Nightmare

I fell into the water. It felt like I was falling forever, falling down, down, into the deep river. The strong current pushing me down, my lungs screaming for air as I got swept away with the current. My arms and legs getting scraped by each rock I passed them. All of a sudden it felt as if I were floating. I opened my eyes and tried to breathe, to speak, to say something, anything but nothing would come out. I was soon swiftly pulled up to what seemed like the surface because I found myself rapidly gasping for air. I looked around frantically in search of anything to tell me where I was and what I was doing there. I looked around and saw an old woman in a rocking chair.

I slowly got up and called out to the woman. She didn’t respond so I called out again, and many times after that. Then all of a sudden the woman appeared in front of me. I jumped back in alarm and the woman started rocking in her chair. The woman had a light blue silk robe on with a hood covering her head and her face.

I backed away warily, knowing how the nightmare would end seeing as I had had it for the past month once a week. The woman started to say something, in just barely a whisper… “The Monster in the Dark gets us all eventually. Haha. There’s no running from him..hehe...Can’t run, can’t hide….all you can do is lay down and die.” She looked at me with a scary grin, half of her top row teeth were missing. She pointed a finger at me, her fingers were bleeding and looked as if they were about to shrivel up. “When did you stop checking under your bed for monsters child? You stopped checking when you’ve figured out that there are none you say? Well, that answer is incorrect. You stopped checking because deep down you knew that all the monsters were inside you all along.” The woman rocked back and forth in her chair.

What the hell was she talking about? She was creeping me out, bad. I wanted to run away but I couldn’t, it felt as if I was glued to the ground. I looked down and saw skeletal arms grabbing my ankles trying to pull me into the Earth. I screamed, “Help! Please help me!”

“No one can help you now child, for he is coming. And he is looking for you. And he always gets what he wants.” The old woman pulled back her hood and looked at me. Her eyes were gone. There were just black holes in her head. Nothing there but black, empty, darkness. She had short, dark gray hair and light gray skin.

She stopped breathing, her breath hitches and she says in barely a whisper, “He’s here.” She points a finger behind me.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

I looked.

Even though I’ve had this nightmare before, each and every time I always look, even though I know what the end result will be.

When I turned around I saw him. No mouth, no ears, no skin. Just white. It, no, he apparently was wearing a torn, dull suit that had the words ’Crackle’ written on the front in blood. He had no smile, only a blank white face. My eyes widened as slits where his eyes should’ve been opened revealing nothing but big blue marbles the size of eyes filled with water. He picked me up by my neck as the skeleton hands let go of me. For some reason he looked at me so caringly with those water filled eyes of his then all of a sudden he pushed his hand into my chest and pulled out my heart. My red, pure beating heart. I knew what was coming next and I gulped, loudly.

He held my heart, beating faster with each breath, in front of my face and slowly, painfully crushed it in his palm, ash now trickling down his hand.

My breath hitched as I felt pain overcome my body. He let me fall to the ground and die. I felt blood trickle down my throat and out of my mouth. I was quiet on the outside but on the inside, I was screaming out with pain. It felt like unbearable cramps all over my body. I couldn’t move, all I could do was lie there and die, just like the old woman had said. I wonder if she was watching me now, watching my slow and extremely painful death as I lay on the ground. Soon my thoughts faded, and I could no longer hear the eerie silence of that world, that strange, crazy world...

I woke up screaming. My brother came running into my room and hugged me tightly.

“That same nightmare again? You should really see a doctor about this. This is unhealthy Ru.” he said.

“I’m fine Myan, it just happens every once in a while.” I tried to reassure him.

Myan gave me a look and sighed. “We both know that that same nightmare does not happen every ‘once in a while’.” he said.

I knew he was right, I knew exactly how the nightmare would end every time. I had been having this same dream for a month now; once every week. When it would happen had no warning or pattern. It was irregular and unexpected each and every time. “I’m fine. I just need some water.” I said in a raspy voice.

“How about I make you some tea? It’s 3 in the morning so I don’t really see any sense in you going back to bed when we’ll have to get up in a little bit to go to school.” Myan said.

“Okay,” I responded and he stopped hugging me and went downstairs to the kitchen. I crawled out of my bed and walked across the hallway to the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror I saw small bags under my eyes. Great, one more problem that I’ll have to fix today I thought in annoyance as I started to brush my teeth.

An hour later I went downstairs looking better than I did earlier. With my curly dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and the bags under my eyes almost invisible. Almost. I was wearing a blue flannel shirt with a black undershirt, some shorts, and my blue converse.

I hate wearing makeup. I only wear lipstick and occasionally mascara if I feel in the mood for it. I don’t understand why girls like to put on makeup just to impress a guy. I mean come on, a guy’s supposed to love you for your personality, not just your looks.

My brother was in the kitchen, making breakfast. He was making my favorite, waffles. “Hey, sis. You feeling better?” My brother asked.

“A little bit. But I still don’t feel like going to school though.”I said as I sat down to eat. The reason my brother was making breakfast was that our mom goes to work super early in the morning, like at 3 a.m. And our father left mom when we were young. Said he wasn’t ready for that type of commitment. Parenting was too much for him to handle.

Whenever I think of him, I always think, “What an asshole.” But even if he had stayed with my mom, I think he would’ve been a shitty dad who was always out late or passed out somewhere from drinking too much. I suppose it’s better this way, with him not here. I definitely don’t want to meet him now, I mean 15 or so years have passed without his dumb ass around me and my brother.

