"Dreams of Darkness" by Rita Martins R. Silva

I woke up covered with cold sweat, my breathing harsh, hard to control. It was the third nightmare that week. The other two had been four and two days ago, respectively. They were all different yet the same. Each time there was a woman, always running away from some incorporeal threat, a woman that would end up meeting death. I couldn't understand why such dreams (nightmares would be the best word to describe them) were haunting me. I never had a nightmare before. Not even when, as a child, I watched horror movies my parents strictly prohibited me not to. And now, as an adult, I was having nightmares as strange as anything I had ever seen or thought about before. Why would I dream of death this way? Why there were different women every single time? The questions were many, the answers were... there weren't any at all. I could always search the help of some therapist but I never liked them. I had already seen one, on occasion, after my parents death and, from experience, a therapist was a person to be avoided if possible, at least to me. Not at all a very smart thing when one was really needed, like now. Well, there was still the possibility of getting a book about the meaning of dreams but I had the feeling it wouldn't work in my case. If only I knew where that feeling was coming from. The mysteries of the mind... Never my favorite subject of study. Yet, the strangeness of all this was not something I could ignore... although I didn't know how do handle it.

I got up of my bed, surprised I felt so weak. I almost fell to the ground when standing on my legs. It felt like they were made of jelly, boneless. With an effort I managed to get on my feet and walk, a little unsteadily, to the bathroom where I drank a glass of water. I looked at the mirror, to see the face of a stranger with barely any resemblance with my true self. I was pale as I had never been before, my eyes were gazed like a frightened gazelle when it knows the predator is near. I washed my face and I stayed in the bathroom for long minutes, trying to sort out my thoughts. My mind was a whirling of confusing feelings. Probably an effect of a nightmare. I couldn't know since I never experienced one before. One thing strange about the nightmares was that every one of them not only had a different woman but was also set in a different space, a different time, a different environment. It seemed that time was advancing to the present, a level/date or whatever at the time. Step by step. What it meant I didn't know. One thing I knew, however: I didn't like the nightmares. I hated death, even in a dream. Every kind of death, no matter if it was that of an animal or a human being. I had lost my parents and my brothers when I was a child and I had already seen all the death that I could, that I wanted and that I needed for a lifetime. And I surely didn't want to deal with any more even if it was only on my mind. Thinking of it too often like I was doing now, although unconsciously, was not healthy for me. It wasn't healthy for anyone. I went back to my bed and I fell asleep. Fortunately no more nightmares came that night.

This nightmare frightened me more than any other. I could actually feel the pain of the woman, her sorrow, all her emotions. It touched my heart and my mind like nothing I ever felt before. These past few weeks have been filled with these dreams. I'm no longer the person I used to be. My friends turn away from me, unwilling to look into the eyes they no longer recognize. I show up at my classes at the university looking like I've seen a ghost. Maybe I did. These nightmares are haunting me day and night. They're ruining my life. And my sanity too. I have had enough. I can't stand it any more. I've searched every book there are about dreams, I finally decided to find a therapist despite all my reservations towards such people, yet nothing and no one as given me an insight about what's going on with me, with my mind. Freud says that the unconscious holds our inner desires, our immorality and when we sleep, the barrier that keeps them from surfacing is weakened. They appear in our dreams. If that's what it means, then my inner desire is to die. And I can't accept that. I like living, too much to just give it all up. I'm not ready for it. There's too much I still want to do, to experience, to see... I'm too young to be so morbid and I'm much too young to think of death.

It is night already and I'm afraid to go to sleep. I'm afraid it will start once again. It's like a cycle that goes on and on and on and never stops. Like a Giant Wheel that goes on forever. I know now that I won't get rid of this. It has been happening for so long I can't even remember when it started. The nights take ages to pass, the days, those, are just too short. This is one of those nights yet I feel that something is different and a sense of urgency keeps me awake, although my body says it's time to rest. No, not tonight. Tonight is different. I look to the window and I feel the wind entering into my room. It's cold but that doesn't really matters now. I'm no longer able to feel anything. Something is here.

I look to the corner of my room and I see a shadow. I know what it is. I want to scream but I can't. No sound comes out of my throat, there aren't any thoughts flooding into my mind. Nothing I can think of would help me against that. I know what it is. The same presence, the same darkness that took all those women from this world of ours. The same creature that chased them all, who made mothers leave their children, who made wives abandon their husbands, their homes, and their lives. The monster that took innocent lives for unknown purposes, at least for me. The thing that was going to take me now.

"Why?" I ask when I finally find my voice.

I wasn't expecting it to answer but it did. Not in words but to my mind. It hit me like stone being thrown at me. Like a thousand needles being pierced to my skin.

Nothing more. No other words were exchanged. No other thoughts came out of my mind. I didn't have any time to scream, to run, to even make some sort of movement. As darkness took me, I could feel my body dying yet my mind was still alive, aware of everything. The pain, the fear, the despair. Then it all ended. I ended. It won once again. And it moved on.

From Shawna's diary:

I had another nightmare today. This time the woman didn't run like the others. She was sitting in her bed and she was staring at the shadows, to the presence. She stood there and she spoke only one word. A question.

"Why?"

THE END