Chapter One
He awoke with a start, taking in long heaving gasps of musty air. Am I still there? he looked around frantically like a wild dog, his eyes wide with fear. The room was barely visible in its gloominess, although some corners were pitch black, perfect breading grounds for wild imaginations. There was nothing here, and for a minute he could not recognise his surroundings, even though they were ever more familiar. Like a person’s eyes adjusting, his to be exact, the veil of bewilderment slowly fell off and the room became home. His breathing came less shakily as realisation began to dawn on him. I’m back, oh thank God I’m back.
Euphoria. The purest ecstasy of relief washed over him, blanketing him in the warmest feeling. His muscles released their tension after realising he was in no immediate danger. I’m not there. It was just a dream. He repeated the last part out loud a few times for reassurance, lest keeping it in his mind made it less permanent. He flopped back onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. A poster of Dante gazed back, one of his favourite writers. A moment of understanding past between the boy and the poet, even an inanimate replica of an interpretation of what a person [looked like] could have a mind of its own. Those Florentine eyes bore into his soul, seeing the impression his nightmare had left on him. He turned over to his right, looking at the digital clock glaring at him from his nightstand, 6:00 am it read. He knew there was no use going back to bed. Going back to bed meant dreaming, and dreaming meant visiting that place, and he would not visit that place more than he had to. At least it was six. Could have been worse. Could have been 5:59, he mused. For a moment he laid there, eyes closed, that feeling of extreme lethargy every insomniac knew of when they woke up. With a push, or perhaps it was more of a slither, the boy stood out of bed. With severe reluctance for the tiredness he knew the day would bring, he turned his room’s light on.
"Ssssssshhhhhhhheeeeeeeerrrrrrr!!!“screamed the kettle. Some people hated the loud noise a stove-top kettle made; he rather liked the momentary boost of energy it gave when it went off. It was like an unexpected but welcomed hit of morphine, an analogy for all those morphine addicts. Yes it was true, he was an addict, but not for the coffee the kettle afforded nor the energy boost it gave him, but rather for feeling awake. Feeling awake was something the boy was not used to, something he yearned for, nay he craved for. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since his last birthday, when he had first visited that place. Every night since had been torment and terror. Many thought of sleeping as nourishing, a way to escape the monotonous realities of this world, offering respite from being conscious for too long. But when he slept, there was no reprieve from mundanity, no safe haven of slumber. His dreams were full of waking nightmares.
