Size Matters

Chapter One

Chapter One

I knew it was a dream, but something stopped me from actually believing it. Firstly, it was all too vivid to be a proper, hazy dream that I normally experienced, and secondly, I felt all the experiences as if they were actually real, and not a feature of my imagination. I could pick up the glasses, I could shake hands with random strangers, and I could eat the food that was in front of me. I was in control of my own actions. It was so surreal that I actually forgot that I’d had this dream before, last week sometime. It was exactly the same.

The town of London was criss-crossed with long tables and illuminated by candles and street lights. Christmas lights hung low from the houses that lined both sides of the large, never ending Christmas celebrations. Table after table disappeared down the long roads, all filled to the brim with food and drink. Gossip and excitement made the warm air dense. Presents were being passed around and fireworks began to light the sky. The world around me was completely different to how I remembered it. Trees were growing around the streets, flowers planted and blooming in sections around the front of houses. Metal still dominated most of the road, but at some parts, it was just pure green. Just pure different.

People were happy, people were skinny, people were… skinny? I looked around in bewilderment. Citizens of London were thin and healthy. People were eating vegetables! I watched the happy, thin people enjoy themselves. They seemed happy and not as naïve as I remembered from before. It was all similar, yet different.

A man sat opposite me nodded and said, “Another successful Christmas celebration Mrs’ Prime Minister.” He winked and I couldn’t help but nod and smile, looking around myself again with wonder. I couldn’t believe the celebration was for Christmas. We’ve always celebrated Christmas, but not to this extent. What was so special about Christmas?  

The bells of a nearest Church began to chime and I looked up at the metal, automated bells. The clock above them signalled that it was nearly midnight. People began to further the excitement, and clutch on to presents. Anticipation held the night still as the chimes rang twelve times. On the fifth chime, a young girl tugged at my arm and I smiled down at her, a warm feeling that I didn’t recognise filling my stomach. Nevertheless, I didn’t have time to explore this beautiful feeling for she began to panic and point at a hatch that was just about a metre away from us in the dark. It was six strikes from midnight and I couldn’t hear what she was yelling at me. The clocks chimes were just too loud. A man sitting at her other side turned and looked back at the hatch too, confusion and fear evident in his eyes. He looked back at me and shrugged. I was confused. Maybe something was beneath the hatches? I kept looking back into the darkness while everyone around me cheered on the last strike of the bell. The sound of artificial paper being ripped covered the cheers, but I didn’t turn around. I just held my stare onto the hatch.

The tug on my hand grew in strength and I turned to see the little girl crying harder and pointing at the hatch. I turned back around and gasped as the hatch was open. In that small second that I had taken my eyes off of the hatch, it had opened.

Creatures, starved and animalistic crawled out, shielding their eyes from the bright Christmas lights. Their clothes were tattered and soiled with blood. Their eyes alight with thirst and hunger. Preying on us like food. I looked on in horror as vampires and other creatures dragged themselves out of these underground hatches. Some after our blood, others after our skin. All after us. I panicked and watched on as they descended forward towards us. It was just a dream. Just a dream.

One vampire pulled me into his filthy embrace. Clamping down his broken fangs into my neck and snapping off my cries with a twist of my thin neck.

I woke up with a gasp and lied panting. It was just a dream. Just a dream. It felt so real, but it was just a dream. I rubbed my neck and wiped my wet eyes. That was the second time I had died in a dream and I didn’t do anything to try and stop them. Why was I having this dream twice? What did it mean?