A girl rested on the bed, rain streaming down the windows of her face, her cheeks melting into blobs of fat in the outpour.
Sleepiness takes advantage of the chance to kneel beside her and outstretch her hand in a tempting offer to take her away. For a moment, there was such an immense struggle in the girl to push it away; she knew it was a lie. But then, she looks into its eyes and she thinks she’s seen those eyes before.
When she had looked down into the black abyss eyes of her grandmother, who was surrounded with white chrysanthemums. When a homeless cat slinking in the rain stared at her from afar. On the people who’ve lost their dream.
It’s inevitable, isn’t it. She thinks it as more like a fact and wraps her quivering hands around the cold, cold hands.
The seduction of sleepiness brushes her eyelids close and kisses her to oblivion.
She opens her eyes, unsure at first whether she had opened them at all. The world around her was stuck in a palette of blacks and grays without a single bold color to mark its beginning and end. It struck her that it was like a birdcage, iron wrought bars woven together with a blanket of black silk laid over it to keep the bird inside from singing.
Then a single spot of blackness contorted slowly, getting brighter into crimsons and gold, dark greens outlining it in a forest array, bold colors that burned with the darkness around it. The colors focused into outlandishly, excessive clothes and crimson ruby eyes. Swathed in all of it was a small boy. Stress lines were etched onto his forehead although he looked only five. His lip was set in a straight, stubborn line.
She was startled abruptly when the boy kicked her, surprisingly hard for someone his size.
“Come on. Get up already!” He whines loudly.
She realizes for the first time that she was lying down. She waits a moment, taking in the stubborn face looking down at her.
Those eyes again. Who are exactly are you?
She sits up, groans from her ribs crying in the silence.
Their roles were now reversed: she looking down at the boy that sadly only rose to her chest although she was sitting down.
Obviously annoyed by the height difference and her nonchalant demeanor, he sucks in an immense amount of air, his chest getting bigger and bigger (and quite an unusual view with all the clothes piled on him).
He explodes. “Why…?! Why do I have to deal with yoooouuuuuuuu!!!
He stamps his feet with such energy that he turns red. “Boss said you annoy him and you’re annoying me too!” he cries. “Boss is too demanding of me to make me stick with you! You know what?! I’ll be mean to you too! No mercy…”
The words start to take on a muddled quality in her ears. She stood up and calmly started walking away from the boy.
She calls back, interrupting his rambling. “I’ve already been through this before.”
She pauses for a sec, slowly breathing in the heavy air. Steadily, she says, “This is a nightmare.”
“Oh smart one, aren’t you? Of course, as expected,” he pantomimed sarcastically. “Well? Go on now,” he says while waving her away.
“And one more thing.” The words slipped through her clenched teeth.
Suddenly, her face had grown dark and she clenches her hand into white-fisted knuckles. Her back remains turned away and rigid.
“Don’t appear in that form again. It’s less conflicting for me if you just appear like you normally do.”
She tries to walk calmly again but then her feet blurs into a run. She’s secretly afraid of the small boy behind her.
He grins manically, the smile following her every step of the way.
“Of course, I can allow that.”
For a moment, his eyes start to droop with heavy, rotting flesh. A crimson liquid slowly trickles down out of his right eye and blends into the elegant red scarf that slowly tightens around his neck. It looked as if his head was being wringed off. He laughs although his throat is too twisted for it to be possible.
Then the darkness consumes him, gnawing at him with gruesome teeth and flesh is ripped apart and thrown with red splatters to the floor.
The boy’s hysterical laughter never once stopped and he looks at her running, anticipating next time.
Her thoughts rang with every running step she took, echoing with panic and despair.
Run away, run away.
Don’t look back.
The echoes from her feet slowly got softer until there are none, and now, she feels soft clumps beneath her. She looks down to see cloud-like snow stretching eternally, filling her eyes with a pure brightness. Crystal blossoms unfurl from snowflakes as soon as they touch the ground. Hanging from the pale trees are not petals and leaves but perfectly-cut diamonds that filled each inch of space.
Her heart slows down from the gentle coldness and she stops beneath one of the diamond trees. She slowly reaches out to one of the delicately-carved diamonds and taps it.
