Nightmares, imagination and reality

Sleep is not uncommon to anyone. What about you, are you really asleep?

Your day is swift like none other. It seems as though time itself has melted around you. It seems only four minutes have elapsed since you stepped off the bus and are now about to board it again for the ride home. Walking through the hallways of your school, they seem to extend before you, going from 20 ft. to 150 ft. As you walk the edges of your vision become blurry, your movement slows, and every person around you seems to disappear. All noise and sounds around seem to be whispering to you in a language you do not understand. You feel dizzy and the room starts to spin, your head hurts, you feel nauseous, you begin to stumble eventually hitting the cold tile floor and passing out on impact. You awaken in your own bed feeling like you had run in the desert for ten miles without food or water. Your vision is clear and so is your head. You jump out of bed slightly haunted by the few moments that had passed before you fell unconscious. The voices that you heard were impossible to decipher, except for one which seemed to say "we have found you." You throw this thought out of your head and look at your clock which reads 6:00. You're not hungry and you don't feel like talking to anyone but you feel uncomfortable, like you're not alone. You feel a sudden impulse to run and you obey it dashing out the door of your room and charging down the steps. You find yourself in your living room, but something is wrong. You walk around your house, your movements seem faster than before. After looking in the basement you realize your parents aren't home. The feeling of being alone haunts you. You cannot shake a feeling of pure terror of something that is closer than you think. You walk back into your living room and turn on your stereo. You turn the music up all the way and press play. You had felt tired and you did not expect to hear classical, calming music coming out of the over-sized system. You quickly stop the music and put in a disc that you're sure will wake you up. You press play and classic rock fills your entire house. You are wide awake now and begin to dance to the music. When the disc finishes you feel tired. Only half an hour had passed but it felt like more. A rush of dizziness and fatigue causes you to hit the floor. You're still conscious, but you are too tired to move. You drift into a deep sleep. You begin to dream, but your dreams turn to nightmares. In your nightmares you hear screaming and gunfire. You cannot see as everything is dark except for the flashes of guns all around you. You wake up in a cold sweat with your heart pounding. You're in your bed with the shades drawn and you can't see for the life of you. You jump out of bed soaking wet. You walk over to the window of your room and open the shade. Light fills the room. You look at your body to see that you are not soaked in sweat, rather you are drenched in blood. You have no idea why you are covered in blood as it is impossible for that much blood to have come from you besides the fact that you are a boy. You walk away from your bed only to trip on something at the foot of it. You look at the object you had tripped on and scream bloody murder. Mangled and lacking an arm is a human corpse drained of all it's blood. More confused than ever you run out of your room to find your parents. Your mom is in the kitchen. Before you approach her you hesitate because of your appearance. Finally you summon the guts to get your mom's attention. She turns around and screams louder than you.

After she washes the blood of you and your sheets, she inspects you for wounds. You had hidden the corpse, but you are unsure why you did. That night you go to bed unwillingly, as if you were a young child not wanting to sleep alone. You beg your mother to let you stay up, but she refuses. You have the same nightmare as before only this time the screaming is much louder and the area around you is much darker. You wake up once again covered in blood, however there are three corpses on your bed alone. You look at the foot of your bed and see five more corpses. You feel like you're about to throw up, and you run to your bathroom. Your blood turns to ice in your veins when you start coughing and a bone comes out. Being an Honor Role anatomy student you quickly conclude that it's part of an arm. While examining the bone you realize that all the corpses were missing limbs, but one in particular was missing the part of the arm in which the bone you're holding could be located. Your mind slowly begins to work and you weigh the possibilities. At first you wonder if you're a cannibal, but then again you were asleep. You're confused but then you remember your parents and the eight bodies in your room. You run back to your bedroom and hide the bodies. You don't want a repeat of yesterday so you clean off the blood on your sheets and clothes. After you're finished you throw up. While cleaning that up you find more bones and blood. Every bone you see coordinates to a missing limb on one of the corpses. Truly bewildered, you brush your teeth and go to see your girlfriend. Janie, your girlfriend, is amazingly smart, but not nerdy. You knock on her door and she answers promptly. After letting you in, you begin telling her what's been happening, being extremely careful to leave out the corpses, bones, and blood. After finishing your story she begins to think. After a few minutes she tells you that you're just having bad dreams. You assume she came to that conclusion because you left out crucial details. You leave it at that and head home. You keep yourself busy until night comes. You plan to stay up all night. Sitting down in your warm bed saps your stamina and endurance quickly. You manage to stay awake until eleven thirty. Your nightmare is still blurry but the screaming and gunfire is much louder. You wake up to see your room littered with bodies that are all missing an arm, leg, or head. You count twenty-seven bodies. With a start you realize that you can't possibly bury them all without being seen. You somehow manage to get all the bodies out of your room before you start coughing up bones. After burying the last corpse you decide to hide a camera in your room to try and see what happens when you fall asleep. That night you hide a camera on the far side of your room and prepare for the night. Staying up the previous night works against you and you fall asleep at ten' o clock. Your nightmare is terrifying because unlike the other nightmares you've had you can actually see what's happening. You are in a well-lit room with people screaming and running away from you. You are confused but your body starts to chase them. You quickly determine that you aren't in control of your own actions. You catch several people and kill them with the sickening sound of cracking their neck. It takes you a few seconds to notice that you are at least two feet taller than everyone you see and kill. You manage to kill thirty-two people before waking up. When you sit up in your bed; your blood freezes, your stomach churns, your eyes get wide, and your jaw drops. What meets your eyes is thirty-two corpses identical to the ones in your nightmare. Like all the other bodies, various limbs are missing. You are confused until you cough up a bone. Suddenly something dawns on you that makes you wish you were on Death's Row. You don't want to believe your own theory, but then you remember the camera you hid. You take out the memory card of the camera and head downstairs where you keep your computer. Without even thinking you plug in the memory card and watch the video at two times speed. At ten' o clock in the video you see yourself fall asleep like normal. After ten minutes your body convulses and grows. You grow and change form until you turn into an eight foot tall monster with wicked fangs and blood-red eyes. The monster version of you leaves the room and returns hours later with the bodies you had seen in your dream. Suddenly that strange day at school where you passed out, the nightmares, the coughing up bones, and the corpses all make sense. On that strange day in school; something possessed you and turned you into a monster that only comes out at night. You've heard of exorcisms before, but you don't think this monster thing is caused by a demonic possession.

One of your many friends just happens to be a priest and knows about this sort of thing. You walk into his office in the back of the church. He greets you and you tell him everything that's happened. When you finish; the priest informs you that it is not demonic possession like you thought. You relax a little, but you're still uneasy about the whole thing. The priest does know how to drive out the spirit that does possess you. In a mere few minutes the priest has you on a table surrounded by candles. He begins a prayer and your body begins to convulse on the table. It feels like something is about to tear your chest open, but it suddenly stops. At the foot of the table stands the monster. You look at him and he looks at you. When it speaks it feels like you're talking to death himself. "So you got someone to get me out." He growls. "What did you do to me?" You shoot back. "I simply used you to get a little stronger." He replies. "Well be gone!" You shout. "Oh don't worry, you won't be around to see what happens." He says. Before you can even exhale the monster grabs you, pulls you off the table, and holds you over his head. "Thanks for helping me with all those people." He whispers. With that he drops you into his mouth and swallows you whole.

Nightmares can be no more than your imagination, but they can also be reality at it's finest.