Vol 2. The Journals of Mark Erickson

The second installment of the Journals of Mark Erickson

The Journals of Mark Erickson
Monday March 23rd 2009
“The Dream and the Realization”

The other night I had a very surreal and at the same time lucid dream.  In this particular dream I don’t know where I was.  I was in a poorly illuminated hallway wandering around not knowing where I was doing or what I where I was heading.

I came around a corner and as I looked into the darkness I saw a bright flash of light and heard a loud explosion in the distance.  The next thing I knew I was clenching my chest in pain.  I was shot by some unknown figure in the darkness and by the time I was able to look up the figure had vanished into the shadows.  I knew I had to find a way out of wherever I was.  With very little light, and no idea where I was I began to stagger around aimlessly looking for an exit.

Lost in the darkness and with my chest throbbing in pain I could feel myself getting weaker and weaker.  The weaker I got the more desperate and frantic I became.  I could hear the faint sound of what appeared to be voices.  I couldn’t make out any of the words it just sounded like a lot of gibberish to me.  I could hear laughing in the distance as well.  I couldn’t identify which direction the voices were coming from. 

As I wandered around the hallways I walked into a wide open room.  The room was a circular room.  I could hear water dripping onto the floor around me.  I made my way to the center of the room and I looked around me only to find that the way I had entered this room had disappeared.  I looked up still gripping my chest with my hand and saw a faint light shining through the ceiling.  I looked down at my chest and saw the stream of blood running down my hand and into a pool that was forming under my feet. 

I felt my knees shudder and finally give out from underneath me.  As I collapsed onto the ground from shear exhaustion I found myself starting at that ray of light in the ceiling.  I took as big of a breath as my body would allow and I screamed for help as loud as I could.  I screamed and I screamed hoping that someone would hear me.  The only thing I could hear was an echo of my desperate cries for help. 

I realized at that very moment laying in a pool of my own blood that I was alone and that there was no one coming to my rescue.  Staring into the shadows the voices and laughter I had heard earlier faded away into void of darkness.  Struggling for breath I came to terms that this was the end for me and that I had no control at this point in time.  Most people hold on to that sliver of hope that out of the darkness someone would come their aid.  However, for me hope had escaped my grasp.

My breaths were short and fast.  Out of the shadows the most terrifying screech I had ever heard echoed through out the room.  I don’t know what made that sound but I knew that it was no creature that we know about on this planet.  The screech sent shivers down my already weakened body.  I clenched in pain and I made one final attempt to try and escape but I had no energy.  I accepted that I was going to die.  I took one final breath and as I began to exhale my eyes slowly closed.

I woke up in my bed with my hand gripping my chest where I had been shot in my dream.  I moved my hand and I could feel intense pain coming from my chest.  I looked down expecting to see a bullet hole, but to my surprise the only thing I saw were scratches on my chest from my own finger nails.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that it was all just a dream, but at the same time it got me thinking about my life and what that dream meant.  That is a story for another time though I believe.

- M.E-