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The Cause of Nightmares
What Nightmares are Made Of Have you ever had an ominous dream that seems to repeat itself every night? Every time you dare sleep? Has it ever followed you from your sleep to blind you to the day, to distract you forever only to torture you, to drive you mad? Have you ever hidden it from even your closest friends and family, just to avoid their pitiful stares and their whispering that perhaps there might be something wrong with you? The following is of my own creation, of my own mind. It follows a version of myself, through a fantasy-filled world. The beginning is based off my own dream, something that has bothered me for the past two years, every time I sleep. I've gotten used to it by now, but I wonder... What if I decided to leave my family behind to seek out the cause of these dreams? Will it lead to their deaths, to my destruction? Will I be forced to watch them suffer? Perhaps, but perhaps not. I'm not going to tempt fate just to find an answer that might forever be out of my reach. So, read if you wish. I do hope you will. Let me know what you think of it, right? |
It was something he had seen in his dreams many times. Something that had haunted them for five years, each time he closed his eyes as the moon took the sun’s place in the sky, each time he dared sleep. Every night, the dream was the same, every night, he found himself in that same room, that room high above the ground. Even as he stood staring up at the manor, its dark gray stones shining in the rainfall, a shudder ran through him. It had manifested from fear, rather than from standing in the midst of the cool rain, the steady wind that whipped his long black hair into his face, obstructing his view of that magnificent and terrifying house. After leaving those he loved, those he called family though they came from very different backgrounds, he had dedicated the last two years to tracking down the location of his dream. Through many cities, towns and villages, many a desolate desert and several expansive forests, he had arrived at the front door of his greatest fear. Yet he could not lift a foot to cross its threshold. His anticipation at arriving at the breeding ground of his single horrible nightmare had overwhelmed him, so much so that he had never considered what he would do when or even if he finally reached the place. Rethinking his decision, he had in some small, barely-considered way hoped that he would not, in fact, reach the ultimate destination. The house emanated an evil energy, telling him to stay back, and the ground itself seemed to bleed a warning that if he entered, not only would the dream come to be reality, but he would lose everything he held dear to him. Everything and everyone he ever loved, which was certainly not much. Ignoring his instincts for one of the few times, he put a pale hand on the door. It was old, warped with age and weather, and creaked eerily when he pushed. But it swung open, nonetheless, revealing a very darkly lit hallway and a staircase to the right, an old, musty oval rug on the stained gray wood floors. Gritting his teeth, shivering, he fought his instincts and stepped inside. Whipping back the mop of hair that blocked his vision, he tried to see into the darkness of the far hall, but in the hushed and constant rush of rainwater it was nearly black. A cold breeze filed down the stairs, snaking around him in an icy grasp, snapping him forward, blinding him, pressing against his chest and crushing the breath out of him. He was thrown up the stairs and to the left, up another set, and rammed into a wall. When he tried to regain his balance to stand, the force grabbed him again, throwing him through a door, and up yet another set of stairs. In a burst of freezing wind that plastered his soaking clothes to his skin, it howled away, leaving him deserted in the fourth-floor corridor. Vision swimming, he looked around, unknotting his hair and struggling to stand. The double doors in front of him were very high, and slightly open. A flickering yellow-orange glow spilled out into the hallway, and with a deep breath, he pushed the doors inside. It was just as he saw it, every night, every time he slept. A dark wooden floor, covered with a deep purple and red throw carpet, its edges fringed with black tassels. The walls were wood panels, with a painting of some man or woman he could not identify every few feet. The back wall, that to the right, was covered completely in bookshelves and what appeared to be leather-bound books. A wide curved window stretched high on the wall opposite him, framed by a deep violet curtain to show off the black sky and its storm. A round table stood in the center of the room, on the carpet, with a box of oak wood and brass framing on top. The fireplace to the left of the room was burning well, illuminating the room where the lightening would not. Though there was a chandelier in the center of the room, hanging low on its chain, it was unlit. He stepped into the room, the familiarity of it deadening his heart, filling it with a feeling of dread. Just as the dream predicted, he came. Through the door, a two-toned metal mask shining in the firelight, the eyeholes merely slits that gave it an ominous appearance, a very sharp chin that came to a point. With his appearance came a sentence that roused a sense of friendship long-past: “I knew you would be