Sweet Dreams

The taste of Nightmares

During the deepest part of your sleep, when your body lies prone and vulnerable and your mind full of dreams, I appear. I creep into your room, swift and silent as night, hidden by the shadows that are as familiar to me as my own face, and I begin to eat.

I eat all those terrible dreams full of darkness and fanged monsters that hide under your bed. The darkness and terror- the fear of your dreams- I devour them like a starving man greeted with a buffet. And yet, no matter how many dreams I eat, I have yet to have one of my own.

None of my kind can. We are the dream eaters and it is our duty to protect humans from the terrors that their own minds create. We preside over dreams, taking them into ourselves so that they do not manifest within the waking world, and yet we cannot dream ourselves.

Perhaps it is a gift, in way; a protection gifted from the Spider-woman that created us, but I see it as more of curse than anything.

For years, I have watched over the humans, read their books and listened to their songs, and I have come to realize that dreams are something they both take for granted and worship all at the same time. Dreams can be an escape from reality, but they can also be prison of terror and fear.

Follow your dreams, they say, as if dreams can't be nightmares too. Dreams are not just silly little things like the humans think they are, they're dark and dangerous and capable of killing all those foolish mortals that create them. It's that darkness that I take within myself every night, filling myself with the cutting anger and terror that hides within them.

It has changed me in a way, left me empty and hollow. There was an aching loneliness that echoed inside me, as if there was a great big hole where my insides should be. And, with every nightmare I ate, with every wisp of inky darkness that I brought into myself, that hole gets a little bigger.

But, as I watched the darkness crawl along my skin like an ink stain, I welcomed it. I relished the anguish and terror that it brought; reveled in the pure feeling of it because at least the pain was something. I was broken, and the pain, the horrible cold biting of the nightmares, was a reminder that I could still feel.

I shivered as I pulled at the dream, ignoring the frost that gathered along my lips and crusted the tips of my eyelashes, and let the images settle over me like the embrace of a long lost friend.

Blood coated teeth, death, and empty, sightless eyes. Her nightmare bounced around in my head, the images lightning fast and her screams so loud within my mind that my own scream bubbled just beneath the surface, trying to break free. The fear hit me like a wave and I pulled at the nightmare. Finally, the last shred of it pulled free from the sleeping girl's body.

It released its grip on her with an unearthly shriek and rushed past my parted lips. It clawed its way down my throat and buried itself into my lungs. Icy fingers clawed along my insides, gripping at that aching, raw hole and spreading it wider.

The agony was welcome, but dangerous. Keeping a nightmare inside could be fatal. Or worse. I could feel it testing the barriers within my mind, pounding against them with all its might.

Releasing a few frosty breaths, I clutched at the stone dangling from my throat. It weight was familiar and as the seconds begin to tick by, the darkness of the nightmare retreated from my limbs and into the stone. My tanned skin was once again visible, no longer covered by the inky blackness. I didn't want it to go, didn't want to look at the scar covered skin that it left in its wake. I had always thought I was better suited to that endless darkness.

The onyx stone pulsated, thumping between my fingers like a dark, hideous heartbeat. Onyx was great at containing nightmares, but sometimes, they became a magnet for things that kept to the shadows- things that nightmares were made of.

A content sigh filled the air as the power that had once filled the air ebbed away. It flowed back into my body, nestling under my skin like a caged beast waiting for my next command.

I frowned down at the small girl slumbering peacefully beneath her hot pink duvet. She snuggled deeper into it, her curls a halo of gold on the bright pink of her pillow.

The carpet was the same sickening shade of pink as everything else. The color was everywhere- the floor, the walls, even her nails that still clutched at her cover were painted pink. My footsteps were near silent against the plush carpet as I strode over to her door. I gripped the small knob in my hand so tightly it squeaked in protest.

"Sweet Dreams." I sneered the words, disgusted at how happy she looked, nestled beneath her canopy bed, living every other little girl's dream. But it was the pictures lining the walls that made my stomach flip and a terrible heat fill my veins. They were everywhere, images of her and two parents, all their smiles too large and too bright for my taste.

My feet couldn't carry me from the home fast enough, but even as I emerged into the cool, calming darkness, my skin still burned from the weight of their happiness. I blinked rapidly, fighting against the tears that I convinced myself weren't really there.

Tears fix nothing, Zee. Do not cry because to cry is to be useless. Do not be useless, do not yield to the tears. The words fluttered through my mind, brushing against it as soft and fleeting as butterfly's wings. My mother had recited those words to me after I had devoured my first nightmare. I had wept for ages, sickened from the memory of the shadowy claws that had wrapped itself around my heart.

Her voice had been as stern and unforgiving as the darkness of her eyes. I hadn't cried since, not even when I buried her beneath the frozen ground two years ago. Do not yield to the tears.

I didn't. I let her words and the image of her face, firm and dark and grave as my own, fill me with strength. I thrust my shoulders back, my eyes dry and my body thrumming with the promise of another collection. As I marched closer to the next pocket of slumbering darkness that called to me, the whole seemed to gape even wider, hurt even more, but duty called.

Besides, what better way to drown my sorrows but in the nightmares of others?

~~~~~