Light

She's sitting on a bench by an open window, her blue cotton dress fallen around her on the smooth red velvet.  Her eyes are downcast, barely visible under the thick locks of auburn hair blowing in the gentle breeze, framing her pale face.  Down one soft cheek, a single streak of different colored skin glistens wetly in the fading light. 

I'm standing directly in front of her, but she can't see me.  I don't exist in the room by any sense she would normally be aware of.  I can feel her grief, a leaden weight in the otherwise cheerful room.  I step closer and she moves, lifting her head very slightly, almost imperceptibly so.  I take another step, slow and deliberate.  Her hands are clasped lightly across her lap, resting on the fabric of her dress.  I reach out slowly, my fingertips brushing over the skin of her hand.  She bristles and sits back as if brushed by a live wire.  Her eyes raise towards me, unseeing.

A fresh tear slips onto the carpet below, splashing minutely against her flats.  I know she can't see me, can't sense me other than the jolt running from my fingertip into her arm.  Her eyes raise higher, seeing everything past me at the level of my chest until finally, her eyes meet mine.  I slip my fingers through hers, clasping her hand tightly.  Her face lights, the corners of her mouth lifting as if for the first time as she sees me without seeing me.  Fresh tears fall, a different sort.



I wake up, cold.

Terror

Loud. Loud.
Why is everything so LOUD?

White light, but something is blocking it. A shadow is moving closer to me, covering me, a huge sillouette. Hands. Huge, with long, thick fingers.

I cover my ears, closing my eyes, but I still see the shadow moving closer, towering over me. The noise is incredible. So loud I can't think. Can't move. Can't feel anything but terror and the need to GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY


Paralyzed, I can't move, I see a face now. Terrible, huge, with black eyes. It's talking to me, but it has no mouth. No words, but I can hear it in my brain. Stop it please. STOP IT!

I'm frozen with fear, but shivering, unable to move, to GETAWAY.

The words are louder, thundering in my ears, yelling at me. Incomprehensible.
STOP!


I wake up screaming. I jump out of bed, unaware I'm awake until I'm already out of the room, screaming, running to warmth, safety, familiarity. I find my sister or my mother, burying my face in their shirt and holding them tight. It takes whole minutes to convince me it was all a dream.

Just a dream.




This is my failed attempt at trying to put onto paper the content of recurring night terrors I had as a child. There are no words for the pure animal fear of those dreams.

Lost!

I'm in Afghanistan, but it's a different sort of Afghanistan than the one I fell asleep in.

The dust is gone, replaced with hard packed dirt and even spots of green grass here and there. I can hear the voices of the men in my platoon who in reality sit twenty feet away from my cot, talking and playing cards. I'm alone with these voices, looking around and over my shoulders to see where they are. I'm confused. They sound so close but I cannot find them.

Trees close in around me and I'm lost, still desperately searching for the source of these all-too familiar voices. I stumble onto the entrance to a dark tunnel, overgrown with vines and green things. I step through into the shadow, following the voices which now echo around me. After only a few steps over the rough ground of the tunnel, I find myself in a long hallway. Brown stone faces me on either side and though I see no sconces along the length of the walls, candlelight scares my shadow into dancing fits as I walk onward.

I turn a corner, knowing now that I am hopelessly lost. I turn back around, wanting back out of the hallway but nothing meets my gaze but unending masonry. I turn again and the scene has changed again. I'm in a low ceiling'd room with display cases faced with dirty glass. Along the walls, tour guides in crisp blue uniforms point out directions to groups of people wandering through the building. A window, etched with iron, catches my attention. Outside, the sun is bright and green grass grows in a courtyard. A girl with long brown hair sits on a stone bench, book in hand.

I feel that I cannot ask anyone where I am or how to get back to my men but I feel that I'll get closer if I can just get outside. I run out of the room and down a steep staircase. I burst our into the courtyard breathless.

There is no courtyard. A dirt path beaten into the grass slithers along in front of me and trees fan out to each side. In front of me, across the path, is a sloping grassy hill and in the distance, I see rocky mountains and vast sandy plains. A colorful mosque sits by itself, shimmering prettily in the afternoon heat.

I turn back to the building, panic rising further as I realize just how far lost I've gotten myself in my wanderings. The voices rise around me again and I open the door, shuffling back into the building. The room has changed again. The ceiling is low and dozens of arches are spaced throughout. I cannot see the far walls facing the door.

I sink to my knees, despair filling my mind. Lost!

Suddenly, I realize that this could all be a dream. Yes, just a dream.

