Night Mares.

Night falls. The last remnants of twilight creep across the sky, slowly, silently, a retreat from its losing battle against the night. One more day in the eternal struggle between the forces of light and darkness. I feel my dread rising, almost as if it were threatening to suffocate me. I almost wish it would succeed. I pray, but I know not to whom, not anymore. I lay in the comfort and dubious safety of my bed, whose sheets have long since been soaked through with my sweat. And tears.

It is no secret that there are hours in seconds and years in minutes, on both extremes of expectation. I must have aged millenia caught in the in-between. Maybe tonight it will finally be over. Maybe it will never end. Then I heard the sound, carried on the wind, mingled with the smell of the sea. I could never look upon the sea again, and not feel the taint.

White, red, black and pale, they rode up to me. Some people say that after dread, anything that finally happens is actually relief, because nothing can be worse than the bad thoughts in your head. They are wrong. I screamed as they picked me up and carried me away, until I could scream no longer, and still I tried.

I imagine we must have travelled vast distances, for with every blink I would open my eyes to different landscapes of different worlds, both wondrous and terrifying. There was once I gleamed a world where there were little lights turned on around me in all directions, and yet there was too an endless darkness stretching into infinity. Those little pinpricks of lights were pleasantly reassuring, but the overwhelming darkness made me feel so small anyway.

Whoa! We came to a stop. I had come now to the edge of my dreamscape. This was where my dreams took shape and my nightmares came to life. Living a dream life, everything else forgotten, I might be a doctor one day, or an astronaut another, and be living in a house by the river, or in the mountains, never by the sea, with the woman of my dreams, whose face I could never remember. That's how it always begins, with me perfectly happy. Then the spectres appear, dark apparitions I can only see from the corner of my eyes.

Then the monsters. In any guise, in any size. The hounds with their otherwordly cries, on the Last Hunt. A beautiful child who'd have been perfect if not for the stitching around her neck and her shoulders and her waist, and who had buttons for eyes. An abomination who could only have been from a child's nightmare, but who'd always been lurking around the back of my head, all twenty metres of it, with elongated fangs and sharp claws, and horns and scales and blood soaked wings.

Everynight we performed the same ritual, like a grand dance in the ballroom of my mind, whose dancers wearily execute the same steps over and over again. My dream world gradually gets overrun, my house by the river, or in the mountains, would be razed. The woman of my dreams would be torn from my arms and I would not be able to bear looking at her fate, and I would clamp my eyes shut in horror, the final betrayal of the woman whom I would have loved beyond words. And they would close in on me, and I'd be able to feel their hot breath on my cheek, and the gnashing of their teeth, then I'd wake up with the sun shining on my face and my alarm ringing.

And then it'd be night again. An endless cycle of bliss and loss. Then one day I entered the dream, and I knew how it would all end, right from the start. I gazed upon all that I had around me, and I saw with frightening clarity how everything would get swept up by the fury of my nightmares. And I saw too the woman of my dreams, and this time I told myself, no, I cannot forget her face this time, so I focused on each and every one of her features, from her ears, to her lips, her nose, all of it, and lastly the eyes. Eyes so beautiful they could not be of this world.

Go. Go away, I said. She half turned around in surprise, her lips half open as she could not find the words to respond. No. No I won't, she said. The words, the way she said it, broke my heart and almost too my resolve. I took a deep breath, and continued. You have to go. You can't stay here. I don't want you by my side. It destroyed me to say those words, but I had to. I wanted to hold her close and cry into her hair but I couldn't. I stood where I was.

Okay. She nodded. I'm sorry. And she left.

It took all I had, and I was left staring blankly at the walls of a once-perfect house. Awaiting what I knew was inevitably coming. I took solace from the fact that she wouldn't be caught up in it this time. She didn't deserve to have to face my nightmares. That was my job. So I waited. For what had to happen eventually. Except that it didn't.

The sun was up but it felt different. I couldn't seem to recall anything of last night, except the knowledge of what exactly didn't happen.

And then once again night was fast approaching. I didn't know what to expect. Here, now, seasalt in the wind. But there was nothing else but silence. No rumble of approaching hooves. So I stepped out and this is what I saw.

White, red, black and pale they were. And three of four were dead. Sitting astride the pale horse was a woman. She turned to look at me. Her eyes. Your nightmares will haunt you no longer, nor your dreams. I nodded mutely, but I couldn't take my eyes off hers. And then I knew. It must have shown on my face for she then said, Weren't you happy? Everynight, you got to live your dream life. Everynight, you got to love.

Yes, I was. But I was also afraid.

Okay. She nodded. And she left.


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Okay hi guys. This is a really weird story. I feel really weird about it. It's nothing at all like I expected it to be. There are so many things that I expected to be in there which aren't. I don't even know what exactly it is I've written cause it bears no resemblance whatsoever to what was in my head when I started it.

This story has its origins in a really crazily good book I had which had drawings/artwork on one page and a mini-story or something on the other side, which would be based on the author's intepretation of the artwork, and it was really neat. I loved that book. So that's where I got the original idea from.

Then I decided to write in the first person, which I don't know how to do at all. You know, all the emotion and thoughts and all. And I thought I'd furnish it with descriptions like you'd do in a primary school composition. And then I thought the title could be Night Mares which meant I had to think up something to do with horses. And then I thought of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And so it all went haywire. I had no idea what I was doing at all.

Death is the rider of the pale horse. I especially like Death because of Terry Pratchett. The button eyes bit was from Coraline. The idea of someone fighting off nightmares (at least that was what I orginally envisioned) comes from Neil Gaiman again, the one about the cat in either Fragile Things or Smoke and Mirrors.

So the story was supposed to be about a very lonely boy who'd have his nightmares come to life every night. So he met this girl but he couldn't be with her past a certain time for fear of her coming to harm, so he'd have to chase her away every evening. And then the girl would be very hurt and stuff but then one night she'd see the boy wracked by his nightmares and realize what he's going through, and why he'd chase her away. So she ignores him the next day and stays with him into the night, and his nightmares didn't appear, cause they were all only in his head. And then they lived happily ever after.

But I just couldn't seem to write that at all! The story just wouldn't come out, and I didn't know how to do it. So that's that then. I'm feeling quite disturbed now actually, and confused. Maybe I should look at the story another time before I can rightfully say what I feel about it, because now I'm just feeling so troubled over this whole experience (the attempt to write, that is, and the aftermath.)

I've never felt so bad after writing actually, usually I feel a quiet sense of accomplishment or achievement or something, that you know, I managed to create something. Even if it's awful or something (that I'd probably cringe at if I read it again afterwards haha) but this time I feel quite yucky. Ugh. Maybe I just need someone to tell me that it wasn't that bad, cause srsly I'm feeling so awful about this! Oh man. Help me somebody!

Okay I know life is better after sleep SO GOODNIGHT NOW YAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Edit: Haha turns out I had a dream which was quite pleasant, so that restores all the zen I need for the long sku-day ahead hehe. Well pleasant dreams to you folks!