The Shepherd

2

The nightmares usually came in the form of convoluted snippets. Some of them were connected and others were not, but they were all just as terrifying. Tonight was no different.

After lying restlessly in his bed and staring at the swaying shadows cast from the tree outside his window, Oliver forced himself to fall asleep. He didn't have nightmares every night, but he never expected to get much rest either way. Tonight, the haunting images of the dream flashed insidiously through his mind almost immediately. The worst part of the process was the fact that he couldn't stop any of it. All he really could do was sit through the nightmare until his body decided to wake up.

The first thing he saw was the grandfather clock, cloaked in darkness. Through flashes of light provided by the frequent lightning strikes, he could barely read that it was 9:00 P.M. All he could hear was the awful cacophony of the storm outside. He felt the desperate, clawing desire to cover his ears, but the more he tried to satisfy it, the more he realized that he couldn't move his arms or legs— all he could do was swivel his head back and forth to see.

Aside from the strikes of lightning, the room was filled with an overwhelming blackness that caused panic to course though Oliver's body. The darkness was so thick and unnerving that he felt it was advancing upon him, as if to strangle him. He wanted to get away, but his struggling only made it even more impossible to do so.

He suddenly saw an apparition emerge slowly from the dark ahead. Startled and frightened, Oliver fixed his gaze on it. As it gradually seeped out from the blackness that surrounded them, Oliver felt a surge of terror and confusion as he realized what the apparition was. Its body had seemingly crawled out from its home in the dark and pulled itself out with wispy, tentacle-like arms, as if the darkness was solid. When it had first come, it appeared like a ghostly spider or octopus climbing out of its lair. It had contorted and positioned itself until it appeared indistinguishable from a human face— and Oliver recognized that face. He was too far away to know for sure, but he had been through enough of his nightmares, many of them similar in nature to this one, to know its tricks.

Suddenly he felt a burning sensation on his arms and legs, and he felt as if he was freefalling into the darkness. But he hit the invisible ground with an over-exaggerated thud. It didn't hurt him, so Oliver got to his feet and began walking to the face. It seemed an age had passed before he finally got to the apparition. Oliver's hunch was right; the face belonged to his mother.

His mother was a very beautiful woman. She had long, golden hair that went long past her shoulders. She had a face of near-perfect symmetry. Her eyes were a deep blue and exuded kindness. Her face in general was lean and thin, but altogether beautiful. Oliver reached out to her. When he did, the face recoiled instantly and then, almost as quickly, came in close to Oliver, only a few inches from him. It stared at him for a moment with eyes that turned suddenly black, and the face slowly morphed in a grotesque fashion into a different face, that of his father's.

His father, like his spouse, had a very lean face. His jawline and chin were chiseled and the underside of that chin—along with a good portion of his face— was covered in the stubbly beginnings of a beard. He had a slightly crooked nose that served as a good perch for his glasses. As with his mother's face, his father stared at him with a cold and blank expression. Then, just as he reached out to them, the apparition disappeared entirely and Oliver could feel the ground quake beneath his feet. Before he could run or do anything the blackness beneath him cracked and fell away. He began to scream as he descended into an endless void.

Oliver woke up in a cold sweat. He still felt as if he were falling helplessly, which caused him to jolt and shoot upright in terror. He let out a yelp and rolled out of his bed, which caused his roommates to wake up. "What happened?" asked Leo, and the other boys in the room responded similarly.