DREAM

The thick smell of copper fills my lungs, I couldn't help but gag on it, struggling to open my eyes. No... this isn't real life, I remember. This is the start of my dreams, the beginning is like this every time. I can never remember what my dreams are in real life but I can always vividly remember everything the instant I start sleeping.

I hate sleeping, the dreams are mostly the reason, but dreaming to me always spells disaster. I can't remember the last time I've slept properly.

The dream is always the same.

A massive mall, the walls being painted in a pink glow transitioning into a dull dark blue from where the light can't reach. The shops are all closed by a large metal shutter where light can't pass. A pitch-black surface which makes my stomach churn. It reminds me of what Nietzsche said, "If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back." This odd primordial fear comes over me every time I see it.

I couldn't help but want to vomit as the purple-stained grounds grew longer and longer. Stumbling, wheezing, and coughing, Anxiety building up in my hubris getting ready for me to spit it right back out onto the purple marble flooring below me.

The lighting changes here. White blaring lights, an odd transition into a long escalator ride to nowhere. It felt as if a knot was in my throat. I have no clue why but I feel like I should be screaming in terror at what might be waiting for me below.

But I go on, steeling myself with rightful ambition and pragmatic naivety. My reality is broken here... I shouldn't be thinking this way.

I'm breaking the rules of this world by contemplating and rationalizing my surroundings. The white marble walls surrounding the escalator ends. This reveals multiple escalators.

I feel like I'm about to puke. I cannot express the fear kept within my gut.

It was mirrored. It felt like everything was delayed but mirrored across a painted corrupted canvas showing me an odd benevolent world that showed the reality of my peerless hopelessness. Needless to say, my heart sunk when I saw what was there. I thought there would be nothing, seeing an endless array of escalators, but my biggest fear was shown.

I couldn't even fucking believe it. It felt like my adam's apple was going to explode and my legs gave out. It was me, they were all me. The unspeakable fear I felt was unnatural. I shouldn't be feeling this way but... they weren't normal.

They are me and aren't me. Wretched hollow abominations staring at me through this mirrored world, mouth agape with unnatural proportions. The term for this would be a feeling of the uncanny valley. I should correct myself as well... this world was no longer a delayed mirror for if it was, as it went downwards above me, it was staring, they were staring... hands over the railing of the escalator waiting to approach me in a time that will not come.

Stuck in a state of cognitive dissonance I found myself unable to move. It felt like I was choking on air, biting down on my bottom lip until it bled.

I can't stay here.

I tried running down the steps the best I could, frequently slipping and clipping the back of my legs against the metal stairs below me. I grit my teeth and try to get away from that thing.

Every time I looked back though, it'd always be above me. Staring with its empty eyes.

But then, we finally reached the next floor, once I stepped onto the white marble floor that sat before the escalator behind me, and once I looked up to see if that "thing" was there. It wasn't. It was gone.

Incomprehensible emotions passed over me like a heatwave. I felt dread, defeat, loss. I felt hurt, annoyed, furious. I felt joy, excitement. All at once... all of these emotions hit me.

On a dime, it all stopped.

I continued on through a desolate - large subway. White walls and fluorescent lamps that hung from its ceiling. It was a run-down subway but it was a subway nonetheless.

A thick fog sat in front of me, becoming less and less thick as I went through it.

The lights went out and... the fog was gone. What lay before me be it a corpse or a doll that ran out of its use. I felt cold, I felt no pity for the dead that lay before my eyes. I wanted it dead... that's what he always told me but I never wanted it dead. I never wanted anything dead, no, I cared deeply for this person.

That... whoever it was convinced me otherwise but I realized how much I love them and now that they are gone I have not a clue what to do. I was young, still hung up by past mistakes that others made.

It doesn't fix my emptiness. I just want them back, at least if they were here I would have solitude in my-

Then I woke up.

For the first time in my life, I could remember that dream like it happened yesterday. Like it was an actual event that happened to me. I know that it isn't. I knew that it wasn't real the instant I woke up. Then I realized the smell of copper spreading through my head.

I stuff tissues up my nose to stop the bleeding. My eyes are bloodshot, a thin blue shadow surrounds them. My face.

I feel like I've forgotten what I've looked like.

Thin brown hair with a parting in the middle, long eyebrows with a scar in my left. Deep ocean green eyes to drown in. I look like I'll drop dead any minute now. I need to start eating normally again.

It hit me once again. Every time I fall asleep, I can never help but wonder what I dreamt about. Why can't I remember?