Midst Of Her Dreams

A short story inspired by a recurring night mare.

 

She glazes at the clock. It’s glaring at her with red numbers; evil looking things. It’s well after midnight, three in the morning. It’s just far too early for anyone else to be awake. She sips at coffee that has been cold for far too long.

 

Her fingers are tap dancing across the key board in a smooth rhythm. She’s trying to talk the nightmares away by tapping out messages to faceless people over the net. They talk to her, make her feel not so lonely, not so afraid. She smiles at their jokes and their company, until the moment comes when her eyes out weigh her determination.

 

She bids the faceless words good night, but leaves the computer on. She turns off the light and the television. The hum of the pc becomes a lullaby as she crawls into bed. She doesn’t bother to undress, leaving herself clad in jeans and a thermal sweater.

 

Her eyes grow heavy as she laces her fingers behind her head, window open to the night. The breeze teases her hair, the full moon blazing in the darkened night. The stars glow and twinkle for her until they disappear behind the veil of her own eye lids.

 

Before too long, she’s dreaming.

 

It’s the same as before. The sounds, the sights, the feelings are all the same. She’s been here before, but every time feels like the first.

 

All around her, the shadows are moving, dancing to an alien rhythm, some mystic music that she can almost make out. She has no desire to hang around and wait to see if the music is revealed to her. She makes a route for the some source of light out the corner of her eye. She moves slowly at first until the shadows start to figure it out. They move in on her, morphing and blending into every crack, coming closer.

 

She throws caution out the window, turns and runs as if the Devil himself was at her back. She isn’t afraid so much as she is freaked out. Shadows don’t move like that!

 

Her feet are smacking into the asphalt as she desperately attempts to flee. She starts to hear the music, though it isn’t any kind of music for human ears. To her, it sounds like screaming. A scream mixed with pain, agony, hatred and fear. The sound is frighteningly loud and envelopes her completely – mind, body and soul.

 

No matter where she goes, which alley she takes, which street she runs down, the scream continues to follow. No one is around to help her, no other sign of humanity at all. She can’t take the pressure building in her anymore. The fear is growing in her heart.

 

Finally, the shadows have her cornered and the scream of their music has engulfed her with no way of escape. Everywhere she turns is cut off. Her heart falls as she becomes filled with the despair of knowing that she has lost not only the battle, but also the war.

 

She drops to her knees in defeat and forces her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to block it all out. In this, her surrender, the shadows fall upon her and cover her completely, as completely as a cocoon wraps over a caterpillar.  

 

With a pained start, she sits up in a cold sweat. Her hair is a mess, her face damp. Out side the night is warming to dawn gray. The moon and stars have started to fade away. It’s only with these comforting reminders that she begins to realize the alien music of the shadows, the inhuman scream that chased her was closer then she thought. The scream was, in fact, real. It had torn past her own lips, ripping at her throat.

 

The sound of sheer terror was her fears made manifest in a most disturbing way. She isn’t safe in dreams anymore. Her very mind attacks her, even here, in the midst of her dreams.

 

 

N. Strong

Reviews

[Creepy Swine Guy]

The descriptions are vivid and spectacular. My only real nitpick is the use of the phrase, "She throws caution out the window, turns and runs as if the Devil himself was at her back." I contend that running away is the apex of caution. So running away isn't really throwing caution out the window.

I really wished that the story had continued. The descriptions and the premis were so good that when it ended, I felt as if I'd been driven into the woods and made to get out of the car. I wanted to read to a conclusion.

[Dawn Jones]

It is always our dreams that attack us.