"Hello? Is anyone there?"

The voice of a young boy echoed through the crowded, monochrome black-and-white village. I couldn't see past the silhouettes of strangers crowding my vision, as if I were attending a rock concert in the middle of August. I was one of the shortest there, weirdly enough. It felt like I was five years old again. I shouted into the stampede, wanting to ask someone if they could explain what was going on— but it was like I was invisible. Nothing was getting through. The world was in slow motion, yet it felt like life was moving at ten times the speed.

I huffed out a breath of determination and decided that a young boy's life was more important than being polite. Shoving through the rampant crowd of black smears, it felt like I was going against a rapid river current. Each and every one was avoiding me as if I were the rock that threw everything off course, shoving against me and making ripples in the water that created loads of miniature tidal waves comparable to riptides for mosquitoes. Once the final pedestrian trudged by my shoulder, I was finally able to see the boy clearly.

"Please, you have to help me. They're coming!"

The boy looked uncannily familiar to me, somehow. I just couldn't put my finger on it because no distinguishing features could be made out. It looked like he belonged in some masterpiece by Vincent Van Gogh. He was as much of a black streak on a gray canvas as the rest of the faceless personas had been, yet I could tell he was horrified as if he lived inside of my own head like another consciousness. I jogged up to him and asked, only having a vague idea,

"How can I?"

"The rope!"

I nimbly leaped to his back, where his wrists were tied together with rope. I glanced at my own black and streaky hand expectantly, seeing the silhouette of a knife appear. I grabbed it and sliced the rope in one giant swipe, surprising the both of us. A noise that was somewhere between a grunt of satisfaction and a chuckle of surprise hummed through my lips as I smiled at the young boy. I don't think he could've been older than sixteen.

"There you go, buddy. You're free now."

"Would you mind helping me up?"

I grabbed his hand, and he regained perfect balance almost immediately. I felt proud of myself, to say the least, and relieved that he could escape. Except... he didn't.

I took a step back, allowing him to get going on his own so I could resume the rest of my sleep. He didn't move. I tried willing him to move, as I always could in my lucid dreams. Just as if he were anyone else, I expected him to do so at my bidding. He didn't, and instead stayed put facing in the opposite direction.

Well that's not creepy at all.

As I thought about leaving him there, he twisted his neck around in a three-sixty turn to face me, accompanied by an audible snap. The gray background suddenly lost all of its light. The paint streak that made up the boy's body became white, while two hollow eyes swirled about and decided to create holes for eyes in his face. That was the first time in this dream that I had seen anything with a remote resemblance to eyes. The white strokes that rendered his form began to pulsate at their ends, popping out of the page and becoming something of a flame. The figure took the initiative upon itself to act on its own. I tried, I tell you. I tried to make it disappear— but the more I did, the more time I wasted. The rest of its body turned to face me as it condescendingly grew roughly eight feet tall. It grumbled in the deepest, most distorted voice that could ever be spoken,

"Greetings, mortal."

The voice sent thunder cracks of sheer terror through my ribcage as I felt the vibrations radiate through the plane of which I stood. Faster than a blink, it formed into a crackling flame and dashed toward me, launching me into a wall that had appeared out of the black canvas... not out of my own will, but the deep pits of my own brain. I felt nothing, though I reacted as if I did. It was like I was actually there, despite knowing full well it was a dream. That's how it always was. I have always been numb to any pain dealt to me in the many dreams I've had throughout my life, ever since I was a child.

The white flame ahead of me crackled and stretched into the form of a boy once again, with its empty eyes revealing the hollow inside of its figure. It shoved its hands onto my shoulders, gripping me with claws that cut into me as easy as butter. The pain was only equivalent to a singular paper cut. It briefly stared into my eyes and cocked its head, carefully examining my body, as if deciding where to begin whatever torture was about to be inflicted onto me. As I began to squirm out of its grip, getting reasonably uncomfortable with the feeling of paper scraping against the brim of my trap muscles, the flame-boy let out a horrifying screech that pierced my ears like a thousand thumbtacks. It swiftly split its face down the center, revealing an appallingly large maw, but quickly dissolved into thin air once it drew toward me. I sharply inhaled, howling as scorching hot agony burned away at every inch of my imaginary flesh. Did it just go through me?

"Where did you go!?" I screeched through my teeth.

