Be Careful of What You Dream

Tragedy can happen in an instant.
Your instincts warn you as to what is to come, but some never listen. They ignore the bad feeling in the place that so many believe is where the soul lays, the place right below your left clavicle, right where your left boob is. I believe that is where my soul lies, that is where I feel pain. I felt pain there when my brother died. That place felt like it was empty and hollow, and painful. I can't really explain the feeling exactly, but that is sort of how it felt.
I think that our soul knows when something bad is about to happen. Like tonight, as I think about walking out of the warm beach house that my parents are renting for my spring break and onto the dark deserted beach.
I feel a bad feeling right there underneath my left clavicle, but I ignore it, thinking that it is only petty fear consuming me from all those Slenderman stories I read off of creepy pasta on those late school nights. I tie my tennis shoes on my feet and grab my black, fuzzy, North Face jacket. I then head out onto the little porch that connects to my room and my room alone.
I swallow the assumed fear and walk down the steps to the backyard fence, down to the boardwalk behind the house. This long path that I’m taking leads to some sandy stairs and ultimately to the beach. There are deserted beach houses all around mine that are dark and quite scary in the moonless night, empty because it isn't the right season
I turn off my iPod that was playing in my ears to listen for any signs of other life besides me here, on this lifeless beach. The wind blows around tarps attached to a house that is under reconstruction, making an awfully frightening noise to the ears of an already pretty much frightened seventeen year old girl with absolutely no sense whatsoever. I walk up the sand-covered stairs, but stop in my tracks as I reach the top. I squint my eyes at the darkness, and then blink a couple of times. A black figure that I thought I saw for a second is, of course, not there.
I laugh at loud at being so silly.
I walk to the end of the beach access ramp, to where there are stairs going downwards to the sands. I glance up at the sky - which is literally covered in bright stars, like millions of shining diamonds and sigh. Looking at stars this beautiful makes me believe in a creator. There is absolutely no way all this beauty came out of an accident. I lean against the railing and stuff my hands in my pockets, craning my neck to get a proper view of the brilliantness.
"It's gorgeous, isn't it?"
I jump and turn swiftly towards the voice. A dark figure stands at the bottom of the stairs where I just came from. "It makes you think about what's really out there, doesn't it?"
I swallow to clear my throat before I say, "Urm, yeah, it does." I stand there awkwardly for a second, my heart pounding harshly.
The figure begins coming closer, climbing the stairs as he says, "Now, why would a pretty girl like you be out on a cold, windy night like this?"
I take a few steps back, until my right heel is off of the stairs, almost making me fall. "Just getting some air, my parents should be looking for me by now. I told them I would be back in five minutes."
Lie. I haven't even told my parents I went out. They still think I’m in my bedroom, reading my one of many books that I bought with my birthday money I received last week.  I start to walk forward, getting a really freaky vibe from the person. I pass him, keeping my eyes on my footing so that I don't trip on the uneven sand that’s covering the access.
NOW, I want to listen to my "soul". Good plan all of this was, I scold myself. Yeah, let's totally go out into the night, all alone, freak yourself out, and almost die. I feel a little relieved as I reach the bottom of the stairs and look up towards the rows of beach houses. The house where safety is lies among them.
I turn around and look upwards, but the figure is no longer there.
When I turn back around, there he is. The freaking figure is, like, ten steps before me!
He looks like he can see the confusion on my face - as if it was as bright as outside is at noon on a sunny day. "Oh, I move pretty fast."
"Oh, I can tell," I say, mocking his voice. I scold myself again. I shouldn't provoke the guy who may murder me tonight. I begin walking again and then I say, "Well, you have a great night. Don't stay out in the cold for too long."
I pass him.
"Oh, the cold can't hurt me, little girl. I wouldn't worry about my well-being if I were you."
That's when I freaking run like the devil himself is standing behind me, and I mean, he may as well be. I  am still hearing his laughter echo in my ears well after I already entered the house and locked the door. With the door behind my back, I slide down it, my breathing erratic. I look down at my shaking hands and touch my face – a thing that is forbidden by my mother because apparently it will lead to black heads and giant ass pores when I get older.
