In Dreams They Watch

Cold sweat dripped down my face as I jumped up in my bed, it was another dream about them. Who they were, I had no real idea, but they were always there it seemed. Most nights, when I had drifted off into the land of dreams, they would be there, somewhere. Sometimes they were hidden, sometimes they were prominent, but however things ended up, they were always there.

I know… this sounds like the paranoid rantings of some crazy person talking about being hunted in their dreams, and maybe that’s what it’ll become when all is said and done, but I will tell you that, as of right this moment, I’m not crazy. I don’t think… Look, I’m not a psychologist, or psychiatrist, or whichever one it is that would tell me if I were crazy or not; I work as a cashier at a convenience store. It’s humble work, doesn’t require much thinking, and the hardest part of the job is restocking the sodas, or cleaning up the floor after some dumb kid throws their fountain drink on the floor. Basically, it’s perfect for me, Mr. Nobody, resident of the middle of nowhere, with no dreams, drive or devotion to anything but myself. That sounds selfish, but hey, no one ever got anywhere by doing everything for everyone else. 

Anyways, as I was saying before I went off on that tangent, I’m not crazy, but I do have really weird dreams. In fact, when I was a little kid, like really little, my mom took me to one of those psych people to figure out if I was nuts, because I kept telling her about weird things that a child that young shouldn’t know about. It was actually a point of conversation when she was on her deathbed, we talked about memories, things we missed and so on, and then she mentioned the dreams. I didn’t remember much from when I was that young, obviously, so I asked her what she meant, and she explained that I would tell her of events that were so vivid and detailed, and she couldn’t understand where I was getting these ideas from. She told me that most of them seemed so off the wall, that she thought I was seeing things on TV or something, but she could never find any shows or movies that were even remotely close to what I was telling her. After a while her concern actually turned to hope- I was like 5 and was telling her these elaborate plots to weird and creepy things, and she thought that maybe life was setting me up to become a world famous author or something. Of course this college-dropout let her down, and I never lived up to her grand delusions, but I also never wanted to be an author. I can’t write worth a damn, never could, never desired to. 

I asked her if she could remember some of the dreams I described, and of course she could only recall some of them. She mentioned that there was one where I told her about a forest. I told her that I was walking through a forest, the ground was covered in red and golden leaves that had made their way to the ground, there was a light mist in the air making it seem cooler than it actually was. I was walking through the trees, trying to find something, though I couldn't remember what it was I was trying to find. As I walked through the woods, I came upon a strange box, like a bird house, but much larger; it was a few feet tall and about a foot and a half wide, had a wooden door with a handle that turned, and a shelf on either side that had a lit candle glowing against the side panels. I told her that this box was important, though I refused to elaborate on how it was important. She said that she asked me if I opened it to see what was inside, and when she asked this I broke into tears. Whatever it was on the inside of that box, in that dream, it had gripped my little 5 year old brain in fear, and I went into a full blown fit. I never told her what it was in that box, I never described anything more about the dream, and she said that, when I had that same dream again, I would just tell her that I was “In The woods last night” but that I didn’t want to talk about it. 

She had told me about a few other dreams, but they were less important than the one in the woods- I used to have a lot of weird dreams and some of them were definitely weirder than others. When she told me about this, while she was lying in that bed near the end of her days, I remember the look on her face was so solemn, she didn’t enjoy this memory, so I just tried to laugh it off and comment about how I was such a weird kid- then immediately tried to move away from the subject. 

What I never told her though, was that I remembered that dream. I remembered every single step into those woods, every single drop of water that collected on my face as I stepped through the trees, looking for purpose in my adventure. That dream was one that I had more than others, and it continued on into my adult life. In fact, it’s the one that I’ve had the most throughout my life- peppered with minor changes, and evolving as time went on. For the most part it was just me, walking through the woods, finding the box, examining it, opening it… Then after a while, I started feeling like I wasn’t alone, like something was watching me, and it was around this point that I started finding the box was locked, and I could no longer open it. I would try to break the lock, but it was impenetrable. I would try to pull the top off the box, but it was steadfast. I would try to kick the whole thing over to destroy it, but it would never budge from its position. 

