by Dark Shadow
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It was like waking up with an immense headache. Like the worse hangover ever.
My eyes were blurry, and I just wanted to get some coffee. Placing my feet out of bed I could feel the touch of the cold metal, it brought the chills down my spine, but I knew what was going on.
It had been the same for a month now. Nightmares. Nightmares of a delusional world which looked like ours, except completely deformed into a macabre scene of corroded metal and barbed wire. I could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance and the ever rotating vents.
This was a nightmare world where ones biggest delusions would come to life… and I had this nightmare for a month.
Eventually I wake up, in my own bed, in my own world. But the dream seems terrifying real. And I remember every detail of it.
Standing up I looked around me. It hadn’t changed a bit since last time; my wardrobe looked as if it was soaked in water. As was my study table. My coursework I had made seemed to be unreadable, and stains which looked like blood were covering it.
Above me a huge vent was rotating. It seemed to have no actual purpose as the air in the room was thick and dense.
I made my way to the door to my living room, it too looked as if it was soaked in water and traces of dried blood could be found. Upon opening it, it gave off a high pitched metal shriek, as if I was opening a rusty old door.
The living room…
It looked horrible. But it also had not changed since last time. Except for the plates which I used last night for my dinner upon the kitchen counter. The leftovers looked rotten and emanated a sickening smell.
The TV also didn’t work. The channels just emitted static.
The windows were gone, they were now reduced to some rusty metal grates, I could look slightly through them, but all I could see from the other side was darkness.
My couch and chair looked old and dusty, and stains were covering it, as if someone opened a can of tomato soup and poured it all over.
From the living room I looked at my apartment door that led to the hallways of my apartment block. It couldn’t be opened in the dreams for some reason.
I tried breaking it down, but it was no use, nor could I find the key for it anywhere.
The phone seemed to be broken as well, I tried calling several phone numbers, but all I got was static and strange noises.
There wasn’t much else in my apartment. The bathroom door seemed locked, and an overwhelming odor came from within. Which kind of made me not want to look inside.
I decided the best thing would be just to do as I always did. Go back to bed and try to sleep and hope I would wake up back in my normal world.
I walked back to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Crawling back into my bed I wondered how long these nightmarish dreams would continue. As my thoughts of why and how raced through my mind, I slowly sank back into a dreamless sleep.
I opened my eyes and looked around, hoping it was all back to normal again.
A bright light was shining through one of my windows.
The morning light of the sun… thank God.
Looking at my alarm clock I noticed I almost overslept for college. I jumped out of bed and took a quick shower, the warm water soothing me. Grabbing my coursework and a sandwich I ran off to my class.
At college I got an hour off from class. I decided to spend my time productive by looking up some books on dreams and specifically reoccurring ones within the library. Perhaps those could help me against these weird nightmares. As I was snooping around in one of the books a person approached me.
“Books on dreams huh?”
It was the librarian lady. She looked at me with her typical investigating looks, which somehow always gave me the creeps.
“Yeah,” I answered “I’m having some bad dreams lately…”
“Ah, I see” She smiled. Due to her old age I could see the wrinkles in her cheeks. “Well,” She said “Dreams are given to us by God, some are good… some bad.”
I nodded, while trying to find something other to look at than her staring eyes. “Dreams could be something from the future, or the past” she continued. “It’s amazing how real some dreams can be.”
Ironically this was too true in my case.
“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for in here” she finally said, while giving another kind smile as she walked off. I always found the lady a tad weird…actually, the whole college did.
The bells rang again and I decided to take the books home with me.
At 5 I finally got home. I threw my pack on my study table and dropped myself on the bed. I lay there thinking for a moment if the same would happen again tonight. I looked up and stared at my pack for a while. I sighed, stood up, and walked over to it and took out the two books about dreams.
I threw them back on my bed and picked one to start reading. “Dreamworlds” was the title. I looked through the register and came up on a paragraph named “Otherworldly reality’s”. It seemed interesting enough so I skipped through to that page and started reading…
“Though the dreamworld is created by our minds, in which case we can do or create anything we want, it is still bound to rules, but not from this world.
“This so called “Otherworld” can heavily influence ones dreams if for instance the person has had a traumatic experience in his past.
“It is also depicted in several Tarot cards. Though the original deck has up to 21 cards, the Gardner deck was said to held up more than 22 cards. These cards were said to depict about the otherworldly laws and its existence. This however is only mentioned in literature and the deck does not exist in this day.
“Though none can really say how this otherworld could exist, according to some paranormal investigators it’s a world that exists within that of our Lord, but is completely unbound by the laws of ours. A neuroscientist said that the existence of a second dimension within that of ours was just superstitious believes.”
