Beyond our Nightmares

Nightmare 1

"It was an ordinary day. Yeah... That's what I thought. Waking up, eating breakfast, leaving the house, passing by the willow tree next to the bridge... Well, it wasn't and that's a fact. The willow I mentioned... That was the place where my ordinary day got weird, that's were I saw it. The willow stood there in all its might, its branches rustling a beautiful melody. The crystal clear water, pretty as ever, flowing slowly. But there was a sound that didn't fit into this place. A low gurgling came from underneath the bridge, while the perfectly clear water turned into a slightly faded pink. The pink gained more color just mere seconds after: It got blood red. And if this was a horror movie, I would have said: "Don't look! Just run away!" But this wasn't a movie. And, as we all know, curiosity killed the cat and got the best of me."

"It all started with me, throwing away my alarm clock. After it smashed into my bookshelf, I knew I just broke my second alarm clock this year. Doesn't sound like much, huh? It really wouldn't sound like much, if it wasn't for the date: It was the 17th January of 2038.

So basically I broke two in just 17 days. But after I heard a loud crash, I realized I hadn't just destroyed my clock, I also knocked all my books on my shelf over, which were now laying on the floor, scratched and several pages ripped, even though I still don't know how the ripped pages had happened.

So I stood up, collected all those books and afterwards I've put them back in their place. My plan was to 'oversleep' and don't go to school, but since I was up anyway, I just went. And there, my dear Hel, was my first mistake. So I started to braid my hair, because, as we all know, having PE as first lesson means you ain't got time to braid your hair and I hated braiding my hair, because I always thought that it was pretty as it was: Long, wavy and black. Being too lazy for make-up, I just ran down the stairs to gets some food.

Eighteen minutes, a sandwich and a freshly prepared lunch later, I grabbed my keys, my hopefully fully charged phone, my jacket and put on my boots. After I had slammed the door shut, I passed Dad's flowers and our apple tree and reached the sidewalk. Back then I really wanted to get myself a drivers license, because walking one mile to school wasn't really that much fun.

Even though my neighborhood was one of the most beautiful ones, it always had been rather vacant. So obviously there was no school bus to pick us students up. And since I called my neighborhood beautiful... Just ten minutes away from my house, at least if you're walking really fast like me, stood an old willow tree right next to a river. My brother and me used to play there a lot, so this place contained lots of good memories. But every good memory can get tainted as soon as something bad happens there and you'll forget most of the good ones, leaving the worst ones behind.

As I heard a loud bark, I realized I was still on the sidewalk next to our house. Digger, Mr. Jensens puppy, would bark whenever I passed his 'territory'. To stop him from barking, I just continued to walk. The minutes passed and soon I saw the willow. "It is so peaceful.", I said. Oh, how wrong have I been... And there we are, at mistake number two: I stopped at the bridge.

The willow bowed in the wind, but still standing tall as the wind blew through its branches. So here we are, at the place were everything began, ended and started again. As I stood on the bridge and stared down to the water I realized something was off. All the good memories flew out of my head like sand out of a sieve. I knew what was happening and I knew this memory, the memory I hated the most. No, not hated, I feared it, I was so afraid that the shock knocked the air out of my lungs, yet again as well as five years before.

The water wasn't clear anymore. Red, red and red was all I could see. My mind shut off, my heart raced as if it was trying to win an important race unknown to everyone else but itself and I just stared down on my personal nightmare, the nightmare I created by myself. And even though my head told me to leave, I couldn't.