A Midnight's Dream

Falling asleep the second you hit the bed is a dream for many including me. That night, my dream came true. But that dream turned into a nightmare when I woke up suddenly at midnight.It was murky and spooky enough to scare a 17 year old girl like me. After all, I always had an implacable fear for ghosts. I tapped on my mobile. ‘2:30 a.m’ it flashed. The room felt, ominously, freezing, and dry. I turned around immediately to throw an arm over my mom. I needed the solid assurance of my mom’s presence to fall back asleep at this hour. Somehow, I always believed that no devilish, supernatural, ghostly being can haunt or possess me when mom was around. 

Just when I threw an arm over my mom, my finger brushed past something. Something that was neither the bed nor the blanket. I shut my eyes close as I struggled to normalize my shallow breaths. After a few minutes of nothing anticipated, I realized how stupid I was for panicking like that. But I knew I had made the judgment too soon when a thin, cold, stern hand grabbed my wrist. At that moment, my breathing ceased, my time stopped, my mind froze. 

The hand slowly moved mine horizontally, dragging it to something. My heart started to beat as if to grapple its way out. The silence elated my fright. Just then I realized I needn’t be silent. I tried to open my mouth and scream. I couldn’t. I tried to pull back my hand. I couldn’t. I realized I couldn’t budge a muscle. Even my eyes were shut tight (although I wasn’t sure if that was because I couldn’t or wouldn’t). The more I tried to move, the more fettered I felt.

At the end of a sluggish journey, my hand found something. Hair? A head? And then, as if my soul raised from my body to see what was happening on the other side of the bed, I realized there was someone sitting on the ground, with her head resting on the bed over her arm. She was dark and skinny. She moved my hand again. This time, from the top of her head to the back of her skull and then back to the top of her head. My hand moved slowly and continually. Almost like petting a dog. Instantly it occurred to me – I knew who she was. After all, there was just one person who I always did that to. And she was dead a long time ago.

Just then, as if she heard my thought, she stopped moving my hand and slowly lifted up her head. The surety of what I was about to see, spiked my anxiety, despair, and respiration. I just wanted to escape that moment. But then when she suddenly snapped her head up in a fraction of a second, I took a breath of shock and gulped down a scream. 

I don’t remember seeing her face, but I suddenly opened my eyes to the almost dark ceiling. Did I just wake up? Was it a dream? Petrified, I look around without moving much. Nothing. It was only a dream. My body was at ease. I let out a sigh of relief. Yet why was the room freezing and dry? I hate waking up at midnight. It is always spooky and murky irrespective of whether I had a nightmare or not. I moved and accidentally touched something. My eyes opened wide, my mouth gaped, my reality crashed from all senses when the mobile flashed 2:30a.m.