My inability to open the box annoyed me to the point that, in this dream, I started to ignore it, and try to figure out what it was that was out in the woods, watching me. Whatever this invisible entity was, I could tell that its presence was malicious, like it was angry with me, or like it had evil intent. I always assumed that it was mad because the box belonged to it, and my tampering with the box had made it angry. Despite how angry this thing was though, it never came at me, it never showed itself as being more than just something out in the woods.

As time went on, in this weird series of dreams, I realized that I wasn’t making progress, and for some reason I wanted to make progress, so I gave up on the box, moved on from the malice, and decided to try and figure out where I was in the woods. Of course I never did- it was an endless and vast forest full of all types of trees, and by this point I was in my late teens, so my sense of direction was “Where’s the sun”. There was no sun, it was always hazy and misting, so I just aimlessly wandered until I woke up. 

I didn’t have this dream for quite a long time after that. It actually stopped around the time my mother passed away, right after she had told me about what I had described as a kid. It was almost like hearing her tell me about the strange world my mind had created was enough to pull me out of it, to push me past whatever trauma had caused me to create such a strange and horrendous place. Of course, after I stopped having the dream things in my actual life started feeling a bit off. I would be working and would feel that same malicious stare, though no one was in the store with me. I would start to feel moisture wicking on my face, as if mist was collecting on my skin, though I would literally be sitting in my room. I would be walking down the road, listening to a podcast, and would blink only to see that box stationed on the side of the road, in someone’s yard, in random places that made even less sense than that. Of course it would only be there until I blinked or looked away, then it would just disappear. 

This happened for months, I kept feeling the sensations of that dream in the real world, and really none of it made sense. I went through an absolute wave of emotions- fear, this sense that I was losing my damn mind, anger that it would keep happening and I couldn’t figure it out. Hell, I think there was even a moment where I felt joy and a sense of familiarity- this weird dream was taking over my life, it was almost like I was a kid again! Not that I wanted to deal with this weird dream, but it was kind of nostalgic, if that makes sense. 

Then, as if right on cue, at the moment where I thought I was going to crack, I returned to that world; I had that dream. I wasn’t expecting it, I went to bed that night thinking that the next day was going to be the day where I would snap and do something rash. I was just lying there in my bed, staring at my ceiling thinking “This is it… tomorrow is the day where I go outside and just completely lose it”, and then darkness. My eyes fell shut, my breathing slowed, and within the moment, I was five years old again. My feet were planted firmly on a pile of wet, decaying leaves. The smell of autumn filled my nostrils, the feeling of damp quickly adhered to my face and my flesh. 

Only this time, I wasn’t alone. They were there. Who they were, I really didn’t know- but I knew that they weren’t there to help me. I would stand off to the side and watch as they would circle the box, all holding hands, enclosing this small section of the woods off to intruders. They were all wearing long, dark cloaks, and none of them seemed to have much in ways of detail that I could make out. As they gathered together to surround the box, they would start chanting, almost singing, in some strange and foreign tongue. It started quietly, like they were mumbling to each other, but it escalated to much higher volumes. As they got to the point of almost shouting, I had told myself to run, to get away from this place, but I couldn’t. It almost felt as if something was holding onto my legs; I couldn’t move them, I couldn’t bend my knees. The chanting continued to grow more and more aggressive, almost urgent, and I could feel the ground starting to shake beneath me. 

As the earth started shaking, they, one by one, turned toward me, almost in a choreographed fashion. As they did, the dim forest light started revealing their faces- they were all twisted, distorted, and mangled. Their eyes were red and almost seemed to glow, their mouths, or more so mawss, looked to be cut from the skin on their face and lined with broken and sharp teeth. They were nothing shy of demonic. They then started to walk toward me, slowly, rhythmically. As the first approached, it reached a hand out toward my neck, and it gripped its cold, clammy hand on my throat, squeezing tightly. I could feel my lungs struggling to pull in oxygen, I could feel the pressure as this creature crushed my windpipe, and I could feel its fingers, almost as if they were the cold grips of death himself, ripping the life from my body. 