I slouched down, terrified, sweaty, and confused. I felt pain— I felt my dream. The same dark voice, now disembodied, echoed through the immense gray space of my head. As it spoke, my nerves were shot with a dose of paralysis, making my entire body freeze with pins and needles that couldn't be shaken.

"In your mind now, Sage. You're mine."

I abruptly shot forward, gasping for air. The pins and needles were swept away along with all of the other horrors that were awake for the time I wasn't. It was a relief. I woke up to myself thrashing my elbows around on the couch, screaming the end of the word "go". I sighed.

Damn it.

Another nightmare.

I was sweating buckets, and my hands trembled as if I had Parkinson's. I looked around, and I wasn't sure why I did in hindsight. Curses aren't real; the monsters under the bed aren't real; and ghosts definitely aren't real. It's just us living people and the ones in Heaven or Hell, nothing else. So much would change if any of them were real, yet look at the world, and nothing has changed.

Nightmares with monsters, horrific situations, and chase sequences were starting to become a near-nightly occurrence, and I couldn't pinpoint why. No one I'm close with can figure that riddle out either. A few Google searches had yielded that I could try giving up coffee or getting a therapist again, which I couldn't afford to do in either context. Depression could also have something to do with it because it could make your night-terrors more vivid, but in the grand scheme of things, most of my visions are terrible anyway. If it's 'negative', then it isn't as bad as being awake. If it's 'positive', then shoot— I'd rather be sleeping for the rest of my days.

Yawning as I drowsily searched for my phone on the side table, I blindly knocked over a rogue bottle of water. The sweaty condensation made me flinch as the slick back of my phone case grazed my fingertips. I found that it was 12:24 in the morning, and that Brittney had tried to lovingly annoy me again around eleven. I must've fallen asleep around 10:00, like usual. In a late night's euphoria, I replied to Brittney's messages,

Good night, love you :)

I smiled to myself, feeling my face flush with color as I turned off my phone and ran a hand through my hair. I thought, "You should probably crawl in bed like a normal person," but I ignored my gut. Reaching over once again, I grabbed the remote to put something on the big screen. I began to scroll through things to watch, feeling myself space out as I noticed my stomach start to feel off. It felt like spoiled milk in a way— a sensation between hunger and sickness that felt uncomfortable, sure, but it was nothing that made me want to dry-heave.

Thoughts that contrasted vastly in opinion jabbed at each other in the back of my head like annoyed siblings. "What if something's wrong?" or, "I bet you could just sleep it off". Meanwhile, the "rational me" was trying to think realistically. My head spun as I tried to balance out the negative thoughts for something positive. But as always, that's equivalent to pushing a boulder up a twenty-degree incline in ninety-degree heat. I rubbed my eyes with my palms, trying to make the overwhelmed feeling scurry off. In the silence between me and the TV, I instead drowned out my anxiety to hear a woman's voice reciting a script on the news. She said:

"The brutal murder of the Goulhand family continues to go unsolved. As some of you may know, this horrific scene happened only a year ago, and the scene was fled without a shred of evidence. Homicides committed in similar fashions have continued to occur all throughout the state of Oklahoma, with its signature pictographs, writings, and drawings carved into the walls of the scenes... in blood. These cases have come to be known as the 'Hieroglyphic Homicides'—"

I didn't need to hear that, but I had to live with it now. That poor family. How could someone be so miserable that they decide to slaughter an entire family jigsaw-style? That would be at least one perfectly happy child, and a dedicated mother and father— all graphically torn apart and gone because of one psychopathic maniac who wanted the thrill of the kill. It brought to mind all of the court cases I've heard of online, or watched when I was younger. All the times that inmates would plead innocent, even after there is cold, hard evidence that they're guilty. I would never understand that mindset, nor empathize with a cold-blooded killer.

I shook my head free from the medieval prison chains it was now attached to and stood up, rubbing my eyes once more. I blocked the newscast out of my head, making the reporter's voice become a smear in my ears. I was oddly bothered by the news story. It made me feel uncomfortable, as if I were the suspect of an atrocity that would go down in history like the crusades. Why, though? The symbols that they showed, copied down on a piece of paper for the world to see, the police hoping for someone to have any idea of who was behind it— they made me feel targeted. Those symbols weren't anything related to any kind of human language or code, they had figured out. It was new.

