Was It A Dream?

It began in an attic; dim and eerie with nothing visible past two feet ahead of you. I don’t know what I was doing there to be honest, all I know is, I woke up there with no memory of how I happened to be in that room. The worst part of it was… my house didn’t have an attic, meaning I was in someone else’s home I didn’t know of. There was a thick silence that was almost suffocating to me because the smallest of movements that I made sounded throughout the entire room.

I remember observing the place, or at least what I could make out nearby me, until I heard a sound that was quite out of place—footsteps. It sounded as though someone was trying their best to not be heard but it was hard to ignore the creepy creaking of the wooden floors somewhere further in the abyss ahead of me, shifting past the shadowed objects scattered in the room. I swiftly slid myself back, seeing as I was sitting helplessly on the hard ground, as too hide from whatever was creeping ever so closely near me. I honestly don’t remember being that scared at first, but as the mysterious person came closer, I could hear a very quiet laughter coming from that unknown direction and at that point, I could feel my stomach sink and my chest grow heavy filling with fear. Something’s after me, I guessed, and it somehow knows where I am.

I remember, slightly at least, picking myself up as slowly as possible to not alert the person (or thing) that I was now aware of my situation. I looked around swiftly for a path of some sort to get me the hell away from this place but to no avail. The darkness seemed to grow more and more aggressive the longer I inhabited the enclosed area, until I felt as though it was engulfing me entirely. I started feeling around for an object to begin leading in the opposite direction of the thing. Quickly, I felt a box to my right, it was good enough for me, and I began walking tenderly in that direction.

All the while, the now sinister sounding laughter started sounding directly behind me. I turned around swiftly ready to face my predator, but as quickly as I turned around… I found nothing there but the obsidian darkness that greeted once again. With that, I turned by to my journey when I saw something crawling quite low to the ground, crawling in my direction without looking up to face me. I freaked out, as I think anyone with their sanity intact would, and I fell back onto the hard wooden floors below me. I remember violently scooting backwards, this time feeling sick with all the fear that had gathered in my gut, to find this thing directly in front me now at my feet. It was a shadow-like figure and didn’t change from that state the entire time I was in the attic. I could briefly see it twitching on the floor, though it was not that noticeable, I could still tell that it was moving in an unnatural way.

The creature, now at my feet, had long limbs that stretched across the floor and into the darkness and its body seemed bony and grotesque. I couldn’t move because of how terrifying the thing was and as it climbed onto me, I could feel its cold disgusting hands press heavily against me. At this point, I snapped out of fears grip, I knew I needed to escape. I began thrashing around violently to shake off the creature; I didn’t dare look directly at it but instead past it. It roughly pinned me forcefully against the floor by my shoulders, even with the fight I was putting up it didn’t seem to mind. It was then that I looked at my disfigured captor and unfortunately the first thing I saw was its unhinged jaw that hung disturbingly low. I could see its chipped, jagged teeth that reminded me of a shark because it had several rows, or rather, sets of teeth and as I still shifted as best I could away from it, it lowered its head so closely to mine that I could feel it breathing onto my face just below it.

All to suddenly, I feel a sharp pain at my shoulder, I cried out from the pain as I glanced over to find my skin being ripped off my body and into the mouth of this creature. Sobbing, I watched as my skin, still slightly attached to me, make its way down into my captors stomach with drops of red painting the ground that held me. I began panicking and started to scream, “GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!” I ordered louder and louder. It was chewing my flesh like a person would chew bubblegum, while it inspected me from head to toe. I once more looked up only to find it inches from my face with a grim smile that sickened me, a smile that I can still remember and see every day. As it laid there chewing and staring at me with the grin, I noticed it lifted its claws and vigorously slammed my face against the wood with a loud cracking sound. I became groggy and my vision blurred, the thing now clenching onto my face that seemed tiny compared to the hand that gripped it. I remember feeling its sharp talons lodge themselves deeply into my head; in which one of the fingers dug into my eye, causing me to screech as I could feel a warm liquid trickle down my cheek and quickly fill my socket.

The laughter from before was back, but now it was crazed and as I laid there literally affixed to the ground, I became nauseous and started to feel myself slip into an almost paralyzed state. I could not move at this point with my breathing becoming less frequent and now, I was sweating profusely. I felt like I was drifting in and out of consciousness listening to the obscene laughter coming from the monster on top of me. The pain grew so uncontrollable worse that I began gasping for air and soon the creature gripped onto my arms. I was confused as to why it would shift to another part of me seeing as I was already losing myself, only to hear a vile, stomach-turning sound of bones being forcefully removed from me. The pain rushed from my arm up to my brain as it clenched my head and wrapped it in a blanket of agony. I remember bellowing loudly from all the pain I was in, so much so that I lost my voice. My throat was burning, head pounding, and now the sound of the creature crunching on my bones felt louder.

From there on, I slipped in and out of consciousness and all I could remember was being left torn limb from limb feeling an overwhelming amount of blood, now adjusting in temperature to the freezing feeling that now surrounded me. I stayed, lifeless, in that attic, how could I have moved anyways? My vision began failing more and more until finally, my eyesight went black while my breathing stopped completely. I no longer moved, not even an inch as I succumbed to the death slightly keeping me company—

— That’s when I finally woke up, gasping vigorously for air, I could feel the sweat on me and my bed while I quickly threw my blankets off of myself to sit at the edge of my bed. I stared bawling with tears flooding down my face as I held my hands to it. Breathing heavily, I got up and headed swiftly to my bathroom that was only so far from me… But as I turned on the light to look into the mirror, I was greeted by a grotesque reminder of my dream. My left eye was a raw, blackish red hole and my face around was stained with dried blood. I impulsively started stripping my shirt off only to find a revealed bone that should have been covered with flesh; there were even deep scratch-like wounds across my back… It was at this point that I felt so sick I actually threw up at the thought. Was it all real?

Later that morning, I called the cops who searched my entire home… twice, for any sign of an intruder. Nothing came up I was told while I was at the doctor’s. The only thing my doctor could tell me, was that it was probably self-inflicted, but I tried to question him how it was possible to scratch my back thoroughly. A question, which, is still unanswered.