I try to wake myself up, squeezing my eyes together. The voices grow louder. So close.


I tear at my arm, pinching and ripping at the skin, yelling at myself to wake up. Wake up!

My fingers go to my eyes, ripping at the scarf around my neck and pulling it from over my eyes, allowing the sun to burst through my eyelids, doing what pain could not.

I wake up.

Rescue

The building was leaned at an odd angle, it's interior ruined and shadowed, lit only by a scant few candles placed strategically away from the covered windows. People huddled in corners, covered in blankets in twos and threes, sharing their warmth and talking in hushed tones, their eyes scanning the doors and windows for movement. I was standing near the main door, holding a scratched and dirty shotgun in my hands.

The girl stood nearby, her dark hair covering her pretty face. She looked at me as I checked my safety one last time and I glanced back, summoning a half-smile before opening the door and disappearing into the darkness.

I moved quickly, scanning every window, every alley, for the slightest movement. I could hear the continuous symphony of gunshots in the distance. Every now and again, a scream would punctuate the terrible white noise of the city, cut short by some unknown horror.

The shotgun was heavy in my hands as I moved from door to door, examining each house, every cupboard and cabinet for any supplies that might prove useful. I could feel other people around me, watching me from the shadows, too afraid to make a noise. Everyone was afraid of everyone, always aware of the new world, where people were as likely to kill you as look at you, or worse.

An hour or so passed and I hefted the heavy pack filled with supplies on my shoulders. I turned the corner towards my building, or rather, the building I was squatting in with a half a dozen other strangers. My mind filled with dread at the sight before me. Flames leaped from the windows and as I watched, the building collapsed, slowly at first, then picking up speed as people ran in all directions, their hands over their heads. Bodies lay in the rubble everywhere, some with their scant possessions still being pried from their hands by the newest breed of desperate opportunists.

As I watched, I saw the girl disappearing down a dark alley on the other side of the now-collapsed building. She wasn't alone.

Three men jostled her, pushed her roughly, forcing her to move further away. All of them were armed, all of them dirty, with horrible smiles plastered over their unshaven faces. My legs moved before my brain had fully comprehended what was happening. I jumped over the broken bricks and jagged steel framework littered across the street, pursuing the trio, my finger already flipping the weapon's safety.

As I quietly ran up behind them, they turned, bringing their weapons to bear. I gave them no chance. As quickly as my hands could move, I slammed the shots into their chests, watching them fall as the girl looked on in horror, her mouth moving in a silent scream. Before their bodies had fully settled against the cold ground, my fingers curled through hers and we ran between the darkened buildings, the smell of gunpowder still fresh in my nose.

I wake up.

Emergency

The flashing red strobes lit the scene, casting shadows over the twisted wreck of steel and glass smoking on the side of the road. Rain spattered on the concrete, further amplifying the brightness of the emergency lights, and the direness of the situation. The woman was on her back in the road, lying exactly across the yellow divider lines of the highway. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse weak. She was alive, awake, but only just barely. She blinked her eyes to keep the water from her eyes, entirely oblivious to the warm blood pooling underneath her broken body. She tried desperately to move her head to the side, wanting to see the car she had been thrown from only moments before. She looked past the men rushing towards her, stretcher between them, rain dripping from their tense faces, and tuned her ears for the horrible sound she so desperately wanted to hear.

The men reached her, their hands suddenly on her, stripping her of her blouse and breathing down on her, replacing the horridness of the situation with something much darker, still all too familiar. She cried out in fear more than pain, adrenaline numbing her to the injuries of her body. Blue gloved hands held her down, strapped her to a long board, immobilizing her, preventing her from seeing the wreck even in her peripheral vision. Her voice was ragged, her moans cut short by the oxygen mask placed over her face, only serving to heighten her feeling of helplessness.

A face hovered over hers, a voice muffled and incomprehensible and loud, so loud, bursting her ears and stripping her mind of any focused thought. She cried out again and again, her words as incomprehensible to them as theirs were to her. Firemen worked frantically around the wreck as she was wheeled past, her neck still working against the cervical collar fixed around it. She couldn't see the bright yellow sticker, still attached to the splintered glass of the back window, announcing the presence of a child. She couldn't see the toys scattered all along the road, just as she had been, drenched and broken and of no more use. But she finally heard what she'd been pleading for, just before the doors of the ambulance shut, closing her off from the old world.

Cries other than her own.
Small, weak, but decidedly alive.


As the medication flooded her body, she collapsed against the stretcher and did not wake up for a long time.