1 Waking up in a Dream

It was 9:30 at night, and I could not fall asleep; it happened every night since I accidentally tore the fabric of that dream catcher that my friend Remina gave me when I turned sixteen. It was a gift in response to the uncomfortable dreams that I began to have since I was fifteen years old. I wanted to stop feeling overwhelmed by those nightmares, and so it was until one day I decided to tell my friends what those dreams were about: They were about horrifying creatures that invaded the city while people ran for their lives and others were attacked by those beasts.

In my dreams, I was always drawn to that boy I had never seen; he appeared in front of me, his face hidden beneath a black hood that held his coat; he fixed his gaze on the monsters and faced them with a sword that gave off a bright blue flame, annihilating a large number of those beasts; and just after engaging in that amazing, brutal war and finally defeating the monsters, he directed his defiant gaze to where I was.I could not understand why he did it, until one of those aberrations appeared out of nowhere and attacked me, waking me up with a scream that more than once frightened my parents.

I would wake up agitated, trying to catch my breath and becoming aware that no matter how real it seemed, it was nothing more than a horrible dream that kept repeating itself over and over again.

That's how my nights have been since I was fifteen years old: the same dream in different scenes: the invasion of the city, the monsters, the attack on people, and that boy's fight with the beasts.

"Come on, Mera, you should stop having those horrible nightmares already!" I would say to myself, when I was already standing in front of the bed, "Go to the bathroom."

That night, as much as I thought things like that would never happen because they were only nightmares and dreams, I had to swallow my words because something else happened: I heard the rumble of a terrifying sound outside the apartment.I felt nervous and scared. "Was this the kind of dream where you think you wake up but it turns out you are in another dream?" I wondered as I walked towards the window that was hidden by the curtains that Anetta, one of my friends and roommate, hung at the beginning of the year. The window had a balcony that gave a view of the alley that led to the building where I lived with the next person.

I looked at the clock, trying to confirm with the movement of the hands if this was one more of my dreams. But to my surprise, it was still 12 a.m., the time was unchanged as I was used to seeing it in my nightmares, and Remina and Anetta would not arrive from the party until 1 a.m. in the morning of the party, to which I did not want to accompany them because I did not feel like going. Instead, I stayed in the apartment, excusing myself with the cold I had this week, and here I was, tormented, alone, and unable to distinguish a dream from reality.

I felt the desire that it was already 1 o'clock and my friends would be in the room, waking me up to hear from them how many handsome and attractive guys they met at that blissful party. "But it's not like that!" Now I found myself in front of the window, alone and listening to a horrible sound, feeling my heartbeat increase with every second as I debated whether or not to look out into the alley.

It was when I ventured to find out where the sound was coming from without any protection other than a coat for the cold that I opened the window and crossed through it immediately.

"Who's there!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as I passed the window and entered the balcony.

I leaned my hands on the railing, trying to give myself the courage to be there at that precise moment. I inspected the street for a few seconds before realizing that there was no one at either end of the alley. Instead, trash cans could be seen lying around and debris scattered everywhere.

Grief-stricken by my illogical fears, I set about looking up at the balconies of the neighboring building, trying to convince myself that there was no one on the other side laughing at me.

My eyes widened in shock, and I was immediately horrified by what I saw at that moment. It was glued to the walls of that building as if gravity did not apply to that being; it had dark skin like the sky on a stormy night, as well as large protruding and sharp fangs that shone in two huge jaws and FOUR eyes!Four glowing eyes swiftly landed on where I stood, tensing my muscles as if I had found their prey.

"Aaaah!" I screamed in panic.

With my legs trembling, I ran desperately to the window, trying to get into the apartment in a hurry. When I managed to pass the window frame, I heard a roar, confirming that something heavy had jumped to the balcony, and immediately after, a guttural howl froze my skin.

I was paralyzed, and only my sight obeyed my commands; I could see the beast climbing its claws up the balcony railings, its gaze fixed on me; the ebony colored beast made it clear that I was its prey, but I couldn't understand why; "why would a monster like that attack me?""Is this really happening?" was what I asked myself when I saw its muscles and limbs contract, then pounce towards where I was ignoring the glass window that separated us. Its maw drooled as if it had a great desire to devour me with haste and without mercy.

With the fear of dying, I tried to give orders to my legs to run away from there, but they did not respond. I held my breath as I watched in slow motion as its sharp claws extended as it leapt from the metal pipes that made up the balcony towards me, shattering the glass window and followed by a shrill noise of shattering glass and tearing Anetta's curtains.

"Wake up, Mera!" Wake up!" I tried to speak to my subconscious, but my body was unresponsive.

"Nooo!" I screamed at last as I heard my heart beating fast and, at the same time, my eyes focused on the approaching beast.

Realizing that the dream seemed not to want to end, unconsciously, my sense of survival made me crawl towards the door. The monster passed by, tearing with its claws the sheets and the mattress of my bed, which ended up breaking under the weight of the horrifying beast, until it ended in a crash against the wall where the broken dreamcatcher had been before.

I reacted immediately, slipping behind the door and closing it at the same time as I started running towards the main entrance of the apartment. My heart was pounding as my breathing became scarce; I was sweating with fear, and my hands were shaking. A few seconds after having fled to the outskirts of the apartment, I heard a sound coming from the room; the entrance did not resist the advance of that monster. I had to react quickly or else everything I had done to escape would be in vain.

Removing the locking pin from the door, I turned the handle at a speed I had never expected my hands to have and ran out, ignoring the elevator and focusing my attention on the stairs leading to the roof where I could hide without thinking twice. I ran with all my strength up the stairs, hearing how the door of the entrance to the apartment was detached, I heard a roar of fury, and the beast was still following me.

When I reached the door leading to the roof, I noticed that it was open; someone had left it open, but the fear and the need to survive overcame me, and as strange as that fact was, I decided to ignore it and keep running until I ran into one of the walls that had the electrical system of the building.

"It can't be possible!" I shouted when I realized that I had nowhere to go.

I heard again the shrill growl of the monster, making sure of its presence in that place, and although I wanted to run to the edge of that rooftop to escape quickly from the horror of being eaten alive, I remained motionless with my back against the wall, feeling immediately the icy and penetrating cold of the concrete in my spine, until desperation overcame fear and I managed to watch how the beast slowly approached me while its eyes looked at me carefully and its mouths drooled, and with a jump it stayed on top of the electrical system pot, as if it was waiting for me to do the least stupid thing to make it attack I had no choice but to close my eyes and turn my head to the side, involuntarily raising my hands in an absurd attempt at defense.

"Help! Help!" I screamed in my mind, but the horror would not let me.