Haunted: A Collection of Frightening Tales

Nightmare

"When the city gets silent, the ringing in my ears gets violent."- Patrick Stump, Fall Out Boy

The nightmare came frequently when I was younger where an intruder breaks in and forces me to murder my entire family. As usual, I feverishly awoke to soaked sheets, but on that fateful night they were not soaked with cold sweat but something of an entirely different nature and the knife I hid with in the dream was still in my hand, painted with a sticky liquid that I could only assume was the same stuff that ruined my sheets.

My nightmare seemed to have come back with a vengeance. I awoke in a seated position, my legs underneath the covers of my bed. I was frozen in place, the arm with the knife outstretched with the sharp edge of the blade facing behind me, as if I had... done something with it. The knife I was gripping so tightly that my fingers hurt fell from my hand and clattered onto the hardwood. My eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. I started shaking. Did it actually happen? I thought. Did I actually kill someone? I seemed to still have control over my eyes. They flit across the room in frantic, zig-zaggy patterns. Okay, what is actually going on?

I examined my dark room. Everything was exactly where I had left it when I went to sleep. My heart slowed from speeding-train to running cheetah. My arm lowered and it felt like I had regained at least partial control of my body. I was able to turn my head and rotate it, slowly, but it was something. Waking up paralyzed isn't unnatural for me. It's happened since before I can remember, in sporadic episodes, usually following the nightmare. This time was no different, but the knife was new, and so were the stained sheets.

I checked myself for markings. There was nothing. I forced myself to take slow, even breaths. In...Out....In...Out... You're okay. I blinked a few times and mentally assured myself that everything was okay and I was probably just sleepwalking again, which was also a pretty normal occurrence, nightmare or no. Nothing to be worried about.

I tore the covers from my body and saw that my feet were muddy. Did I go outside? The sheets looked nearly ruined, but I didn't really care. Nobody ever saw my sheets anyway, much less cared if they were dirty or not. Nevertheless, I'd have to throw them in the washer.

I swung my legs and my foot landed on something sharp. I winced and swore loudly. Looking down, I spotted the knife that fell from my hand and a bleeding foot. Jesus, this is going to make such a mess. I lifted my foot and rested it on my knee to examine it. There was a little slice running at a twisted slant that wasn't too deep, but I still needed to clean it up and put something on it. Mom is going to hate this.

I hobbled off my bed, avoiding the knife that I decided I would just pick up later, and headed toward the bathroom. I left a trail of bloody feet behind me. I turned the hall light on and realized something. Nobody was snoring. The house was more quiet than it's ever been. My eyebrows knit together. Did everybody go somewhere without me? They couldn't have. We usually go everywhere together. My eyes flitted around nervously and I turned a corner. That's funny, I thought. I could've sworn I saw... scratches or something.

With confusion glazed all over my face like thick buttercream icing, I twisted the handle of the bathroom door. I flicked the switch and light flooded the small room. I let the light bathe the darkness off of me as I hobbled inside. I turned toward the mirror on my right and found that darkness was not the only thing that needed to be washed off. To my horror, I was covered in... blood. I had to slap myself on the mouth to keep from screaming.

"What the hell did I do last night?" I asked no one as removed my hand from my mouth. The sticky red stuff coated me from head to toe. It was matted in my bird-nest-esque hair, staining my pajamas, dried and flaking on my skin. I looked like a murder scene in a slasher flick. I picked a stick out of my hair - How did that get there? - and peeled off my clothes, red stained shirt and then mud covered pajama bottoms. I tossed my ruined pajamas in the little trash can next to the toilet and bumbled into the shower, careful of my foot.