here, Dexter.” Dexter didn’t move. He seemed to be frozen in place, watching the man move into the room, close the door, and rearrange his long black jacket. If Dexter could only see the other man’s face, he could be certain they looked exactly alike, which would have struck him. Absent-mindedly, he reached up to his face, to his right eye, which was nothing but black glass and a long, faint scar. The stranger’s hair was almost as long as Dexter’s, reaching his mid-back, and their heights matched at such a precise level they could look one another in the eye, something Dexter found rare. But they kept their distance from one another, Dexter on one side of the table, and his stranger on the other side, shadowed by the fireplace’s glow. The masked man seemed to study Dexter for a moment, then laughed mirthlessly. “I’m sure you are… confused as to why you have been dreaming of this place?” “Yes, I am.” Dexter stepped closer to the table, but stayed out of the reach of the other man. “Are you the one giving me these nightmares? Luring me here?” He became bolder then, his hidden anger fueling his voice. “What is your intention? Why did you make me leave my family?” “I made you do nothing.” The man laughed again. He leaned on the table, gazing at Dexter as though he were a priceless painting, much like the ones on the walls around them. “All I did was plant the images in your head. What you did with them was completely up to you.” “But you put them there. You wanted me to come here.” “What I want and what you do are two completely different things, Dexter. I never told you to come here, you did it yourself. Perhaps, to save those you so dearly love?” Dexter breathed in shakily. The dream was coming true, but in a different series of events than what he dreamed. And only to be expected, as Dexter would not allow it to follow the same path he had let it for five years. “You have them. You have my family.” “They aren’t really your family.” The masked man said curtly. “One you love, he is your life, your soul, he holds your heart, as you hold his. But the others are nothing. You don’t love them as you love Carlos, do you?” “That doesn’t matter! They are all my family. I would give my life for all of them.” “Would you really? You would give up everything for them? Anything I ask of you?” “Yes! What do you want from me? What do I have that you could possibly want?” Dexter spread his hands and put them on the table, in front of the box set down by the masked man. “Who are you?” “Can you handle it? Can you handle the truth when it stares you right in the face?” “I can.” |
The man raised his hands to his face, digging his nails under the iron and pulling. Something cracked under the mask, bone, perhaps, and with a final tug, he freed the mask and set it in front of him. The man was someone Dexter never believed would be real, never thought would exist several years down the road. Dexter was staring at himself, an older version, paler. His face was lined with a decade of age. His right eye, the one Dexter had lost several years before, had been replaced by something red, a smooth jewel, rather than the black orb of glass the younger one had replacing his own. His face had a haunted look about it, shadowed, as though only just containing a deep-seeded terror. Young Dexter nearly fell backward, his mouth falling open.
“You see now, what has become of you.” The older Dexter spoke, his voice free to move without the mask hindering it. “You see now what twenty years will do to you, when you fail yourself and those you live for, yet cannot die.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never failed my friends or family.” “Haven’t you?” Dexter’s older self glared at him. “Don’t lie to yourself, as he stands in front of you, boy. You have failed before, we know it. You killed your oldest friend when he was in need.” “Don’t twist our memories!” Dexter put his hands over his ears. “I killed him because he would have killed Carlos! I was twenty two, and he had gone crazy! I did what I had to do to save the one I loved.” “But you took the life of our friend. You failed him. We failed him.” The young Dexter put a hand to his left eye. It was burning, threatening to spill a tear. Bringing up the past, what he had left behind, the mistake he thought he would never have to face again, bored a painful hole in his heart. “What do you want from me?” He asked quietly, bowing his head and letting his arms fall. “Why did you send these dreams to me?” “I want you to make due on your word.” “What word?” The older Dexter lifted the box from the table and opened it, revealing a velvet-lined interior and a round bottle with a long neck. “You said you would give up anything to save your family, even your soul.” “Nothing has happened to my family! I left them in full safety to find you.” The younger Dexter backed away. “I don’t know why you want it in the first place. You are me, aren’t you? You have your soul, don’t you?” The older Dexter smiled, defining the lines in the corner of his eyes. The fake one, replaced with a red jewel, glinted in the lightening from the window. “No. Your soul was taken when you lost your family. After you refused to give up your soul this time, you watched your entire family die. Carlos was last, and he begged you to reconsider, but even if you had, he would not have been spared. You fell into an irreversible depression, so dark all you could do was lie in the house you once