Revenant Dreams - Anthology

dancing bears in my dreams

Each image of a stitched bear on my blanket was no bigger than my hand. Each bear had either a flute, drums, or a banjo. They seemed nice at first, but had a darker side when my eyes closed. Every night they came to life and danced on my bedsheets. It might have been a happy dance for them. For me it seemed like an occult ritual danced to an eerie tune of death. A maniacal concoction of tones and beats.

Now I know why.

They were summoning something into this world. I'd seen it, we all had, my family, but every day we forget. I've come to think that others might see it too. Maybe it's not little satanic bears with their gnashing teeth, but the summoned is always the same.

A manifestation from the depths of our subconscious driven out of our mind by force. We are not ment to forget these primal parts of ourselves, but with no use for them our mind can't think to hold on.

I've taken to writing messages on the wall about the things I've seen. It started with the words:

The devil's hand.

I didn't know what it meant at the time, but the image of a half formed hand crawling out from the space behind my brother's bed still haunts me. It was blood red and struggling to right itself. It was pure evil manifested into existence by the dancing bears and my dreams.

Remember the shadows.

The shadow puppets were the next thing to manifest. They were as real as the hand. The hand moves its fingers in ways that don't seem possible. It breaks bones to achieve the shapes cast on the wall and outside of the wall. The macabre puppetry brought shadows to life as tangible things with teeth that tore apart the ceiling fan.

My mom said the cord must've wrapped around the fan and broke it to peices, but I know the truth. They are mad that I saw them, and even angrier that I remember.

The sinew.

I would've thought the hand would grow an arm, and the arm a body. Fleshy vines came out of its wrist instead. They grappled with the bedframe and crawled into the corner of the ceiling. They rooted themselves in the wall and spread over the room. It's still there. I didn't forget this time, but maybe I should have.

It took a while to sleep. Each time I drifted off the shadow puppets would change. There was a rabbit head with caverns for eyes and inky drool pouring from its mouth. This turned to either a dog or a crocodile. I'm not sure because the top of its head didn't exist. Only clamping teeth biting at the air by my head.

Lastly was a deer. It just lingered by the wall, watching. I finally went to sleep at that, but I wish I hadn't. When I woke up there was another note written by the sinewy veins rooted in the wall.

There's a giant outside.

Sure enough, there was a spooky giant growing from the house. A jawline so thin that it didn't seem possible to hold a smile, even a small one couldn't fit the massive creature.

Grey skin stretched taunt over a ghastly figure leaning down on one knee. Its head was a house width away from the basement window, but when it looked directly at me with its cavernous eyes its head stretched forward to covered the distance immediately. The eyes were endless. Grey steam billowed off of the skin. Its small mouth opened into a smile that paused at the jawline, and then cracked against the boundarys of flesh until the gap met the eyes. The jaw hung open there as the giant made a shadow puppet of me inside the room.

I'm not sure who I am anymore.