I wish I listened to my soul. I laugh as my mind thinks that thought, that ridiculous sounding thought. After about half an hour of sitting in my shaken state, I decide to get off my ass and put some pajamas on. I prepare for bed and get underneath the covers, turning off the light. I’m too tired to even try to read. I stretch underneath the covers until my feet touch my cat, Snugoms, who we smuggled into the beach house because we didn't want to leave her home alone for seven days.
I snuggle into my pillow, which, I admit, I sometimes pretend is a guy. Come on, what normal teenage girl doesn't imagine she is snuggling into some hunky guy at night? Don't try to deny it, because if you do, you're lying.
Three forty-five. That is the time the digital clock is blinking back at me when I look at it after randomly waking up. My heart is pounding fast from a dream I can't even remember. I sigh and then try to control my beating heart, but no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t work. Obviously, this is true because the blood continues to rush through my ears.
My damn soul again, acting up.
My eyes begin to race around the dark room and as I stretch out my feet, I realize my snugoms is no longer there warming them.
"Snugoms," I whisper into the black. "Kitty, where are you?" I make kissy noises in attempt to call her back to me, but she doesn't come. I shrug as best as I can in my sleepy state. Maybe she is using her kitty potty… As I look towards the bathroom door, I see a dark figure standing there. He’s not far away, like a normal, less scary, movie person. No, this figure decided to be rated 10 on the scariness scale and decided to stand RIGHT FREAKING NEXT TO ME.
Let's give a girl a heart attack.
I try to scream, really, I truly do, but hell, I'm so freaking scared that I can't even inhale. And do you know what happens? The lamest freaking thing happens. I pass out, because I forgot to inhale as I saw the creepy ass figure, right freaking next to me.
I passed out, because I didn't breathe.
I PASSED OUT. BECAUSE I DIDN'T BREATHE.
It’s a great story to tell people in heaven of how you died, really it is.
Angel: "So, how did you end up in the multitudes of pureness?"
Me: "I didn't breathe."
Angel: "All right, I understand. You drowned or chocked on some food, right?"
Me: "No, I became so scared that I actually stopped breathing."
Angel: "Oh..."
Me: "Yeah, dude, I know."
I feel really dizzy and as I try to open my eyes, I see a bright light.
"Heaven...?"
"Um, no, actually… You’re far from it."
Okay, to tell you the truth, I am really not "kidnapping material." I'm not a supermodel, pretty teenager that does dance and all these sports and mess. No, I’m a dirty blonde, tall, chubby, broken-out-face teenager that sits on her laptop all day, looking up posts on tumblr. And what do I look up? Posts of hot guys and fictional characters that I cried for multiple times. I'm the type of teenage girl that has never been kissed and still am really grossed out of the idea of it. I'm the type of girl that doesn't even want to be in a relationship right now because I freaking love just eating all those fatty foods and sitting down like a couch potato to read books, write stories, and freaking watch T.V. shows like Supernatural and Doctor Who.
Sure, I actually try to dress up really nice like all the other girls at my college prep private school, just so I can blend into the crowd easily. And hell, I’ll admit it. I want to look a little bit hot. I mean I do have the big boobs and ass for it, if I play off the right clothes that sort-of make me look skinnier.
So, maybe with it being so damn dark outside, I could have been considered for “kidnapping material.”
I stare up at the figure that is now blocking the bright light from my eyes. Once my eyes adjust, I realize there is a freaking, hot-ass guy standing above me.
Okay not to sound like every single teenage, fictional, paranormal book out there, but usually those books go like this, right? Something scary happens and a freaking hot ass guy that is perfect in every single way saves you or the scary person is the freaking hot ass guy that kidnaps you and then they end up falling in love or something like that. I mean, that's freaking predictable.
So, as I look up at this crazy hot dude before me, I have to think back to those books I’ve read and thrown to the ground like the pieces of shit that they are. So the thoughts that go through my mind are: Holy shit, this could be it, this could be the man I lose my virginity to in the near future, like in one of those books. This could be my Edward Cullen or my imaginary guy friend that I snuggle with every night. Of course, I regret these thoughts right after I think them and immediately blush to the high heavens. Thank goodness he can't read minds.
"Oh, I can read minds."
Haha. That’s funny. I’m hallucinating because I DID NOT hear him say that.
"You did."