shared with your family and cry, cry. You cried day, night, unable to sleep, unable to really move, yet you did not die of hunger or thirst.” The younger Dexter was shaking his head. All he could see of his older double’s words was Carlos, his only love, tortured and killed because of him, all because Dexter had not given up his soul, just as he promised his friends he would, for them. “A man came to you, after the fifth day. He offered an escape from your pain and the ability to see your friends and your love again. He would take your soul, then lead you to those you lost. Of course you agreed, but all he did was take your soul. You were driven insane by the lies of the world, how absolutely horrible the human race could be. You changed. You became me. Soulless, thoughtless, without a single feeling for anyone, man or woman, young or old.” The young Dexter closed his eyes. He had lost control, and let the tears fall. “I did this…” He said. “I did. Killed my family, lost my mind, my soul… Unable to die.” He looked at his older self. “How can I know you aren’t like the others? How can I know you’re telling me the truth?” “I felt you would ask that.” The older Dexter backed away from the table, scooping the box up and closing it as he stepped toward the fireplace, leaving his mask behind. With a wave of the hand, the fire puffed out with a blast of smoke, and the fireplace jolted backward. When the older Dexter moved his left hand through the air as though opening an invisible door, the fireplace moved with him, revealing a short corridor. With a wave of his hand, the older Dexter ushered his younger double along, leading the way. Lamps lined the wall at eye-level, throwing shadows that jumped when they passed by. The walls were the same wood panel as the room they had left behind, but that soon fell away to reveal a circular room made of hard gray and black stones. The far wall was contained with heavy bars, and the younger Dexter’s breath was taken away when he recognized them: A young girl, blond hair loose and wild, her light red and brown dress ripped in certain places, was shackled by her wrist and ankle to the wall. Alina. The one beside her was taller, her brother, with darker golden hair. Half his black shirt was completely gone, and he was missing a shoe. Danny. A young woman, her black hair clinging to her head and a wild glare in her bright green eyes, her pants were ripped and clothes muddy. Raine. A blond, blue-eyed young man was on his knees at the far right, both shoes gone, a lost look on his pale face. Carlos. |
They all began to speak at once, yelling in fear, confusion, and the younger Dexter ran forward, past his older self, reaching through the bars. Carlos tried to meet him, but the shackles would not allow it. “Guys.” Dexter gasped. “How did this happen?” “He came a year after you left.” Raine said. “He brought us here.” “He left you in this cage for four years!?” “No. No, he let us roam the house.” Danny said, holding his sister close. “But when he found you getting closer, he made us come here to wait.” “Dexter, I don’t like where this is going.” Carlos blurted, tugging the shackle on his wrist to edge nearer to Dexter, whose shoulder was being cut by the bar as he reached out. “Whatever this older one is up to, don’t do it! I know he’s about to do something, or tell you something. Don’t do it!” “Ah, he is right.” His older self approached and wrenched him away from the cage. With a whistle and a wave, something blundered out of the room they had left. Dexter turned in time to see one of the ornate chairs flying at him, tossing him into the seat. The velvet upholstery unraveled, attaching to Dexter’s arms and forcing him to stay seated. His older self unlocked the door to the cage and approached Carlos. He put his arm around Carlos and pulled him close, ruffling his hair. The younger Dexter gritted his teeth. “Let them go,” he muttered. “Please. You can’t hurt them, you… You’re me!” “I am you. But I don’t care anymore.” His older self looked at Carlos, who only stared outside the cage and refused to acknowledge who was near him. “Dexter, do something!” Alina cried out suddenly. “You have to do something!” “Right! You have to do something,” the older Dexter chimed in. “You can do something to save them, or you can watch them die by my hand. Our hand.” And with that, he lifted the one that still grasped the box. “You can’t do that.” Dexter struggled against the bindings. “They’re our friends. They were your friends!” “I can.” His older self patted Carlos on the head. “I’ve told you before, Dexter. When I watched them die the first time, I lost my mind. I lost any capacity to feel anything for anyone, even those I used to so dearly love. I can kill them without a thought. But if you give me your soul, I will let them live.” “Why do you want my soul, when I’m you? Why not take someone else’s?” “It’s not that simple. I am you, so I can only take your soul. If I do, I can live without the burden of nearly emotionless, empty life. I will not have to go back to the underworld.” “And if I give you mine, I will.” “You will. But you will save your family.” Dexter glared at his older self, his gaze softening when he looked to Carlos. “I’ll do it then.” He muttered, dropping his gaze. His older self smirked. “Very good.” He stepped out of the cage but locked it again, dropping its key into his pants pocket. He arranged the box to lie flat in his palm