The Psychology of Fear

Time of Death

The next day when class resumed everyone was relieved to see Josh show up. Professor Henry checked to make sure everyone was ready and told the next student to proceed with her story. My name is Kelly and I have a fear of clocks. I know you might find that odd, but just hear me out and you will understand.

When I turned sixteen everything seemed perfect. I had received a car for my birthday, I was getting good grades in school. and I had a lot of friends. Everything started to change in the blink of an eye. As I was finishing my homework I heard the sound of my parent's clock downstairs alerting me that it was now midnight. Figuring I needed to get some sleep for school I put my homework in my bag and got ready for bed. As soon as I put my head on my pillow I fell into a deep sleep, but at precisely 3 am woke up drenched in sweat. The vivid nightmare had my heart racing. I could see a young girl in her bed as a psycho holding a knife stabbed her over and over again. As I noticed the clock by her bed it said 3 am.

The next day I went to school disturbed by the dream. Entering the classroom I noticed that my classmate Cindy was not at her desk. As we sat down to get ready for class to start our principal walked into the room. He said, I am sorry to have to tell everyone this, but your classmate Cindy was murdered last night. I sat there in shock as I heard the news. All day I wondered if my dream was about Cindy.

When I got home from  school my parents immediately asked me if I had heard about Cindy. I told them that I had and asked them if they knew what the approximate time of her death was. After listening to a news report they told me that according to the coroner she had died at 3 am. As I heard the words I could not believe this was happening. I quite possibly had seen my own classmate's death.

That night as the clock struck midnight I was afraid to go to sleep. I did not want to dream of what had happened to Cindy or quite possibly someone else I knew. I tried to stay awake, but soon I was fast asleep sitting at my computer. I awoke with my heart racing and looked at the clock sitting on my desk. A feeling of deja vu came over me as my clock read the time 3 am. I did not remember the dream at first, but as I sat there it started to come back to me. I was in a house, a house that oddly looked like my own. Suddenly I was jolted out of my remembrance by a scream coming from my parent's bedroom. As I heard the horrible scream for some reason I could not move. A few minutes later when I was finally able to move I went to my parent's room afraid to open the door. Instead I called the police and to this day I am glad I did. Apparently my parents were unrecognizable and the police did not let me see them.

Over the next few years I stopped having the dreams and could finally look at a clock without fearing what would happen at precisely 3  am . The only problem is a few nights ago I awoke from a dream and looking at my clock noticed it was 3 am. Slowly over the course of a few hours I started to remember the dream. I could see what appeared to be a young female walking to her car. As she attempted to unlock her door a masked man appeared behind her wielding a knife. As the young girl fell to the ground Kelly made a grisly discovery. The face finally appeared to her eyes and she could see that the young girl was her.

After Kelly finished telling her story Professor Henry decided to take a short break. As the students walked out of the room Professor Henry started smiling.