these sweet nightmares

chapter 5: dark thoughts

I heard them leave in the morning.

It was around dawn, when the sun was just barely rising. Night had given away to the light. The little dancing shadows in my rooms dissipated when the sun’s rays peeked through the curtains. Everything brightened up, revealing the potential of a new day.

I was glad. All night, I kept waking up by the sounds from the forest, listening to the rustling of the tree branches outside that conversed with each other like insidious demons. I was afraid to fall asleep because my dreams were easily distorted into nightmares by any scary notions of my subconscious mind. I was fairly susceptible to vivid and wild dreams that could carry me throughout the day paranoid and phobic.

I seemed to notice more during the night than in the morning, like how nocturnal animals were more active. A couple of times when I thought there was a man hiding in the chimney, it was only some bats taking refuge. Perhaps believing in Henry’s scary tales had finally taken their toll on my fragile health.

Somewhere in the mansion, there were feet shuffling around.

I threw back the covers and dragged myself of bed. This was not easy task to behold; sleep had evaded me, and I was not yet at my full capacity to be fully waken up. But I did managed to prop myself up at the window, where I could see two little figures below me walking to the gates. There were horses waiting.

One figure jumped into the carriage while the other one took the reins. A second later, and I could hear them riding off into the gray scenery, where the trees consumed them entirely.

My breath left a cold spot on the glass.

I looked up to the sky and saw dark clouds looming above ominously. In the far distance, I could see a great mass of black coming. Listening, I heard a soft rumbling.

A storm was coming.

I stepped back and buried myself in the covers. I contorted my body into a fetal position, arms wrapped around the legs and head in between the cavity in which the body had created so. I counted to a hundred, and focused on breathing in and out, inhale and exhale, while trying to calm myself down.

It was unfair. Unfair. Did they not have a shred of decency or thought of how this would affect me? Of course not, because all they cared about was themselves, as if the world revolved around them. All they did was go out and spend the last remaining money on things so useless and unnecessary. They drunk to their hearts’ content until they forget everything, including their names. And for what reason? To forget about the debt? Or to forget what really mattered?

An ethnical question left answered.

Thunder cracked across the sky, sending a zigzag line of electricity through the air. The atmosphere seemed sizzling with a vibration that evoked alertness over my lethargy and sluggishness. I sat up and crooked a keen ear, listening to the pounding, relentless rain that struck the glass window with such a force I feared that it would break any moment now.

And I felt lonelier than ever.

After hours, I felt the urge to get up and get moving, to get the unpleasant feeling leeched out. I haunted the halls of the mansion like a wandering ghost, never completely sure of where I wanted to go. All I wanted was to forget this emptiness that had taken residence in my heart.

As I went about, I noticed that Henry was right: the mansion was falling apart. The wallpaper was peeling in ugly strips of paper that had long lost its adhesiveness. The roof was beginning to leak, so I had to place a bucket under just to keep the rain from running the carpet. If those were bad, then the garden was the worst. When I stared out in the window of my room, I saw not the place where bright, lively parties were held but a destitute patch of withering flowers that were turning sickly gray. It couldn’t be called a garden, it was rather more like a graveyard.