and opened the lid, extracting the bottle and tossing the box to the side, where it clattered on the floor. The younger Dexter was oblivious to the calls and cries of his trapped friends, ignoring their pleas to reconsider, and as directed by his older self, took the bottle by the neck. “Now,” his older self said quietly, “blow into the bottle. It will trap your soul within.” Dexter nodded, and brought the bottle to his lips. He let out a shaking breath, and as he did, felt his body chill. He tried to stop, breathe in again, but the bottle seemed to force more air out of his lungs. A painful shard of ice had lodged in his heart, with every beat digging deeper, tearing him apart from the inside. He gasped, throwing the bottle away from him and stumbling back, suddenly weak at the knees. Instead of falling to the floor and shattering, the bottle had been caught by Dexter’s older self, and he was staring at it with a humorless smile. “Finally.” He whispered, and held the bottle out for his younger self to see. “Finally, I have what is mine.” Dexter stepped forward, cold and almost empty inside. The bottle was filled with a pale smoke, a color of amber, hanging like a fog trapped. His older self pocketed the bottle with a smile in his direction. “Do you feel it?” He asked. “Nothing. You feel empty, don’t you? All your emotions have been drained away, save for anger, a bitter disdain for all of humanity and the world itself. Do you feel it? A sadistic emotion, something cold.” He did feel it. He knew he should have felt sadness for his family, trapped just out of reach and staring at him in shock and fear. He almost felt a shadow of love remaining for Carlos, who had collapsed. “You got what you wanted.” He said at last. “I want them free, and I want to leave.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” His older self chuckled. “You gave up your soul willingly. Now, you must take my place in the underworld.” Something awakened in Dexter that he had felt very rarely, something like a forest fire, spreading all over his body. “What.” He glared, twisting his hands into fists. “You… You said… You said I would not have to go to the underworld. Since you have my soul… And you’re me, so I don’t have to go. You can set my family free, and I can stay with them.” “Boy, I said nothing about your staying out of the underworld. We exist in different times, different realms, despite being the same person. And I said absolutely nothing about letting your family live. I simply said they would not die by your hand.” |
“No!” Dexter lunged at his older self, but was restricted by the chair, that moved on its own to grab him once more. Though he struggled, he could not break free of the velvet bonds. “You can’t do this to me! To them! I gave up everything!” “That you did. And thanks to you, I will exist in a later time with a soul, with my soul, and no burdens to hold me back.” “That isn’t possible. You’re me, so I’ll eventually be you… in the future.” “No, no.” The older Dexter stepped away, unlocking the cage doors again. When the younger Dexter’s friends began screaming at both of them, calling and bartering, his older self shouted a string of curses at them, silencing their ringing voices. “You see, we will never catch up to one another.” His older self continued, stepping into the cage and shutting the door again. “I will return to your future, my present. I will have my soul back, while you go along, unchanging and without age, forever tortured and chased in the underworld. And I will not have to deal with these leeches anymore!” He grinned in a terrible way at Dexter, and extracted a long, heavy knife from the folds of his jacket. “And you will see your loved ones die.” Dexter lunged forward, but was grabbed by the chair again. Its velvet wrapped around his arms and chest, its clawed feet seeming to grasp the floor itself, all he could do was flail his legs while he watched his older self move forward, stepping to the youngest of his closest friends. Alina, twelve-year-old Alina, cowered in her brother’s arms, but she was wrenched away and dragged to where Danny couldn’t reach. “Let her go!” He waved his arms at the older Dexter, grabbing for his sister. “You can’t do this! Please, she’s only a little girl.” “Little girl or no, she is a person, and people are expendable.” The older Dexter raised the knife, and Alina’s cry was joined by Danny and Dexter’s. Raine was speechless, and Carlos had covered his ears, tears spilling to the floor. “You… killed her.” The younger Dexter stared at the empty body of Alina, fallen to the floor, her skin paling, eyes staring at him as blood seeped into the cracks between each stone. Danny fell to his knees a haunted stare on his face. “You killed her.” Dexter repeated. “You killed her, you bastard! I’ll…! I won’t let you get away with this…” His older self cackled hysterically. “Try, my boy, but believe me, you will not succeed.” He stomped toward Danny, holding the knife against his arm and swiping it across his throat. Danny had not even moved; the sight of his sister, dead and empty on the floor, had sapped his own will to live and brought back the memory of his mother and father, both killed when he was only eighteen. Dexter struggled again, feeling pain prickle at his bones as though they were starting to splinter. Danny smiled absently even as a stream of blood soaked his shirt and chest, glancing at Dexter before he fell forward. He