ESSAY
6 )"Nightmare"

       I heard a knock on my window, and strangely, I woke up. I sat up, and gazed toward it. There was nothing, and NO ONE there. I chuckled to myself, thinking I was being too superstitious. I lived on the third floor facing the bare yard with no pets, so there couldn't be anything knocking on my window. Just as I was starting to relax once more, I heard a slithering sound under my bed- it got louder, and louder every second. I started to panic, not knowing what was going on. Then, my furniture blasted towards me with a penetrating, zooming sound. I screamed with my hands wrapping around my head. The noise soon ended, and everything went quiet. No ticking sound, no penetrating zooms, no nothing.

       I opened my eyes, and I found myself in a blank open area. I was standing there alone. I looked around, wondering what had happened, and where I was. An indescribable stench soon caught my attention, causing me to vomit. I stood up, and started walking forward, hoping to find a way out. I found nothing but never-ending space. I kept walking; it felt like I was in frozen time. Everything was just blank, and quiet. Then out of nowhere, I heard the slithering again. This time, it was behind me. It alarmed me, and I quickly turned around. I didn't see anything, and became very frightened. I caught something moving with the corner of my eye, and promptly turned back again. I froze with my mouth dropped open, not believing what I was seeing. The white, void space was turning into a swirl, and shifting into a forest! As a natural reaction, I looked all around me to see what was going. My surrounding kept shifting, as I stood motionless, watching the trees, rocks, sky, and earth burst out of the ground, and realizing that I must be dreaming. It didn't take too long for the new environment to form, and when it did, I ran! I ran like mad, trying to escape this nightmare. I dashed between trees, stumps and rocks. I fell a few times, and started to bleed. To my surprise, I could feel the pain from my wounds, and started to wonder who was the idiot that once told me you couldn't feel physical pains in dreams.

       I approached a cliff, and forced myself to stop. I looked down the cliff carefully and found it extremely deep. You couldn't see an end to it as if it led to the very bottom of the earth. I turned back looking for another way to run. Surprisingly, I saw my bedroom door- the door with my kitty "welcome" sign hung up in the middle. I was overwhelmed! Just as I was close enough to reach it, my brother appeared beside me. For some reason, I wasn't shocked as if he's been part of my dream all alone, but I still asked him why he was here. He said nothing, and pushed me with an incredible force off the cliff. I was in disbelief, and forgot to scream. Gravity pulled me down towards the endless pitch. I couldn't move against the strong wind caused by the force of the fall. I stopped thinking, and fell out of conscious.

       "AHHHHHHHH!" I screamed as I jumped up from my bed. Cold sweat was trickling down my face with my eyes wide open. I gasped for air as my body shivered from the cold damp air. It was still dark, and I felt nervous within the pitch black. However, a few minutes later, my eyes got used to the darkness, and I gained back my vision. I started to think about my dream. I couldn't understand it. A few minutes later I turned to my digital clock- it read 4:42am. The sun was starting to rise. I looked towards the window for a trace of sunlight, and listened to the birds sing. For the first time, I was noticed that reality is so much better than fantasy.