I closed the book, I was tired as hell. And reading only seemed to give me a headache. Resting my head on my pillow I wondered if my dreams were also somehow linked to something… My eyes got heavy from the exhaustion, and I quickly fell into a deep sleep.
***
I woke up at the sound of my phone ringing from the living room.
“God… not my parents again, won’t they ever leave me alone?” I spoke to myself.
I could hear a vent rushing above my head. In a shock I spread my eyes wide open. I was there again…
I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Corroded metal and rotten furniture of my apartment was once again surrounding me. But I didn’t mishear my phone, it was still ringing within my living room. Who could it be?
Well there was only one way to find out…
I stepped out of bed and didn’t feel cold metal on my feet for a moment, instead it was something thin and dry. A piece of paper.
I picked it up and noticed it was a page out of that book I read. I couldn’t read any of it as it was stained with blood. More pages of the book were scattered about on my floor. All unreadable. What was going on?
I walked to my living room where the phone was still ringing. As I approached it I carefully picked up the horn and brought it to my ear.
…
“Hello?”
It took a few seconds before i actually got an answer
“It’s always been like that Hm? Haven’t you done enough already?”
She seemed upset. Puzzled I was quiet for a while. “I-I’m sorry… who are you?” I finally brought out. I heard a sigh on the other side.
“Sorry is never enough, I will not ever forgive for what you have done!”
She hung up.
I stood still for a while , still clinging the phone to my ear.
“Never forgive me?” I questioned myself. “What does she mean with that? Must’ve dialed the wrong number…”
A loud bang suddenly caught my attention from behind me, as if something fell on the floor. I looked and saw one of my pictures from the wall had fallen off. I walked over to it and picked it up. The front glass had broken. It was the picture I took while I was on a holiday to a small resort town right at a lake. It was so nice and quiet there. It made me want to visit that place again someday…
There seemed to be something stuck to the backside of the picture. I turned it around and found a key to be taped to the back of it. Not wasting a moment I tore it off and tried it on my apartments door lock.
Yet no satisfying click sound… It wasn’t the key for this door. But where would it be for then?
The answer came almost at an instant. The toilet door was still locked…
Clenching the key in my fist I approached the toilet door. The smell was thicker than before, as if something rotten was on the other side. I brought the key to the lock, my hand shaking like mad and my heart thumping within my throat.
I knew something horrible was on the other side, and I didn’t quite wanted to know what, but if there was a way to figure out the dream…
*Click*
The door was unlocked. I moved the door handle down and carefully opened it outwards. It made a squeaking noise like an old attic door as I opened it. Peering through the door opening I could see some things inside.
My toilet, and my bath with shower. Everything seemed covered in dried blood, and a disgusting rotten smell filled my nostrils.
I stepped inside after seeing no real threat, and noticed another piece of paper on the top of my toilet. It was another part of that book, except I could read this one…
“…It was said that God built the place during the creation of the earth. It was a mid-phase of creating an eternal paradise on earth. Though it is also believed to be a purgatory. Some people even claimed it to be the work of the devil. But one thing is for sure, it is not a place of our world”
It’s like I heard this somewhere before…
Looking at the bathtub I noticed it was filled with disgusting brown water. It reeked as if something was rotting there for weeks. Only then did I notice the letters of blood marking the wall. Stumbling backwards I read the text. “The truth is down there” And an arrow pointed downwards. At the bathtub.
I swallowed and hesitated for a moment. But my urge to find out what was going on was too big. I reached for the cord of the bathtub plug, and pulled it.
The smelly brown water sank away into the drain. And it uncovered a small metal box nailed to the bottom of my bath… It had two simple switch locks. Curious that I was I clicked them open, and carefully opened it. A small piece of paper lay inside. Something was written on it.
“Silent Hill”
“Where did I… oh, right… Silent Hill was the resort town I went to a few years back. The one I had a picture of in my living room. Would the answers to my dreams lay there? I can’t really remember much from the last time I was there. But if there is a way to get rid of these nightmares by going, I might as well…”
There seemed to be nothing else of interest in my bathroom so I stepped out and went back to my bedroom. Before I managed to get there a huge headache suddenly overtook me, it was if my brain was tearing itself apart! I wanted to scream but nothing came out, and I collapsed on the metal floor.
While I saw the vent above me rotate and rotate I slowly started to lose my conscious as the sirens in the distance seemed to become louder and louder. Everything turned black…
Upon opening my eyes I saw my trusty old ceiling back. I was in my normal bed again. I sat up and looked around, I noticed the books from the library were still intact on my sheets, but something else was on top of them.
I reached forward and grabbed it, it was the note I had found in the bathtub… “Guess I’ll have to call in sick today.” I said to myself while stepping out of the bed and dropping the note in my pants pocket.
“I’ll go to Silent Hill…”
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