watched his older self approach Raine, who lifted a fist to swing at her would-be killer, but it was grabbed by his free hand and she was pushed against the wall. Dexter felt burning tears mix with the sorrow and rage for his helplessness. He couldn’t take his eyes off the scene unfolding, and every time he moved, the velvet of the chair constricted his chest and arms, crushing the breath out of him. Raine swung a leg up, but the knife was faster; it was thrust into her stomach and wrenched up, spilling blood through her green shirt and onto the floor, staining her hands as she reached down to stop the flow. “D-Dex…” Whatever she intended to say was lost with a choking gasp as she slid down the wall and onto the floor. His breath caught in his throat as Dexter watched his older self stalk toward Carlos, bloodied blade in hand. “Carlos…” His voice was restricted with withheld emotion. “I… I’m so sorry, Carlos. I didn’t know this would happen…” “It’s all right, Dex.” Carlos smiled a terrified, tearful smile. “It’s fine. I know you didn’t know, he didn’t tell you everything, you didn’t mean to… to…” He gasped, nearly falling to the floor before Dexter’s older self grabbed him around the waist with one arm. “I wish I could say I’m sorry.” His older self said, raising the knife. “But my boy, I’m not.” With that, he threw the blade forward, burying it in Carlos’ stomach and twisting. It drew a painful, high gasp and cry from Carlos, drawing a choked sob from Dexter. It was a cry of sorrow, the remaining scraps of his emotion draining away. Carlos fell when his older self released the young man. Dexter struggled again, feeling the chair finally release him, and he shot forward, into the cage and falling to his knees beside his only real love. Turning him onto his back, Dexter brushed the strings of sandy hair out of Carlos’ face, holding on to him as though he could keep the boy’s spirit in his body. Dexter could only stare at the boy. Carlos’s skin was paling, his bright blue eyes dimming. He had watched all his other friends die, and it had made his heart wither, but seeing Carlos in such a state, a sweet, nonviolent young man with no reason to die, sapped his will to live, to feel. “I love you, Carlos.” He muttered, lifting him into a hug. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” “Don’t… don’t be.” Carlos gasped, coughing his last breaths out. Dexter shook his head, closing his eyes, but the image of Carlos’s dying face was imprinted in his eyes. His older self was close, and in the silence, he started laughing. Laughing quietly, as though to himself, but it grew in force, taking on an air of insanity. Dexter looked up with a burning glare. Slipping away from Carlos, he stood on wobbling legs, clenching his fists. “You… bastard!” He lunged forward, but his older self shoved him back. “You brought this on yourself!” He hissed. “You gave your soul away, you became what you see before you! Because of that, because you didn’t die to save your loved ones, you will suffer now!” “You lied to me! You lied to me, and now my friends are dead!” Dexter didn’t move. He was frozen to the ground. “You have always lied to yourself, now should be no different!” Dexter’s older self wiped the blade clean on his black shirt. “You have always lied to yourself, belittled yourself, caused yourself to be unhappy and suffer every day of your life. Now you can live that emotional pain, by roaming the underworld forever.” As he spoke, Dexter’s older self reached out, grasping his past by the shoulder in a vice-like grip and leading him out of the cage, away from his family, back to the doorway that had led away from the eerie room Dexter had become so familiar with for the past five years. “You will not be here for long.” His older self said. “As I speak, the harpies are coming for you.” “I don’t care.” Dexter muttered. He was pushed into the room, and with a shudder, the fireplace returned to its normal state. The rain was falling harder than ever, lightening flashing every few moments as he watched his older self reveal the bottle with his soul and set it on the table. “I didn’t think you would.” His older self smiled and, in the lightening flash, his ruby-red eye twinkled. Twisting the top off the bottle, he brought it to his lips, letting the smoky entity fall out and into his mouth. He coughed, dropping the bottle to the table and doubling over, gasping. The younger Dexter moved closer toward the window, watching silently. He almost hoped it would destroy him from the inside out, tear him apart, but as he observed, his older self stood straight, brushing out his clothes as he cleared his throat. With a smile, he glanced at his younger self almost triumphantly. “My life has returned to me.” His older self approached him, grasping his face in both hands. “My life, back. I can finally age again, feel again.” “Is that what you really want?” Dexter asked himself. “Do you really want to feel the pain of life?” “I’ve missed it so long. I can’t feel anymore.” His older self released him, stepping away from the window. “But I can finally age. I can finally die. I won’t have to live with the weight of my deeds. But you.” He lifted an arm, pointing a long, pale finger at his younger self. “You will be ripped apart by the creatures of the underworld, over and over, beaten and tortured over and over. Used as their entertainment.” |
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