Andy's Dream

Andy awoke. He was drenched in sweat. He'd had a bad dream, but he couldn't quite place what it was. Something about the dark. But that thought quickly left Andy's mind, as there was a much more pressing matter; he was out of snickers. Andy had been binging on Halloween candy when he fell asleep, and the one thing he distinctly remembered was that he had run out of snickers. Andy felt around his bed for any strewn about candies, but failed to come up with anything substantial. With a pit in his stomach, and nothing left to distract him, Andy's anxiety quickly grew at the realization that both his room and the outside hallway were pitch black. Fearing a panic attack, Andy quickly fumbled his phone from a pair of jeans, and turned on his flashlight app. His anxiety receded, only to jump back up sharply at the sight of a shadow darting from his doorway to the hallway. Andy assumed it was just his stupid phone acting up, and, being thirsty, got up to go get a drink. He took his phone with him to the bathroom, his subconscious subtly trying to convince him that that shadow had been more than just a trick of the light.

Andy bent down to fill up his Dixie cup at the bathroom sink. The faucet's water was freezing. As he bent back up, his phone's light illuminated the reflection of a shadowy figure sitting on the ground, staring at him with shiny green eyes in the mirror. Andy yelped and dropped his cup, splashing water everywhere. He jerked his head around to get a look at the thing, but it was already gone. He assumed it was just his imagination getting the better of him again, but the thought that it wasn't, that these figures were signifying something greater, was slowly seeping its way into Andy's mind.

He headed downstairs to eat something non-candy related. He's wished he'd the foresight to bring down a sweater or blanket or something. It was rather chilly, especially considering that Andy was wearing shorts. The 1st floor was as dark as the rest of the house, so Andy turned his phone's light up to maximum. It seemed to penetrate the darkness no more than it had before, however. Dread was starting to blossom in Andy's chest. The house had become something along the likes of the setting of one of his nightmares; dark, foreboding, unnatural. Andy's eyes playing tricks on him didn't help his anxiety. His fear growing, Andy ran towards the kitchen fridge, only to stop at the sight of the shiny green eyes in front of it. Whatever the eyes belonged to wasn't illuminated by Andy's phone, but as he moved to see what the creature was it let out a noise resembling a low growl. Andy turned and ran upstairs. He was going to make his sister, Maya, go first. He wasn't going to risk anything by going near whatever that was.

As Andy approached his sister's room, he realized how strange it was that his sister hadn't turned on a single light near her room. Maya was terrified of everything, including the dark, and so it quite unnerved Andy to see her room as dark as the rest of the house. He went into her room to wake her, but she wasn't there. Andy checked under the pillows, the blankets, even under the bed, but to no avail. Where could she be, he thought. At that point Andy heard a growl, accompanied by something soft and furry brushing up against his legs. Andy jumped straight into his sisters bed and under the blankets, trembling with fear. It took him a full minute to muster the courage to take off the blanket, but when he did, their seemed to be no one in the room except him. By this point Andy was quaking in his fear of what was going to happen next. He decided to confront his parents, despite the punishment he knew they would dole out on him. As he tentatively got up to leave, however, his phone's flashlight turned off. Andy checked his phone. 1%. Figures, he thought to himself.

Andy began what he was sure would be the arduous task of making it to his parents' bedroom in the dark by groping haphazardly along the walls. About 5 seconds in, just as Andy discovered this method was not going to work at all, he saw light coming out from the bottom of a door down the hall. His parents' room! Andy ran towards the illuminated carpet flooring underneath the door, almost tripping on the way their. As he approached, though, he noticed no noise coming from behind the door. "Mom? Dad?" he whispered. No reply. He tried again. And a third time. Still to no avail. Andy slowly opened the creaking door. "Mom? Dad?" still no reply. As the door finally opened fully, Andy grew very pale very fast. The bed was empty. Where are they?!, Andy thought. He turned around to run right back into bed, convinced it was all just a dream, when a shadowy figure grabbed him. Andy screamed as the creaturre pulled him into a tight...embrace? Wait a minute. "Dad?" he asked? The figure pulled of a mask, revealing the grinning face of Andy's father. "Gotcha!"

"Dad! What the heck! Have you been trying to scare me all night?

"Oh yeah! You should've seen the look on your- wait, all night?

"Yes! All night! With the lights turned off, and the green eyed thing?

Uh, I've only been up since I heard you scream. I figured I could scare you with this thing." He referenced to his attire. "As for the lights, I'm pretty sure we just blew a fuse. That's why I have this flashlight on." He gestured towards the upturned flashlight on his nightstand.

"But what about the thing with the shiny green eyes?" Andy asked.

"You mean the cat?" his dad chuckled.

The cat? The CAT!? All this time, had he been worked up over the stupid cat and a blown fuse? Andy was frantically grasping towards anything, anything at all, to legitimize his ordeal. "What about mom and Maya? Where are they?"

"Mom went to see a movie after she dropped off Maya at a sleepover, remember?" Andy slowly nodded his head, while secretly having no idea what his dad was talking about.

"I think," Andy's dad said, "that someone's gotten very worked up over something rather minor." "Yeah," Andy replied, "maybe I have. I think I'll go back to bed now."

"Well good night, then," Andy's dad said with a wave.

"Good night."

Andy strode back to his room, his vision seemingly heightened. The fear he felt must have been hampering his eyesight. Go figure. As Andy laid down on his bed, he had some time to ponder the last few minutes before he fell asleep. I guess I have me and my irrational paranoia to thank for that one, he thought to himself. But, as he slowly succumbed to his exhaustion, Andy smiled, knowing his dreams would be much sweeter than the nightmare he had just endured.