The Strange Story of...

The Strange Story of the Insomniac

                       Rhea's bedroom looked like a picture from a magazine. Her family owned a successful, popular seaside resort on an island off the coast of Cape Cod, and the whole family lived in a penthouse on the fifth floor. Rhea's room had a gorgeous view of the beach, a canopy bed, a walk-in closet, her own bathroom, and bay windows. In daylight, it was an ideal room that any girl would love. At night, however, things changed.

                      At thirteen, she was too old to believe in monsters under the bed or creatures in her closet. But she was still terrified of the dark, and for a good reason. Every night, she had a horrible nightmare. She always woke up screaming, sweating, and shaking all over, and finding it impossible to go back to sleep. 

                    She knew that everyone got nightmares, and that many other people had insomnia. But what bothered her was the fact that she didn't have many different nightmares, but the same one repeated night after night. 

                     It was a sunny day, and she was walking down a crowded beach. As she passed by a group of sunbathers, a man threw a football that barely missed her head. Then, a woman tripped on a small dog and fell onto a sandcastle. Finally, a little boy tagged her and ran into the water. 

                    "Come on! Come into the water!" The little boy always said the same thing. She would then follow him into the water. They would swim out, then something would pull him underwater. She'd feel a tug on her leg. The water would be stained with blood. She'd be dragged under. Then she'd wake up screaming, tangled in bed sheets, and practically strangling her stuffed rabbit. 

                       Her parents had gotten her appointments with plenty of child psychologists, but none of them could help. Her dad had encouraged her to read books on dream interpretation, and her mom told her to experiment with lucid dreaming. Nothing worked, and Rhea lived in fear of going to bed. Until one day in June.

                       "How'd you sleep, sugar pie?" Her mom handed her a plate as she came through the line. Owning and living at the resort meant having breakfast with at least twenty other people every morning, while the kitchen staff cooked everyone his or her own personal breakfast. She usually met her parents in the breakfast line so they could eat together. That day, her father was on a business trip in Long Island. 

                     "The usual." Her parents' bedroom was right next to hers, and when she'd first started having the nightmares, her parents had come in and comforted her. After a while, her parents started letting her deal with them herself. But they still heard her screaming at night. 

                       Her mother squeezed her shoulder, then got two plates and handed one to Rhea. She was an only child, and her parents were very protective of her. She was home schooled, and spent her free time working various odd jobs around the resort. 

                      They took their breakfasts (a spinach omelette with quinoa, wheat toast, and black coffee for her mom, scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, and tea with two sugars for her) and sat at a table by the window. It was a beautiful morning, and there were already plenty of swimmers, boogie boarders, and sun bathers out on the beach. 

                       They mostly ate in silence, but towards the end, her mother smiled at her. "Why don't you take a walk on the beach? Today is going to be pretty warm, and you should get out and have some fun."

                       Rhea took a sip of her tea, then looked uncertainly at her mom. Despite her having insomnia for over six weeks, her parents still didn't know what happened in her nightmare. "I don't know. When I have the nightmare, it always starts with me walking on the beach. Then I--"

                       "Hold on just a minute, sweetie." Her mom pulled her phone out of her purse. "It's the guy from the catering company for the wedding on Thursday. I'm sorry, I've got to take this."

                       She cradled her arm between her shoulder and her ear, and carried her plate and coffee cup in her hands as she left the table.  "Sure thing, Mom," Rhea said after her mom was gone, "I was just trying to tell you something important, open up to you, and have a Hallmark-style mother-daughter moment. But, no, you just get on your phone as if some random catering guy is more important than your own daughter." She finished her breakfast, then left her dishes on the table.

                        It was warm out, so Rhea wore her favorite dark blue swimsuit with a pale green summer dress over it. She maneuvered through the thick crowd, looking for a place to sit and sunbathe. As she passed by a crowd of sunbathers, a man threw a football that barely missed her head. 

                       She did a double take. That's so weird, she thought. Her nightmare always started the exact same way. As she was pondering the coincidence, she saw a woman trip on a small dog and land on a sandcastle. 

                       She stood silent with horror. The crowded beach, the man throwing the football, the woman falling on the sandcastle. It was her nightmare, there was no doubt, but now it was a thousand times worse. Because she knew that she was awake. 

                        As she stood there, a little boy tagged her. He looked at her with pure childhood innocence, and said in the sweetest voice possible: "Come on! Come into the water!"

                        Her heart beat like a drum; her eyes were fixed wide open in terror. The little boy was looking at her, waiting for an answer. "N-no," she said. The little boy shrugged, then ran into the water. Rhea remained motionless. She watched the little boy as he ran into the water, and started doggy-paddling out of the shallows. And she was one of the only people to see a giant, gray, shark's head surface, bite his midsection, and drag him underneath. 

                       All around her, people were screaming for their kids to get out of the water, screaming for someone to call the Coast Guard, or just plain screaming at the blood in the water. While all of the insanity was going on around her, she simply stood there, motionless. A single thought kept pushing through her mind, and would remain there for the rest of her life. That should have been me.