Comfort Stories

Nightmare

Annie felt as if he just fell asleep, with only a little bit of sleepy darkness flashing before they opened wide again. Strangely enough, he didn't feel tired at all, even though it was clearly still night, the entire room only lit up by pale moonlight coming in through the window.

He looked over at Jacob laying besides him, as if to make sure that he was still there... He was, sleeping deeply with a smile on his face. Annie wanted to roll over closer to him and hug him, but for some reason he stopped halfway through, and decided that he really needs to go check on what is going on downstairs. What could there be going on in he had no idea, the house was completely empty apart from them both, but something was drawing him there, and he didn't have the energy to resist it.

So he stood up, surprisingly calm as he was usually pretty scared of being alone at night... But the fear didn't seem to be following him today, which he assumed to be a good sign. He opened the door, now standing in the corridor with a stairway leading downstairs right in front of him.

The fears seemed to be creeping up on him a little more now, but not too much... It just felt as if something could be hiding underneath the staircase, but he just ignored the feeling, reminding himself, that... that was ridiculous.

Still unsure as to why even wanted to go there in the first place, he slowly walked downstairs, looking around to find something interesting, but there didn't seem to be anything... certainly not yet. And so he decided to go over to the kitchen... The fear from earlier began to grow stronger, it seemed as if some ever so slight noises were coming from behind the door... But it was quite possible he just imagined it. Still, he was a little more careful than he would usually be as he reached for the doorknob and opened the kitchen door...

It was not too surprising, but still quite calming to see the kitchen looking pretty usual, nice and clean... Annie took a few steps towards the stool, calmly looking over it... Then a loud noise came from behind him.

The so far eerie atmosphere surrounding Annie's late night trip vanished instantly as his heart began pumping fast, and it only got so much faster once he turned around and saw a man standing over him with a knife in his hand. The man seemed strangely still, as if his whole body apart from the hand holding the knife was completely frozen. His face also seemed really intimidating, very wrinkly and with eyes that seemed to be glowing with insanity.

As fascinatingly terrified as he was by his appearance, Annie didn't have too much time to study it, since at that point the man swung the hand with a knife at him. He only got away by throwing himself against the ground, getting up quicker than he thought he was even capable of. In the process he managed to run out of breath, so he could barely breathe as he stood up, standing in the corner of the kitchen with the strange looking man with a knife right in front of him, still completely motionless apart from his arm. He had to get to the door...

The man swung his knife again. Annie jumped a little, but he evaded it relatively easily. He didn't know how he could evade the next one though... How did this guy even get here? And why... How did he even move if he was just constantly in that frozen state...

Annie crouched to evade another swing, and somehow managed to run under the man's hand and to the door. His legs weren't built for that type of speed, but he ignored the pain in his thighs and the occasional stumbling as he sprinted through the living room, hearing the man's steps behind him... He didn't look around. He didn't want to know what that frozen body looked like in motion.

He had to get upstairs to their bedroom, since he had the keys from that one... Perhaps with Jacob's help they could defeat the man in some way... Or they could escape through the window... Annie darted up the stairs, taking three or four of them at once, still feeling the presence of the man right behind him, no matter how fast he tried to go...

Somehow he managed to get to their bedroom without getting caught though, he even got to lock the door behind him. Once he made sure it was locked well and the man wouldn't get in for at least a bit, he turned around to wake up Jacob... And froze. Where Jacob once had laid when he left him was now an empty space, with the blankets pushed aside... Clearly Jacob didn't just disappear... He was kidnapped, something told Annie. He wasn't sure how, but suddenly it all came together in his head... Somehow somebody wanted him to go downstairs so he wouldn't be able to stop them from taking Jacob... Something in the back of his head told him there were certain holes I his logic, but he didn't pay attention to them. All he could pay attention to was the empty place in the bed... Jacob... He...

A noise came from behind Annie's back... the noise of a door opening... He quickly turned around to see there were now two of those men standing in the door, both looking exactly the same, both having that strange figure, those insane eyes, both frozen... Annie looked around the room looking for some kind of an escape, noticing the window was open... Did they take him through the window? Was the only thought he could have before his option of jumping out of the window was taken away by the men now being able to move both of their hands, not to stab him, but to push him down onto the bed. He tried to crawl away, but the only thing he could do was move a little until his back was pressed against the wall... His eyes ticked away from the men with the knives for a second as he looked down at the bed... Jacob...

Then the men got as close as they could, holding their knives up, closer and closer to his throat... Annie gasped... And his eyes opened.

At first, he didn't know what happened. He looked around the bedroom with adrenaline boiling in his veins, looking for when those two men have gone, when he heard a voice:

"Are you okay Ani?" He nearly began to scream when he heard the voice before he realized it was Jacob speaking to him, in a surprisingly strange tone, considering he just got kidnapped... wait...

"I had a dream..." Annie mumbled, still a little afraid, his heart still beating like a car engine, his whole body still shaking, thinking about what he just experienced. It seemed so real...

"I could tell," Jacob yawned a little, clearly woken up by Annie even before he woke up himself. "You were mumbling something... I noticed you were mumbling my name, that's what woke me up."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, I know you can't control things like that," Jacob yawned again. Annie wasn't sure what to do... On one hand, he wanted to tell Jacob everything about the dream he just had, every little terrifying detail, but... He should let him sleep.

"Thank you..." He thought for a bit. "That dream... You just disappeared in it." It wasn't that far from the truth was it? "It was really scary."

"Oh," Jacob simply responded. "I kind of want to know a little more about this dream now... well, not now, but you can tell me about it tomorrow."

"Sure," Annie nodded. "Just please don't disappear again."

It was meant to be a joke. It sounded like a joke. It felt like a joke when he thought about it, but Annie realized he was dead serious saying those words. Really, if he was to wake up without him-

"Don't worry, I'll still be here, I promise," Jacob smiled widely. Well in the dream I couldn't do it, but now... Annie stayed quiet as he rolled around and cuddled up to Jacob, wrapping his hands around him, clearly not meaning to let go until the morning.

"Aw, was it really that bad?" Jacob looked down at him, a little concerned, but still with that nice, big smile on his face.

"Yeah," he simply responded, looking up into Jacob's eyes. "Can we go to sleep now?"

"Sure, we need the energy for tomorrow... it's going to be a hard day... as usual." He chuckled slightly.

"Okay, goodnight then," Annie smiled back at him before shutting his eyes tight. A few seconds later, they were both sleeping soundly, holding onto each other all the way through the night.