Dreams

Last night was a bad night.

I suffer from an overactive imagination. I will constantly zone out to song imagining epic scenescapes, doodle on my front desk paperwork, hum nonsense to myself, and yes, even roleplay with others to escape this 'reality' around me. (The suffocating mass that it is.) It is not uncommon for me to jump at a shadow after I try to freak out the otherplayers, yelp at a bug that brushes my cheek, or get edgy and near-hysterical after a particularly freaky movie. However, as with those things, I tend to recover rather quickly, and laugh at myself in a relative good-nature with those around me.

That being said, I'm sure it's not a very big surprise that I have very vivid dreams. I love my dreams. A good portion of the time, they treat me very well - gifting me with flight, or the ability to fend off legions of monsters or zombies, or even throw lightning. (You know, the cool stuff.) And yes, that goes the same for nightmares. My Love would tell you that I do, on occasion, wake up ina panic and pull him closer to protect myself from these ill-spirits I harbor. There have been a nice colorful handful involving blood and gore, the loss of loved ones, being chased with no escape - the usual stereotypes.

This last one I have never had before. Nothing like it, nothing I could even compare it to. Which is what kept me up for an hour or two after the jolt and panic and reaching for my Love like a life line.

Imagine yourself in bed, curled up on your side, with your Love's arm draped over your side and holding you close. Very nice. You'd had a migraine earlier, but he got you a cool rag and rubbed your temples until the pain became nothing more then a dull throb. An annoyance, really. So you shut your eyes, having stayed up tossing and turning from that annoyance until ungodly hours, pleased as punch that you'll get at least 4 hours of sleep for work the next day.

Then imagine yourself waking up in your dark room and you cannot move. The arm on your side is suddenly a hundred pounds and crushing you. And something intrinsic and instunctual tells you with a loud warning - this is not your love. Trying to turn your head is a painful process, forget about opening your mouth to scream. Not even a whisper can make it past the pressure in your side, and the sudden imposing darkness around you. Another thought, one that dwarfs thwe worry of your love is that your window is totally dark. Where lights from construction workers should be filterng in, there is nothing. So in your mind, you revert to the way of a child, the dependable methods of make-believe and say to yourself, If I close my eyes and go to sleep, it will all go away.

So you do. And you wake up. And imagine that everything seems normal. In fact, more then normal. You know that feeling you get, lets say after a wild party, and your body is so exhausted but you have to wake up in an hour, so you decide on a nap? Well the feeling after the alarm buzzes in your ear, and your body throws out a protest of aching joints, trembling limbs and the fear of the sudden jolt thudding in tune to your heart in your ears? Eyes blurred and straining, burning beneath the sockets as your body screams at you for being an idiot? Well, you wake up like that, thinking somehow your alarm went off. And of course, you panic, because if your alarm went off and it's not going right now then you are going to be REALLY late.

But then you can't move your arm. Imagine that as soona s you look down to see it, the weight returns to your side. And the dream repeats verbatim, and you think it's so real; the dryness of your mouth, the aching in your eyes, the claminess of your skin. So you think, maybe this time...

And then Imagine you wake up. And then imagine the intensity progressing deeper and deeper with each opening of your eyes to view this dark new world your subconscious has concocted. In flashes, compacting each following despair, each awakening into a short clip so that instead of fallign asleep, it feels like merely blinking your eyes and the scene resets. And you know all of this, you know it's happening, so at one point you try so hard, straining against your unconscious bonds to wake up. Just wake up!

And the arm on your waist gets tighter, and as you try to fight the dream, it's fighting you, pushing you harder, shifting shadows at just the right moment, having your Love's hands curl into desperate claws, and having you see out of your peripherals as you struggle his empty eyes staring ever forward, mouth slack-jawed and expression lost.

It feels like hours, waking and sleeping and waking and sleeping, and delerious with such the cries begin, from deep in your throat, and then from your belly, and the pitch goes up in a plea for help that noone but the shifting shadows answer. They only squeeze tighter around your waist, pressing from one side to break youi in half, and you start to curl around it, thrash against it, flail your arms to grab at your nightstand, the image int he mirror by your bed laughing, legs twisting in the reflection like shadowy snakes, toes hissing and turning on your laughing body, then you turn your eyes away, what else can you do? So you reach for the clothes on the floor and they melt away from your outstretched fingertips, and the arm squeezes, and so you curl around it, pulling your knees up close, expecting your own feet to consume you, and your hands reach up to pull on your hair to wake you, yanking violently, ripping and tearing,and the shriek in your throat comes out like the last dying breath of an animal, that blood curdling, bone chilling last noise as the breath whooshes fitfully out of your lungs...

And then Imagine waking up.

Oru