I sit up quickly, and he takes a step back so that I don't hit him. I'm in a room with absolutely no windows and I'm on what looks like a gurney. My head swings rapidly around, making me super dizzy. The bright light is from the one overhead, a doctor's light, which I almost hit, but handsome over there moves it upwards while he also escapes the wrath of my oncoming forehead.
"Where am I?" I ask, placing a hand on my head as if I could steady it and make it stop spinning. I touch something on my forehead and realize there is a bandage there.
Seconds later, a man in a white coat and glasses, the usual doctor look, walks in with, of course, a clipboard and, I’m guessing, interns.
"Ms. Kracktarior," he says addressing me. Yes, I know that's not really a kindergarten friendly last name I’ve got there, so you can imagine my non-existent effort to learn how to spell that. He doesn’t look up at me as he says, "You are in the sixth section, a very special place. A device has been placed inside your brain, please try not to remove it. If you do, you'll kill yourself, but you wouldn't be able to get to it in the first place."
Others laugh around him when he says this. Me, well, I begin panicking at this moment. My breathing begins to accelerate and my heart, which was going crazy a few moments ago over hottie-with-the-body, begins to go to whole new heights with the speeding up stuff. It's like my heart is trying to run a freaking marathon on how fast it can freaking beat.
I, obviously, couldn't much as a single syllable  out of my mouth because i'm over here having a panic attack.
"You will, for now on, be known as the number 6294, the same number as the room you have been assigned. You will go through a series of mental tests. You are a very lucky person to be introduced into this system. Not many people get to do so."
I look wildly around, and finally I find my words. "Did my parents sign me up for this? Do my parents know I'm here?"
"Oh, no, no child," the hottie says. "Your parents don't even know you exist anymore. You actually signed yourself up for this," he pauses as he searches for a word, "event.  We made sure that your parents will never think of you again for all of their time. They won't even remember having you. No one who met you will remember you. All of your possessions were disposed of. Your online accounts were erased from the world, as well as your little childish stories of love and adventures. All your books and writings burned, all your most precious things, never to be seen again. You no longer have a real name. You aren't even human to us. You don't even belong to yourself anymore. You belong to us."
Now, it was either from his long nasty speech or from the meds they most likely gave me, but I was feeling pretty beat. With my vision blurring from the scared-ass tears that are betraying me and the overcoming exhaustion weighing down on me, I slump backwards onto the gurney. As I do, I realize that I’m not really sure what to think, or how to really think anymore.
Above me, the doctor comes into my vision and says, "Don't be scared, sweetie, it will only last for a little while, not for too long."
"Then, I can go home?" My words slur together.
"Then, we will set you free. When you awake, you will be in your room and the tests will begin. Good luck."
Right after his words end, everything turns black again, but it stays that way, for a long, long time.
Blackness. The dark. One can see the darkness, but cannot see what lies within it.
I wake up to blackness – well, I think I am awake. I blink and try to move, but I realize that my arms and legs are tied down. A voice crackles through the air, as if it’s coming from a speaker. It says, "This room will show you your dreams and make them come true. Just remember that nightmares are dreams too. So it will mostly be bad things that you see. Sorry about that – well, not really. Don't try to change the dream because frankly, that won’t work. Now think your darkest thoughts and dreams and we will, to no charge at all, give them to you."My eyes widen in the darkness. What kind of crazy-ass place is this? I decide to try it by testing it out.
I think of unicorns. Nothing.
I think of puppies. Nothing.
I thought they said they’d give me my dreams? Or they said nightmares, right? Maybe if I think something bad, then that will show up.
So I think back to a nasty movie that I saw called the “Human Centipede.” That was the grossest movie I’ve ever seen in, like, ever. Some crazy guy put three pe… You know what, I don't even want to explain it because I might actually throw up doing so.
"I'm going to make you into an experiment," someone says into my ear, his breath going over the side of my face and to my noise. It fills the air with a horrible stench.
I try to scream and to get away, but then I’m lying on a gurney as I am looking at a diagram of what is to become of me. Fear and panic squeeze my heart and I look over at the two people beside me – they are going to become a part of me soon. We're all gagged and attached to gurneys. The creepy man before tells me that I will be the middle piece, a special piece.
I go through the torture. I feel all of the pain. I feel all of the torment.
I.
Feel.
Everything.