She looks in awestruck wonder at the chain reaction. As that single diamond bumps into another with a sweet chime, another diamond is hit by that one. And then another, and another, spreading to other outstretched branches. The shaking of diamonds rise up and up to the black point on top of the tree, and her ears are filled with an orchestra of chimes, flutes, violins, cymbals, celli, and violas that stun her.
Ever so slowly,
The thin thread of satin silk that tied the diamond she had tapped and the tree together snaps.
She was startled when it fell onto her hand. She feels as if she had ruined something, thrown something off balance as she looks at the dimming light in the cold, cold crystal.
It’s so cold it burns her.
She throws it instinctively into the air and the diamond shatters into thin slivers that catch the light.
For a moment, silence wraps around the world like a suffocating blanket until it is thrown off by the sharp shattering of crystal all around her. They shards twirl a lovely dance before plummeting towards her as if gravity said she was the ground. They burn her skin like molten lava and when she falls to the ground, she immediately scrambles up because the snow burned her as well.
She runs. Her sneakers start to burn, filling her nose with smoke.
Tiny monsters slide down the ocean blue veins on her arms. They were almost cute, until she saw them curl up their lips and jagged swords of teeth line their mouth. They bite off her fingers but she doesn’t scream since there was no pain.
Yet, in the midst of all the chaos, she feels something big. Something that filled her entire being with fear. It had been following her and slowly catching up.
Its malicious presence never once left her.
She peeks behind her and she sees a hand, following her with waving fingers. It blended into the empty white sky and she wouldn’t have even seen it if not for the black hole at its stump. There is no body attached to it but she hears the cackle of a witch’s laughter.
Some part of her knows she can’t let it touch her.
She scrambles wildly, trying to juke the thing behind her. As it got closer and closer, she could feel its hatred and insanity sending off tendrils to grab at her.
She tried to run even harder to escape but her hands were eaten away so she can no longer cover her face, the skin on her feet had been burned, leaving a blood trail for it to follow.
She collapses, her hair a wreath of fire around her and the tiny monsters licking at the protruding bone that was once her arm.
She breathes heavily and quickly as the hand comes closer and closer.
It lands softly on her shoulder. Yet, force explodes through her as if someone had stabbed her. She starts to scream. Gray coils appear and start strangling her. Pitch black madness invades her mind, and she cannot escape from the pain she feels as she looks with frightened, open eyes at grotesque figures.
The darkness laps over her with tsunami waves. Help…
She starts to drown in the black ocean. Please…
She submerges in the madness. Anyone…
“Celia…Celia…Wake up, love.”
She was coaxed awake with gentle words. And for the first in a long time, she heard her name and it eased back onto her like her own skin. It tasted delicious on her tongue.
Am I awake now?
The bed felt too comfortable, the warmth too rich. It couldn’t possibly be.
She noticed for the first time the aging man and woman who had given back her name. The man scratched his gray whiskers that tickled himself. The woman was slightly shorter and one of her legs seemed slightly injured, but she stood straight and erect. Both of them had silver eyes that covered their pupils like a mourning veil.
She recognized them. “Good morning Dad. Mom”
“Finally! Our Sleeping Beauty is awake!” Her dad shouts out loud for the whole world to hear.
Mom rolls her eyes but smiles nevertheless. “Come on, sweetie,” she says as she raised Celia up. “It’s a beautiful day. Perfect for a picnic.”
She couldn’t still quite believe it. But her family stood in front of her, solid when she poked them to make sure.
Even if it was still a dream, she didn’t want it to end.
She jumps up and embraces them deeply, whispering, “I love you.”
“Woah, woah. Calm down for a sec, would you?” Her dad murmurs and pats her head of autumn fire hair awkwardly. Her mom reacted more appropriately and hugged back with equal force.
“I’m not sure why this is so sudden but I love you too,” she says warmly. “Now get dressed up and come downstairs ASAP. Remember the picnic we planned?”
Celia pauses a moment before nodding.
“Now let’s get this party goin’!” Her dad shouts and takes his wife hand in hand down the stairs.
She picks out a standard T-shirt and shorts and dresses into it, adding long boots and a nice, warm jacket just in case, and follows a scent that appeared before her in a warm, steamy trail dripping with honey and with the so many colors of fresh, ripe fruit.