And I feel really inspired by my mother, I also pity her. She works two jobs, one early in the morning (so early that she has to get up at 3 a.m.), and another for the rest of the day (note: she doesn’t get home till 9 p.m.). She also occasionally has to go on business trips over the weekend (note: this is the time when my brother decides to throw parties for a huge group of our friends). She works really hard for us and I’m honestly very impressed that she’s been able to pay off our house.

My house is a big two-story house with 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. It has a huge open spaced kitchen with an island and dining area. Our living room is massive and open and lit well with all natural sunlight. We have soft, light gray couches and a big chandelier and a huge flat screen tv. The walls are a nice soothing silky grayish/brownish that make you feel relaxed in a nice atmosphere.

A lot of my friends wonder how my mom could even afford our house when she first had me and my brother. That’s when my dad (my dead-to-me-dad) comes in. Turns out he’s not a complete asshole when he left us. He felt so guilty about leaving my mom that he bought her the huge house that we have today and gave her thousands of dollars so she could raise us without us being poor. But considering the fact that my mom now works two jobs, we might be going broke. But we’re okay at the moment, we still have enough food to eat and good quality clothes on our back so I suppose we are okay.

Since I live in a big, fancy house I must go to a school with snobby, stuck-up rich kids, right? Wrong. I go to a public school where we don’t have that much drama. It’s quiet and calm and peaceful. Okay, who am I fooling here? Even though I don’t go to a snobby rich kid school, my school contains a lot of messy people. Like there’s always some kind of mess going on whether it’s about someone, about something, or even the stupidest thing like how someone’s handwriting looks. But I don’t bother with all of that mess. I have a lot of friends who care about me and I stay inside my huge friend group, and it’s pretty big.

“Lock the door behind you,” I called out to my brother as I walked down our walkway. We had finished eating breakfast and were now walking to school.

We walked in silence down the street to our school, it wasn’t an awkward silence, it was more of a comfortable silence, but yet I could feel the tenseness in the air and I sensed that he felt it too.

We soon came up to the school. Ocean View High. Home of the Dolphins. I know. The name sounds like a rich kid school but it’s not. Sure it is filled with snobby, bratty, messy teenagers but it is not a rich kid school. My brother opened the door for me and I murmured appreciation. My brother and I split up. He has History 1st hour while I have English. Let me just tell you that I am in all the advanced classes that could possibly be. I’m in the advanced English class, Algebra II(even though I’m supposed to be taking Geometry my Sophomore year, I took it last year), I’m even in Advanced French. I’m so fluent in French that some people think it’s my first language. And of course my responses are related to this, “Oh yes I’m an African American that was born in Paris and stayed from birth till 1st grade and then moved to California when I was 6 and have been very fluent in my second language Englinese.”

I go to English to see that majority of my friends are already in the class, walking around, socializing with other people, too antsy to sit down. I’m wondering why when I realize that the football game that everyone has been talking about is tonight. Class doesn’t start for another 5-10 minutes so I go over to where my friends are at, perched in a corner. A lot of my friends have all advanced classes and have the same schedule. “Hey Ru.” My best friend Cherry greeted me.

“Hi Cherry. Hey guys. What’re you guys talking about?” I asked, leaning on a desk.

“Nothing much. Just about the football game that we’re gonna win tonight.” Akeem exclaimed.

So, my friend group consists of a bunch if people as I said before. Cherry Dillard, Isabella Marshall, Savannah Hartley, Bryson Bush, Akeem Higgins, Myles Gough, Jesse Rayner, and Jaeden Harris. I have a huge crush on Jaeden, like huge. He doesn’t know that though. No one knows except for Cherry. I’m still trying to decide if I want to tell my brother; I mean, he is best friends with Jaeden.

Anyway, my friend group is large. Although some of my friends don’t have AP English I, I do have Cherry, Akeem, and Jaeden so I’m pretty happy during the morning hours of the day.

“Yeah we’re gonna wipe the floor with the Hawks. They won’t know what hit ’em when we beat their asses.” Jaeden agreed.

I rolled my eyes. Sure Jaeden is a football player and acts all tough, and I mean, he is tough, but he’s just a soft nerd underneath all that muscle.

“I can’t wait to watch you guys play tonight. You’re gonna do great. And yes, you’re totally gonna beat their asses Jaeden.” I said.

Jaeden looked at me and smirked, leaning on the side of the desk and looking me up and down. “So you’re gonna go to the football game so you can cheer me on?” he asked slyly.

I looked at him with suspicion. “Technically I’m not going to just cheer you on. I’m also gonna cheer for Akeem and Myan. Pretty much the whole team I’m gonna cheer on.” I replied cautiously.

“Oh so you don’t want a copy of my jersey to wear to the game? I thought you’d want one considering you like me and all.” He said with a small smile.

I tried to stay calm but I couldn’t help myself. My eyes went wide and my heart started to beat at an irregular rate. I could feel my hands becoming clammy and kept making attempts to calm down. In about 5 seconds I did and just stared at him blankly, unable to do anything else.

Luckily the teacher saved me, telling us to take our seats. Once I sat down in my seat I drew out an exasperated breath. I don’t know how Jaeden found out that I have a crush on him. It’s really not obvious because I don’t stare at him or flirt with him or anything. I treat him the same way I did before I even started liking him. And only Cherry knows and she couldn’t have told him because she’s my best friend and we always share and keep each other’s secrets.

As the teacher rambled on about writing a complex article about a topic I was lost in thought. About my harsh nightmare earlier and what I was going to do about Jaeden knowing how I felt about him.