He crouched down and wiped off his tears with the edge of his cable-knit sweater.
When he raised his head, the two were already in front of him, staring emptily, their eyes completely black, wide open, and unblinking, as if their pupils had dilated uncontrollably. He was stunned, too terrified to move or speak.
New streaks of tears gushed down, slicing the sides of his quivering lips. Then, their mouths opened slowly, creating a sharp, screeching sound.
When both their jaws couldn't drop any further, they let out a deafening scream, its resonance cutting straight through Yuki's face.
He was so shaken that he couldn't lift his arms to cover his ears. He just let their voices shatter his eardrums. Suddenly, a wooden door inexplicably appeared on Yuki's side, momentarily distracting him.
He could see it from the corner of his eye and recognized it. He tried to shift his attention toward this door to confirm his hunch, but the terror in front of him was too terrifying to disengage from.
A knocking sound came from the other side of the door, accompanied by a gentle voice calling his name.
The scream gradually became a familiar noise, one that Yuki used to hear every morning. It almost sounded like the blaring of his phone's alarm.
Loud and annoying. He then realized that his eyes were closed. They had been for a while.
When he opened them, the two were gone. He found himself alone in his bedroom, still cocooned in his bed. It had all been a dream.
The knocking that had woken him up was his mother's doing. She'd been outside his bedroom for about five minutes.
"Yuki! You're going to be late. Ren will be here soon. Yuki! Are you awake? Come downstairs when you're ready." She didn't get an answer, but as soon as she heard the bed's soft creak and the gentle swish of the blanket, she knew Yuki was already up.
"That dream again," he reflected aloud.
Yuki couldn't recall exactly when he had started having that dream, but it was years ago. Something must have triggered it, but he couldn't remember what it was either.
No one else knew about this dream. He didn't tell anyone because he thought it would eventually go away. It didn't bother him until it became more vivid and started stirring up darker emotions.
Strangely, he would always forget the details of the dream while he was in it, making him relive the pain over and over. He would often wake up hyperventilating, with one side of his pillow soaking wet, thankfully not with saliva.
That was why he couldn't respond to her mother earlier. He needed a minute to compose himself. After regaining his calm, he got up and prepared for school.
While descending the stairs, he heard voices coming from the garden. His mother was chatting with someone from the street, and it turned out to be Ren, who had come by to pick him up. They'd been going to school together since elementary.
YOU ARE READING
Killing Yuki
Horror...fully exposing his well-sculpted physique. The fine hair near the bulging bicep creates a stark contrast with the smooth, radish-white armpit. The bright light in the room failed to obscure the fine groove dividing his well-defined chest in half...
