1 1-1 Dreams

Eden seemed like any other 26-year-old female.  She would get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work at the diner, come home and try to pay her bills each month. Despite working till her feet were sore and her back ached from carrying heavy trays of food out to ungrateful customers she appeared happy. This day was just like all the rest. She took the city bus to work. She always hated that; some of the seats were wobbly and in dire need of repair. People would leave her alone for the most part, but occasionally another passenger would strike up a conversation.


The worst part was the old man in tattered clothes with a glass eye that would stare at her from the back of the bus. At first it made her uneasy, but after a while she began to feel sad for him. He never said a word to anyone and people always seemed disgusted by him. He seemed sad to her, like he had lost someone and he was lonely. Before getting off the bus she turned to him and smiled, it was the least she could do. For a moment she thought she saw a little bit of a twinkle in his eye, a slight glimmer of hope and maybe even a faint smile back in her direction. Feeling hopeful thinking that by making a little effort each day she might be able to bring joy to someone's life, she got off the bus and began her short walk to the diner.


At the diner things were the same as usual. Jesse, one of the other waitresses who was only a few years older than Eden, was carrying an order out from the kitchen when she noticed Eden walk in. She greeted Eden with a simple, "Hey hun, glad ya made it!" and a smile. Eden smiled back as she walked towards the small office in the back where everyone kept their personal belongings. After putting her things away she promptly went to work serving the customers, making polite conversation, and sharing in a few laughs here and there throughout the day.
At the end of her day Jesse would usually give her a ride home because the bus would get pretty dangerous at night. Every night Jesse would always inquire about the day when Eden would be able to get her own car. Eden had been saving a little here and there for almost a year now, but still had a ways to go because the majority of her money would always be spent paying bills and buying what few groceries she could afford. Eden smiled and said sarcastically, "Oh Jess, you know you'll be devastated when I have my own car and we won't have this quality time anymore!"
Jesse replied, "Oh shush! You know I don't mean it like that! I worry about you wandering the streets by yourself ya know!"


Eden said with a slight smirk, "Sometimes you worry too much Jess, and that worries me." They both began to laugh as they were pulling up to Eden's house. It was a small house, with a small yard. It wasn't the best, but it had flowers beneath the windows and a couple large trees in the front and back. It was home. She got out of the car and the two women said their farewells for the evening. Eden was relieved to finally be home. It was time for a warm shower, comfy clothes, and a nice hot cup of tea before bed.


However, things are rarely as they seem. On the outside she seemed like a regular girl just trying to make a living, full of hopes and dreams. No one would have ever guessed that she dreaded the night because while she slept she would have terrible nightmares that would cause her to wake up screaming and drenched in sweat.  The next morning she would put on her uniform and do her best to cover the bruises. She wasn't entirely sure how she had acquired the bruises. She had her suspicions, but preferred her own denial to the devastating truth. It was even more distressing to discover deep scratches and cuts that made the sheets stick to her skin from the blood drying throughout the night.


She would cry before leaving the house every day, then cry more when she got home and sensed the night approaching. No one ever noticed. Applying makeup over her puffy eyes and dark circles had become an art. Had she not been afraid of people asking too many questions about her personal life she would have made an excellent makeup artist. She didn't understand why this was happening. Why she would see such horrible things in her sleep; blood and fire, people screaming, begging for help. Pain and suffering. Monsters. Evil.


It was a cold December night; fresh snow on the ground, icicles hanging from the gutters. Eden had fallen asleep on the couch with a log on the fire. She was in a deep sleep, at least that's what she saw. Somehow she was standing between the fireplace and her own sleeping body. She was stunned at first and didn't know what to do. Then she felt it, the overwhelming sense of fear. She felt that she was in danger, that there was a presence, an evil presence in the room. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. Even breathing was proving to be difficult. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the flames in the fireplace flare up. She managed to turn her head slightly to see a dark shadowy figure emerging from the flames. Her heart was pounding hard so hard she could feel it through her whole body, from her ears to her fingertips, all the way down to her feet. She tried to scream, but the sound just got stuck in the bottom of her throat. She tried to move her body, but it felt as if a powerful force was restraining her, holding her in place, forcing her to watch.


The shadow began to move like a mist from the fire. It moved across the floor over to the sleeping body. Eden was consumed with terror. The shadow began to take on a more solid form. Still it was dark and encompassed in a black mist. It leaned over Eden's sleeping body and reached out towards her face. Its fingers were long and jagged, as they got closer to her face she began to panic. She tried with all her strength to scream. She tried to wake herself up, but it was no use.
Then it happened, the creature dragged its claws across her face. She felt the sting as it tore into her skin and the warm blood trickled down her cheek. The pain was so intense that it caused her to break free and she screamed at the top of her lungs "STOP IT! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" The creature froze in its place and appeared stunned. It quickly pulled its hand away and turned to look at her. Its face was so dark it was as if it wasn't there. It was almost hollow. It sat staring at her for only a second and in the next it had moved like a flash inches away from her face.


The outline of its face was clear now; sharp pointy teeth and blood red eyes. It reached up and stroked her face with its hand. She was too horrified to even tremble. In a raspy voice it said, "You see me?" It tilted its head back and a hideous laughter echoed through the entire house, then it turned its head back to Eden and the silence seemed to last forever.  "Now you will see. No more time for games."  With those final words it again threw its head back and laughed once more.
Finally Eden was able to jerk out of her sleep. She woke again drenched in sweat and out of breath. She reached up to her cheek with a shaky hand and felt the warm sticky liquid and jagged cuts. Pulling her hand away from her face she looked at the blood that covered her fingers. She sat shaking, too afraid to get off of the couch. This was no dream, it never was. She was used to having nightmares that left visible signs of the horrors she saw. Terrible creatures hiding in shadows that would quickly scurry out just long enough to drag unsuspecting victims screaming, and scratching at the ground in a desperate attempt to break free, into a fiery pit.


She would sometimes fall behind them into the pit where she would acquire scrapes and bruises of her own. She witnessed the horror of people screaming and being tormented and tortured by disgusting and frightening creatures. They would be burned and beaten, their skin ripped from their bodies. On some occasions the people would notice her standing there. They would reach out for her and call to her begging for help. Sometimes they were able to get a hold on her and they would be in so much pain that they didn't realize how tightly they were squeezing her arm, or how their nails were tearing across her skin.


Sometimes she would hear a faint voice that seemed to be whispering in her ear.  It would tell her things, awful things that these people had done. It would tell her stories of greed, anger, secrets…secrets that would turn into violence; violence where one would do unspeakable things to another. Often times the end result would be a tragic and gruesome death. These demons would then haunt the culprit until they were driven completely mad. That's when they would finally make their move. That's when they would drag them down below where fate would carry out its vengeance on these criminals. As horrid as the crimes were she couldn't help but feel a small bit of sorrow for these people, even more so when the crime was less severe, yet the punishment was just as harsh.


These were the horrors she saw every night. Every night a different person would be taken. Every night a different story would be told. Rapists, murderers, pedophiles…their punishments seemed fitting. Some people however, seemed like they didn't belong here. Their stories were never told to her. They never reached out to her or called to her. They just accepted their punishment as if they believed they deserved it.


Every night she was dragged into this Hell to witness these horrors, but this night was different. Never once had the demons noticed or acknowledged her presence. Never once had they come to her. And never once had they stared her in the eye, and spoken directly to her. It was always as if she wasn't entirely there. At least, the demons never saw her, but now something has changed. Now, she feared that her own life was finally in danger. She was no longer just an observer, she had become a target.