couldn’t do it. The mental barriers fell down around me, my façade an empty lie to myself. “I can’t face them,” I said as charcoal thunder arched in the sky above. Smirking, I let the weight of my eyes take me back to safety, but I found that they were weightless. I palmed my eyelids, a single tear streaming across my face as I finally understood that escape was impossible. Shock was starting to set in. I looked in one of the misshapen reflections not far from where I trembled. I could see what I was. A gaunt monochrome cadaver, hunched over in apprehension with no means to close its eyes, no eyelids to provide rest.

 

At that moment, I hysterically begged for mercy, frantically dropping to my hands and knees as they drew closer. I accepted that there was no chance for my plea to be answered, but the primal instinct to provoke pity was the only choice I had left. Even though they all looked the same, I could tell which one was the leader. It positioned itself directly in front of me and pulled out a single black robe from under its arm. It extended its reach in my direction, waiting for me to willingly clasp the vestment on my own. It was then that I realized why the figures never blinked. They couldn’t.

 

I bore the garments over my shoulders awaiting further instruction. They began to open their robes, releasing those ancient utterances from the annals of space itself. The voices were screaming and laughing at the same time, their tone of utter malice. I finally understood the missing link and pulled the hood over my head, mimicking their design. The veiled message relinquished itself to me.

 

“We tried to warn you.”

 

            Many people long for their dreams to be reality, for the fantasy of our minds to collide with the tangible nature of existence. Two planes of understanding occupying the same space, the lines of truth shattered. Hear me. I tell you that I have seen the land of our dreams. The raw energy of our imaginations. I have seen the impossible, and experienced the incomprehensible. I know what lives in our thoughts, what drives us to lives the lives we do. I’ve also seen the nightmares. The fears that keep us in check. The horrors of time and space which know no bounds and feel no remorse. The secrets of the shadows hidden beyond our graves.

 

            We are those nightmares. The sounds you hear when you are alone. The feelings you get when it’s too quiet. We are the ones who watch you while you sleep, escaping right before your eyes perceive us. You look for us in closets and behind bathroom stalls. You pray we don’t find you in your final hours, but in the end, we always do. So sleep away and yearn for the inception of your dreams; we are waiting… watching, for when you do.

 

Patient File: Einan Metz

Diagnosis:

Subject was completely unresponsive when brought to the facility by his parents. They said that he was refusing to talk, eat, or interact with anything. We stabilized his condition and waited a few days to send in the therapist. Therapist stated that the subject showed no signs of medical ailment, he simply would refuse to talk. It was noted that the subject also showed no discernable emotions except when on the topic of dreams. At night, however, subject showed signs of extreme dissociative personality disorder. Subject would talk in a voice that was different than his usual one and say things that were off-color when compared to his profile. Inconclusive.

 

Further Observations:

Subject showed extreme aversion to mirrors or anything that could reflect his image. Subject refused to explain reasons why. There was an occasion one morning where he attacked an orderly who tried to take his picture. Also, subject has shown no signs of weight gain regardless of exercise, diet changes, or medication.

 

Addendum:

On 3/14/07, Einan requested a pencil and paper to record his thoughts. Elated, one of the orderlies gave him what he desired and notified the specialists. The above document was found written in blood at the foot of his bed. The autopsy revealed that had stabbed himself multiple times in the neck with pencil he had been given. Further analysis uncovered that the note had somehow been written post-mortem. 

Author's Note

How did this story make you feel? What did you think while reading it?

Reviews

[O V Montoya]

Eerie! I loved it. I am yearning for more of this. It reminds me of some of Ray Bradbury's stories, captivating and mesmerizing. I have a bachelors degree in psychology and this is fascinating in so many levels.