excerpt of a novel i'm working on.
" My head was throbbing. I am sweating like a dog, with my sheets sticking to me like plastic wrap. It was that dream again, the one I knew every nook and cranny of. The terrifying thing about it was the fact that it felt more like a memory than just a dream. It was just too real. Usually when I’m awake it’s so fuzzy I can’t make out anything that happened in it, but I think that it goes something like this.
The rain is relentless. It’s falling like shards of glass from the sky, and it hurts when it makes contact with my skin. There is a park with a single swing that hangs from a gnarled, mental looking tree branch. This swing is old, and arthritic, and you can hear its chain link bones groaning in protest as I swing slowly: back and forth, back and forth. It’s a calming sort of noise, one that’s been with you for an entire lifetime.
I am humming something – something all too familiar. I cannot remember what its existence means, but it is there, dying in the rain. For a moment, I wonder why there is no other equipment here. Why there is just the swing. But this is a fleeting thought, and my mind is quickly covered in a thick fog, one almost identical to the physical one engulfing me.
I feel the glass shards piercing my skin through the simple white slip I’m wearing. It’s clinging to my skin as if it were made of cobwebs. But even though I’m wet, it doesn’t bother me, or I just don’t notice it because I’m to wrapped up in the fog. I’m sure that if anyone is watching I’m just a dull shadow.
And someone is. Someone is watching. It takes me a very long time to realize this. I am more than content enough in my own little messed up brain. Somehow though I am able to see a slight glowing far back in the little wood on the edge of this park. I cannot tear my eyes away from it. I cannot make myself think. The swinging stops. I peer into its messed up branches, trying to get a handle on the red coals that I see far back.
The ice is still coming down like knives. For the first time I shiver, and start to wonder what I am doing. The red is clearer – little ovals of ruby peering at me. I am instantly aware and panic because I’ve never been in a situation where I was being stalked before. Against my better judgment I peel off of the swing, the one thing I found comforting in this world of ice. I plant my feet firmly in the fog surrounding my legs, and I can only feel for the ground that my feet have made contact with. Even then it feels imaginary.
I feel like a ghost.
But I know I am not dead. I know I am breathing, living, beautiful. Something about the red draws me in, and I cannot stop myself. A shadow forms itself more clearly around them, and I do not know if I am mad, or if they are there, because it is a silhouette of a girl. A girl with torn, rough, leathery wings with a million holes in them, and you could see parts of bone sticking out grotesquely. There is a quiet “Shit.” I stifle a gag and move backwards, as she moves deeper into the forest.
My footing is lost as I move clumsily back towards my swing I abandoned so quickly. The ice has made it slick, and I fall flat on my ass just in front of the swing. I try to clutch at it but it’s so slick that I cannot hold onto it well enough. I am burning now from the cold.
This is when I hear a screeching that pierces my ears. I can feel them bleeding after I hear it. It’s warm, and wet, and completely sticky. I manage to pick my cobweb dress and myself off the slick ground somehow. It is the most difficult task I have ever put myself through. Slipping on the ground, I use the chain link bones to steady myself. Once I am sure I am completely stable I run. I run as fast as I can and as deep as I can into the screech. It is still holding out, and my ears are bleeding steadily now. But when I cross the forest line, I am awake.
And I am sweating like a dog, with my sheets sticking to me like plastic wrap. This has been happening for as long as I can remember. I have no memories of before the dream.
Laying here now I can hear the blood rushing in my ears and my sweat reminds me of the ice rain in the dream. I have to wait for a while to be calm enough to take my morning shower.
It is two in the morning, and I can see the innocence of the stars glaring through the window that takes up most of the wall in front of me. The moon is bright and full, and it hurts my eyes to look at it for long periods of time. Pushing myself up by my elbows I can see that it actually is raining outside and the clouds are moving over the moon and the stars easily. It’s not nearly as bright as I thought it was.
My ears are ringing from the screech I just heard in my brain. It’s like this every night. I spin around under my covers and plant my feet as firmly as possible on the ground. I don’t like being like this, I don’t like being bent in half. It makes my back hurt like hell and I get disoriented. So I try and straighten up as best I can, lining up the bones in my spine the right way. Or what I think is the right way. Everything hurts still.
As much as I don’t want to my dream replays until it is not dark anymore. That means I will have this screaming in my ears until the sun comes up. It’s like this every day, and every day it’s equally terrifying. But I don’t scream anymore. I made myself stop because of my guilt when I saw my father’s weary distress every morning. So I stopped.
I can’t seem to get my head out of the clouds this time. Even though it’s the same, some times are easier to forget it than others. This is not going to be one of those nights.
The sun is finally coming up, and it’s nice to finally be able to see where I am. Usually when I wake up from that dream I lay down on my back and stare at my bleach white ceiling for the rest of the night, listening to that blood wrecking scream play over and over in my brain. "
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