Monstro

I often have nightmares that seem to stretch into eternity in their torment. This is one I had recently and while the name is unoriginal I assure you, the terror was tailored just for us.

I once had a dream.  I awoke in a giant orb filled with water suspended in time.  Deep horrible water.  I was surrounded by people.  Old, young.  All treading water.  Horribly still water.  Nothing lived here. Thousands of us.  Maybe hundreds of thousands.  All treading water.  And then we felt it.  The stir beneath the surface. The change as it came.  I don’t know who screamed first.  But we all screamed in the end.  It breached.  A monster whale.  Horrible in visage and insatiable in hunger.  Impossible in size it breached the surface.  I watched as it consumed hundreds at a time.  Blood coating that sickening pink tongue against an impossibly black skin.  I watched as it leaped into the air its gracefully disgusting feast a salute to the promise of the eternity to come.

We screamed as we felt it come close.  It wasn’t just a monster.  It knew of us.  It tasted our fear and enjoyed our torment.  We watched as it purposefully spewed broken bodies from its bleeding orifice among the whole in order to goad us into attempting to play dead just so it could pretend to entertain the perception of leaving us be for a little while longer as it feasted on those around us.  Only to watch as it consumed people from beneath the surface.  Entire groups disappearing into the vacuum of the abyss.  And then the horrible sprinkle of rain every time that body left its marinic dwelling.  The screams as it crashed down on the thousands beneath its writhing form.  Its great big eyes rolling with insanity as it consumed soul after soul.

My time was over.  No one was screaming anymore.  We were just treading water as the form sat beneath the surface.  Taunting us to flee.  Make an attempt to save ourselves.  And when we didn’t it just stayed there.  Waiting.  I remember thinking as it began to move and I saw the water disappearing into an impossibly gigantic maw, “Don’t play with your food.” And then it was over and I remembered nothing as the darkness rushed up to meet me.