And then I woke up with my face and body drenched in sweat. I thought that this was just the strange progression of my messed up mind, that it was just another one of those dreams. It wasn’t… It wasn’t JUST another dream, it wasn’t the progression, nor the finale of this weird set of dreams that had haunted me since my childhood. No, this was a new beginning of horror for me, this was just the start. Every night, when I went to sleep, I saw them. No matter where this dream took place, what kind of dream I was having, they would be there. I had a dream that I was back in highschool, having fun with my freshman sweetheart, and in the corner of my eye I could see them watching me. At first I tried to ignore them, but they approached me in this dream, and once again took me by the throat. I dreamt I was a big movie star, that I was on the red carpet interviewing for a premiere of some action flick that I starred in. As I was giving my interview, they once again appeared and took my life. I dreamt I was working at my convenience store, they were there. I dreamt I was hooking up with a random girl at a concert, they were there. I dreamt I was having dinner with my mother at her favorite restaurant, and THEY WERE THERE. 

It didn’t matter how scary, happy, saddening or simply mundane my dreams were, they would be there, they would watch from the background for a while, until I would notice them, and then they would approach me. When they approached, I would die by the hands of the one in front- he would always grip my throat and choke the life out of me. Of course these were dreams, so no one else would notice or react, I would just be sitting there, having the life squeezed from my body, and the people around me would watch and smile and continue doing whatever they were doing. 

After dealing with this for weeks, I stopped dreaming. Where my mind would create these vivid worlds, where my imagination would build this bizarre and creative story for me to explore, was now simply blackness. I dreaded sleeping, because I missed those vivid moments, the colors of the world in my mind, and now it was just dark and cold. Despite the horror I was dealing with, I wanted those worlds, those lives, because they were much more impressive than the one I was living. 

Then, I had one last dream, but this dream… This dream is different. I dreamt that I woke up, lying uncomfortable on the couch in my apartment, to the sound of my alarm clock. In this dream, I opened my eyes, turned off my phone’s alarm sound, and sat up in the same place I had been falling asleep. I got up, did my morning routine, and got ready for another day. When I looked in the mirror, however, my face looked wrong. I could see my face, but it looked almost blurry or distorted. Like my face was merging with another person’s face- with one of their faces. I could see the ripped skin starting to emerge, my teeth appeared to be sharpened, my eyes looked red in color, but yet I could still see myself. It was definitely some kind of hallucination, some sort of visual distortion in this dream. I ignored it, moved on, got dressed and headed to work. I clocked in, started my duties, greeted customers, had a conversation with my boss- I did all the things that I always did. This was the most mundane dream I had ever had, I was just living my life as normal- doing what regular old me did. 

But, as I was about to clock out for the day, I glanced up at the apartment complex across the street, and a dark robe caught my eye- the same dark robe commonly worn by them. I was already out the door by the time I noticed that there were more than just one, that it was all of them. They watched me as I got in my car, as I put it in drive and took off down the road. Part of me was a bit panicky, sure, but when I saw them I realized that this was just another dream, which meant I would wake up soon and it would be over. I would just have to do my best to avoid them until then. 

When I got home, I couldn’t help but shake that feeling of being watched by the malicious being. It was one thing to feel it randomly at work, or while dreaming in the forest, but to feel it at home, dream or not, it was unsettling. My home was my sanctuary, and I was supposed to be safe locked inside, I wasn’t supposed to feel like something was staring at me and plotting my demise. 

As I sat there on my couch, staring at the wall, thinking about when this dream would end- I started to get this strange feeling. It was like a panic attack, like I was having high levels of anxiety and adrenaline, like something was going to happen and I needed to commit to either fight or flight. This was something that had never happened in my dreams- I had a sense of unease, sure, but I never felt this level of pressure being put on me in these dream worlds. No, this was a feeling reserved for real life, a feeling that only occurred in between dreams- not one that happened while I was sleeping. 

But, if that’s the case, then something is terribly wrong- this has to be a dream. I have to be dreaming all of this, and I know that I’m about to wake up. There is no way that I am awake, because I can see them. They’re standing in my doorway and watching me, much as they have in all those times I dreamt of my own demise. This is just another one of those dreams where they show up, do what they do, and I jump out of bed struggling to catch my breath, I’m sure of it. I’m absolutely certain that, any second now, I’m going to shoot up, I’m going to gasp for air, I’m going to open my eyes and my pupils will adjust to the dim lights of my apartment, like they have every other time. The cold fingers wrapping around my throat signify the end of the dream; I only have to suffer through a few more moments of this pain until I finally wake up… just like every other time…