She now sees the source of the scent at the kitchen table. Wrapped carefully are scones and deeply-baked breads with canned drinks of coffee and lemonade. Specifically saved for last are three slices of cake, and she can already tell beforehand that the one layered with a strawberry cream and stacked with lush fruits are hers. She starts to reach for it but is cut off short by her dad.
“If I have to suffer without eating, then you’re going down with me,” he grins.
“Oh gosh. This is saved for the picnic!” Her mom cries out.
Both Celia and her dad give a glaring pout but then slum their shoulders in surrender.
After what seems like eternity, they exit the house with one large picnic basket. Celia notices for the first time that they lived far away from civilization. Golden wheat fields with sunflowers stretched toward the sun surrounded their home. The air was clean, removed from the exhaust of cars. A gentle breeze dances through her hair. The world was aglow in light. She laughs delightedly, twinkling in the chimes of the sound.
“Just head over that way!” her dad shout out.
She sees in the distance a small slope with a white sycamore tree hanging over it and races over there, feeling like a child again. Her parents finally reach there and start spreading the dishes around. Celia notices a camera in the woven basket and quickly snatches it out.
"Wait! Just...just stay like that for a sec!" She smiles shyly, but it is a calm, serene smile of perfect content. "Every beautiful moment needs a picture to remember it by."
She didn’t ever want to forget this.
They shrug in a “Why not?” and lean against the tree. They hold hands and smile with the radiance around them. Anyone could tell that they were happy together.
It was perfect. Every note in the song that all people unknowingly dance to was in harmony. She lifts up the camera to capture the moment of magic.
Only it was no longer a camera; she stared in horror as what she lifts is a gun, her finger slightly pressed on the trigger.
“Just take the shot already, hon!” The call from her parents was desperate and with more force than from before.
No. It couldn’t be…
“Not so smart anymore, aren’t you.”
She recognizes the whiny voice.
The small boy from before stands in the distance. The golden sunlight around him layered on to him like a jacket. He might have even fitted into her surroundings, just another kid in his own family picnic, except she knew better.
The words strung tightly finally releases. “Shoot them.”
Her family had not budged. They all stood firm in their place and they hold a smile on their face, open and forgiving.
Her lips make out a small, “No.” Then she yells, louder and more confident, “NO!”
The boy grows into a full-sized adult and he points his own gun towards her. But what really captured her attention were the eyes.
They were so empty; no emotion, no life in them. They were like oil spilled and swirled into an empty hole. No light entered there and all you could see was yourself in there.
“HAHAHA! You seem to be forgetting something here.” His voice grows deeper into a growl. “I’m in control. It’s their lives or yours.”
“Ha,” she scoffs. She shakes as she raises the gun---towards him. “I’ll never do that. You should know I would never hurt ones I love.”
They both remain still for quite some time.
He shatters the silence. “Of course I knew that. Didn’t you say you’ve been through this before? I can’t believe you forget this every time.” The gun changes directions and points toward her family.
She remembers everything. Each time, he shot them and they writhed in agony, calling out to her to stop their misery.
She couldn’t let it happen again. If they were to die, she wanted it done swiftly by her own hands.
But in that moment she realized, he had already pressed the trigger. Her family whispers goodbyes as he shoots them down, one by one, without remorse. The leaves turn into a golden red.
She collapses, the gun falling from her hands. She failed. She failed them. She always fails when other people depend on her. She could never protect people she loved.
She’s aware that now, the gun was pointed towards her. She does not move.
She deserved it. She accepts it.
A black truth enters her skull; This isn’t a nightmare. This is reality.
Her eyes slowly opened, her pupil like a silver cloud drifting in an ocean sky. Weak drops of golden sunlight shone behind the opaque silver.
For a moment, everything was gentle. Her limbs did not ache with pain, the air was gentle. If you looked at her, you wouldn’t see the scars and bruises that once covered her.
Then, the memories of what had just happened exploded through her head. The temporary radiance of the sun changes into dark beams, the freezing air tightened around her throat, the jagged wounds on her resurfaced. A whiny cackle laughs in the distance.
She looks at the dark world around her.
She’s not sure which side is the nightmare.