The Nightmare Glitch

I

Running. That's what I'd been doing for the past half hour. Trying to get away from him. I look around, only seeing trees for miles.

Maybe I can climb one.

While running, I see a low-hanging branch in front of me. I run to it and sling myself up onto it using my momentum. I make sure to climb a decent amount before stopping. Then I hear him .

"You can run, Seán, but you can't hide from me."

I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my shaky breath as I hear footsteps pass beneath the tree. Once I hear the footsteps pass, I slowly drop my hand and take deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. Right before I'm about to climb down, I feel pressure on my neck, and I sit dangerously still.

"Found you. And don't forget, you tell, you die."

His knife slides through my throat and my vision blacks out.

I sat up panting, sweat and tears mixing and pouring down my face as I tried to calm down. Once I finally calmed down, I laid my head in my hands and sighed.

"Goddammit. Same dream," I whispered. "Nice to know he follows me wherever I go."

"Seán? What's wrong?"

I looked behind me to see Mark sitting up, sleep still obvious in his eyes.

"Nothing, just a dream, it doesn't matter. Go back to sleep, we still have—" I turned to the clock, taking into account that we had to get up to get ready around 07:15, "around three hours 'till we have to get up."

He looked at me, and I could tell he didn't believe me, but he said nothing and instead fell back asleep.

I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before throwing the covers off my legs and getting out of the bed. I grabbed my phone, checked the time, noting that it was 04:30, then made my way to the kitchen to make myself a good 'ole cup of dirty bean water.

Once I made my cup of joe, I sat on the couch in the living room and turned on the tv, sighing as the steamy liquid helped calm my ADHD/nightmare-fueled nerves and the tv drowned out the last remnants of the nightmare.

The nightmares weren't an uncommon occurrence, at least not anymore. A year ago, I had a nightmare maybe once every few years, and they were usually premonitions, foreshadowing that something, usually bad, was going to happen. However, around the beginning of November, only seven months after we lost our daughter, the nightmares started.

At first, they were once a week, then twice, then every other day, and then finally every night. My sleep dropped from seven hours a night to three or four and I stopped eating breakfast in the morning.

Before Mark and I flew out to Brighton for Cringemas, which we were going to start filming today, Dark showed up telling me to get Flynn out of the house. At the moment, he was with his 할머니 (grandma) and he was going to be there for the next month.

I ended up staring at the tv, not paying attention to the drama that was playing when I felt my phone ding in my pocket. I set my mug on the coffee table as I fished my phone out of my pocket and smiled when I realized it was a tweet from Mark. He must've just woken up.

@Markiplier: First day of Cringemas. Can't wait to hang out with the gang!

I smiled and stood up, picking up my mug and placing it in the sink as I replied, @Jack_Septice_Eye: Let's see how cringy Cringemas can get with the five of us.

Suddenly arms wrapped around my waist and I felt a kiss on my cheek.

"Good morning, babe," I said, turning around in his arms to face him.