The Dream I See!

China. A psychiatric hospital. 10 years ago.

There was a boy in a white room who looked about 12 years old. Although he looked rather young, he was extremely handsome: he had short black hair, cold green eyes and an extremely handsome face.

The boy's name was Cassian. Today was his birthday, but guessing from his face one could infer that he was not happy or cheerful at all, there was only calm and thoughtfulness in his eyes.

He looked quite normal, as most people would have thought, but those people who knew him well would have said they were dead wrong. He may have looked quite normal, but in fact everything was just an assumption.

He was patient number 10 in the children's psychiatric hospital. He could have been considered as a regular person, except for one thing. The boy constantly relieved one nightmare which resulted in him screaming every night trying to get rid of his fear. As soon as the boy falls asleep the nightmare repeats itself, making the boy scared to even take a nap.

Of course, the doctors tried to cure his anxiety of falling asleep , somniphobia, but all in vain. Each week Cassian got worse and worse, until the day came when his parents could no longer tolerate his screams echoing through the night.

They stopped taking him to the doctors and decided they had had enough, sending the nine-year-old boy to a children's psychiatric hospital; perhaps they really wanted to cure him, or maybe get rid of him. Cassian was too young to know the truth.

As experienced specialists in such cases, the doctors at the hospital tried to get rid of Cassian's nightmares with the help of a psychiatrist, but when he could not help either, they started treating his illness with pills. But the result was still the same.

The doctors were completely desperate - and after a couple of months they seemed to be completely used to the boy's screams, taking it for granted. But the doctors, like Cassian's parents, might not have realized that he was lying to them.

Every time his parents and doctors asked him about the nightmares, he said he couldn't remember the dream. Of course, in the end they believed him, they thought he couldn't lie, afterall why would he?

But they were deeply mistaken: it was not that Cassian did not remember, he simply couldn't forget the dream. He knew that at the end of the day, when he began to fall asleep, he would have the same dream, every day, for a year now.

After he grew older, it seemed that after each nightmare his mind became clearer. He knew that if he told the doctors about the contents of the dream, there would be only one fate awaiting him.

To be stuck in a mental hospital for a long, long time. And that was something he tried to avoid with all his might.

The dream seemed quite strange from the start, as if it were a film, but the further Cassian immersed himself in the events of the dream, the harder it was for him to accept what was happening.

Everything was too grim, he saw a man very much like himself, in fact he was an exact replica, but the difference in them was that he was a man in his 20s and Cassian was just a boy.

But that was not what eluded him the most in this dream, it was all about what was going on, it was as if he was in another world, the architecture resembled the ancient oriental style, the men and women wore medieval clothes, and what caught my eye was their weapons.

It was strange to see that both men and women had a plethora of cold weapons, from swords to whips and bows, instead of modern weapons, and even their blows with an ordinary fist could easily shatter boulders. Cassian was so caught up in the dream at first that he did not notice how the atmosphere began to change.

In the beginning these men fought together with a man who shared Cassian's appearance. They confronted the dragon-like monster, but afterwards Cassian only saw some snippets, shards, it was unusual to see such a thing in a dream; it did not seem complete.

Cassian saw them kill this monster, losing quite a few people in the process, and in the next moment there was another cliffhanger; someone seemed to have skipped forward through the film or, better said, missed the beginning and stopped at the end of the film.

And that was the main reason why Cassian feared sleep and shouted about it. All those people who had been on the same side as the man suddenly turned their back on him. Cassian could not make out their faces, but there were about ten of them left, and the next moment they attacked him.

Cassian felt as if he were there himself, he felt the man's wrath. He saw the brutality of the murder, how the man who resembled him was dismembered and left to rot. Cassian was not screaming because he was frightened of the man's murder, it was something else entirely.

It was as if Cassian had switched roles with the man, he had stepped into his shoes, while the man remained an observer. And it was horrible, Cassian had no control over his actions, he felt as if he were a puppet, and the main horror was that he felt the pain of the blows and the tearing of his flesh.

But apart from the endless pain Cassian felt something very dark deep inside, it was anger. Of course, the anger was not of a boy, but of a man, but Cassian felt very uncomfortable and fearful. It was too frightening of a scene for a young boy.

Once the dream was over, Cassian was able to sleep soundly until the morning without any disturbances, and this was happening for three years until Kassian came to terms with what was going on.

He got used to the pain and anger emanating inside the man, and the number of screams he uttered at night began to diminish. Instead of screaming every day, he began to scream once every three days until it was reduced to few and far between, and then stopped altogether.

The doctors at the psychiatric hospital thought the boy was cured, and yes, he confirmed that his nightmares were completely gone, but then again, he was lying for his own good. The nightmares did not stop, he just got used to it: he closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate.

Today was the day he turned 12 and the day his parents decided to take Cassian away from the children's psychiatric hospital. He was very joyful on this occasion, although you could only see the calmness on his face.

Cassian had to come to terms with this, he couldn't tell anyone about his secret as he didn't want to go back to the white room. As the years passed, Cassian was already considered a perfectly normal boy, with not even one realizing what a secret he was keeping.