The creeping suspicion that something was wrong was ignored until I pressed the red power button on the remote, making the living room fall quiet and dark. The gentle hiss of TV static dissipated as I tossed the tiny button-box back on the couch. Planning on heading to bed, I bent backward, hearing my spine crack from inside my skull. Walking to the bedroom door, I felt like I was being watched from behind. That thought turned into another sensation: my back felt extremely swollen. It was as if I've been suffering from a back-specific edema for years, or like I'd gotten an elusive case of hives. In a way, it was like someone constantly held their hand pressed against my back. I hated that feeling.

Just as I thought I could rest in peace, I began to feel faint. My entire mouth became dry and swollen, pleading for a single ounce of liquid that could be considered hydration. My own thirst tossed a sack around my head and dragged me into the kitchen to guzzle some water. The cool, white tiles beneath me were covered by a transparent blanket of shadow as I trudged across them. I grabbed the edge of the countertop and snatched a small green cup. In a frenzy, I pulled the faucet handle and gulped down tap water in amounts that I didn't know could fit down my throat at one time.

Three whole cups later, I still noticed a subtle emptiness in my chest. It felt as if my body had absorbed the water before it reached my stomach. I no longer felt that nauseous feeling, so that must explain it. My head still told me,

"I'm not usually up this late, blame it on that. Trevor's ghost stories are getting to your head too. Go to bed."

It made sense. Getting back on track, I laid a gentle palm on the handle of my bedroom door after walking down the hall again.

Dup... dup... dup...

The door continued to creak open as I looked down at my foot, where it felt like three somethings had fallen onto it. It didn't feel heavy, but instead felt... cold? I could barely see through the shadows. Sighing, I dragged myself to the bathroom, flicked on the small light, and propped up my foot on the toilet lid. I don't think being tired is supposed to involve hallucinations like that.

There was nothing on my foot no matter how hard I looked. I chanced a glance along the hallway floor, and there was no residue of anything dripping or falling. I checked the ceiling with my phone flashlight, and there was no leak. What gives?

The words "go to bed" poked once more. I chuckled as I began to stand up straight. Before I could, there was yet another prod at my feet— some kind of black liquid. I pondered what could've made a substance like that, especially in a bathroom. Bending down to swipe the liquid off my foot, I froze in shock as it absorbed into the skin of my ankle. I mouthed in terror, "What the hell." Regaining myself, I looked in the mirror. The right of my two eyes had a red iris. It stared back at me as I shielded myself from the reflection, shrieking. The rhythm of my heart reverberated throughout my chest cavity, quick and concise to fuel my flight reflex. Just as much as I was terrified, I was curious. I was dreaming— what could actually happen?

I leaned over the edge of the sink, noticing a black streak of what could only be described as paint dripping down my cheek from my newly red-irised eyeball, all the way down to my chin. It continued to drip periodically, and in a slightly panicked frenzy I rubbed it off with my thumb. Comedically enough, the black tears barreled down my face once again as if they were magnetically attracted to the floor. I shook my hand furiously, trying to throw the gunk off my finger before letting my sweatshirt get soiled.

"Get off, get off, get off—"

But it didn't. The tarrish slime faded away beneath the skin of my palm, bringing on an unbearable itching sensation that dissipated a moment later. Staring back at myself once again, I chuckled out of pure disbelief. I shrugged.

"This is a dream."

A blink later, and now my entire right eye was covered in the black goo. A hollow, white oval the size of my normal pupil slowly faded into view, replacing what was once normal. Shivers were sent down my spine as I felt goosebumps crawl across my skin head-to-toe. With no other way to cope with the horrifying reality check that my brain had conjured up for me, I allowed myself to smile and crack into a chuckle of disbelief. My muscles relaxed, letting go of the granite sink. I wiped my cheeks, trying to clean them off yet failed once more. I flicked down the light switch, leaving a tiny white circle glowing ominously in a blanket of black.

I walked straight to bed and slammed the door shut, not even bothering to slip out of my auburn jacket. I flopped on the bed and drowned myself in the covers, trying to calm my mind as best I could as reiterations of my own thoughts poked at me left and right. They pestered me with a range of mundane thoughts, up to existential crisis-inducing wonders. I tried my darndest to shut them up. This had to be a night-vision. How could it be anything else, knowing that my skin could suddenly absorb liquid? That isn't possible! As I drifted in and out of consciousness, a final thought echoed through my silent mind, feeling a bit out of place and frankly, a little uncharacteristic of myself. My body trembled with a sensation of something like pins and needles as my head grumbled,

"This is the start of your nightmare."
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2914 words :)