Then, everything becomes black again and I’m back in the dark room. I throw up, multiple times, as a matter of fact. It was like I was in that movie, like I was one of the girls. I didn't even remember the dark room while I was there. I just felt the pain and the terror of what was to come. I just felt the need to escape.
Now I fully know what horrible things I am going to face in this room.
They make me imagine terrible creatures of all different kinds and the terrible things they would do.
But that's just my imagination, right?
Wrong.
My imagination – it becomes reality.
Those monsters that inhabited my brain come forward in the darkness and torment me. Over and over again, I feel like it'll never stop. Oh, God, when will it all stop?
When my imagination runs low, they give me all sorts of ideas.
They make me listen to movies. They read stories to me of absolutely horrible things. They show pictures to me, in my brain (probably with the thing they put in my head) of creatures God threw into hell.
When they put those things into my head, I try my hardest not to think about them – those bad things.
Sometimes, when you try your hardest not to do something, that's when it's the easiest to do.
I close my eyes in the darkness, pressing myself into the corner, covering my eyes.
Puppies, think of puppies. Rainbows and puppies. Butterflies...
"It won’t save you," a voice slithers in my ear.
I open my eyes to see the creature before me, and it’s something that I can't even begin to describe.
My screams, like the others before and after, are only heard by me.
Sound proof walls are a wonder.
I wonder about my mental health by now. I don't know how long I’ve been in this dark room, but it feels like weeks and months. I dream of escape, but not of my past. I can't even remember my past. Who was I before all of this? Who were my friends? What did I do? I can't even remember my mother's smiling face or my dad's goofy personality. It’s all been taken from me, replaced with monsters and nightmares that I will never become used to. I'm always afraid. I'm always scared. I never feel anything different.
Then, I dream of escape. Sweet, sweet escape. I picture it in my mind, running barefoot through green grass in the mountains on a beautiful summer’s day.
The funny thing is, it happens. I'm running. I’m running far away – away from all the madness and the horrors. A smile comes to my face and I feel… I feel free. They said they would set me free, right? When it was all over. So, maybe they did. Maybe I’m actually, truly free.
I laugh and run faster, and then I hear thunder. I don't care, though. I truly don't care. The sky darkens and rain begins to descend upon me, washing me clean from all the past nightmares. I spin in my yellow dress and watch the rain clean the dirt from my skin.
"It isn't real," he says.
I turn around, the happiness inside me leaving in an instant. There he is – the guy that I thought was so hot long, long ago. The guy who tormented me and fed me more nightmares in the middle of the night is standing right in front of me.
I run.
I run from him, into the trees. All I can do is run through the thick woods. Pine tree limbs slap me and scratch me. Thorns and leaves stick to my clothes. Blood trickles down from where the thorns rip into my feet, legs, and arms. The sky above me is dark and rain falls down heavily.
I'm used to the darkness, though. I'm used to the scared feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"There's no reason to run," his deep rough voice says, far far behind me. "It will start all over again soon enough!"
I can barely hear his words over the sound of the rain. I hear my breath and I hear the frantic beat of my heart, along with the sound of my rushed steps as I head deep into the mountains.
How do I have the strength to run?
How do I not feel the wounds that are being inflicted on my body as I push ever further?
Adrenaline, maybe?
Maybe I’m already too numb from the sudden cold?
Maybe I’m not truly alive, but I’m still haunted after death?
How did I even escape that dark room so easily?
Or did I not really escape? Am I still in those dreams?
The voice catches up to me.
The rain moves around his words, carrying them away. But they soon reach me, saying, "You aren't real." I stop in my tracks. The rain, the sound of my breathing, the sound of my thumping heart, it all begins to slow. I squeeze my eyes shut and hold my head together as the migraine begins to take over. "Shut. Up," I order weakly through gritted teeth.
"All of us – we aren't real."
"Please, stop."
"We are all just characters in a short story."
And then, my world is black again as I am running through the trees, another pair of eyes reading the story where I am the main character who is forever running. The same story plays over and over, looping forever in eternity, never destined to really have an end.
I'm at the beach house, ignoring the tug inside me as I walk out onto the porch and down the steps toward the dark beach.
Black in the night.
We can see darkness, but we cannot see what lies within it.
We only see what we imagine.

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