Nightmares

Prologue

I wanted to stop running but I just couldn't because that faceless figure was coming for me. He can't catch up with me or else I might not live to see the dawn of tomorrow. I can't die, really I can't at least not before my graduation which happens to be tomorrow. I am finally graduating from high school to begin a new life in college, a life I'm dreading but a guy can dream right? Besides I have so many dreams that I have to fulfill so death, I'd rather not have it as an option.

My lungs are burning and my legs feel like they are being torn from my body, it felt gradual but I was in so much pain. Fatigue was kicking in fast and the faceless figure was catching up. I turned my head to find any hint of a place where I could hide but I only realized I was in a dense forest with tall trees all around. I ransacked through every part of my brain to at least get a memory of when I entered this forest and for the life of me, my brain was shutting down. I could conjure up nothing in my brain, I just couldn't remember running towards it. As I run through my train of thoughts, my right foot gets caught up in a stray root of a big tree and I fall face-first onto the forest floor with a loud thud. Why do we always have to fall at critical moments? Is it some kind of curse?

That and cursing with a mouthful of dirt and dry leaves, my only resolve and the most plausible conclusion, at least with how jumbled my mind was, was to just lay there and give up. We all die at one point in life right? Mine would just have to be painful, and scary and then nobody would even know that I was dead because my body would be left in a stupid dense forest I'm sure no sensible human would trek into. Then after a couple of days, maybe weeks or months, if the animals here much like the humans I know find me distasteful, would leave me here to rot against the forest bed.

It was simple and sad and gruesome. But it was simple, I at least needed a simple something in my way too much complicated life. Insert a groan that made me feel like my lungs were on fire here.

Just then I heard the roar of the faceless man and his footsteps becoming really close. My brain suddenly seems to stop functioning again and I start to shake all over with tears flowing down in heavy torrents. Then I started to wonder with the little piece of sanity that I had left, wondering where my resolve went, all that big talk about dying. I'm still shaking and a shadow looms over me, an eery and cold one that reminds of me of those death gods in the numerous mythologies I read.

The faceless man now standing beside my shaking body starts to laugh maniacally and he flips me over once he got very close to me. I wanted to plead for my life but my mouth was not opening and my brain couldn't bring up the right words so I gave up and looked up to the sky with the full moon and its terrain of bright stars. Tears glistened my cheeks as they shone upon me in my last moment of life. Funny how this amazing night becomes my last night on earth.

"Counting the stars, eh?" The faceless man says and removes a knife from his pocket. The knife looked dangerously sharp and shiny and I could see my image on the blade. The faceless man gets closer and grips my hair and yanks my head forwards whilst shaking it. I wanted to scream from the excruciating pain I was going through but my mouth was still not opening. At least it was trying to save me some dignity.

An owl hooted in a nearby tree and as if that's a sign, a giant scheme in the never ending weaves of the universe's luck against me, the faceless man brings the knife to my neck and pressed on a little bit to break my skin. Blood starts dripping down from my neck from the little cut.

Then, all of sudden, I feel my body start to shut down completely. I couldn't feel my legs, I could feel my heart slowly shutting down too, my body was still shaking but all I could feel was nothing. No pain, not even the tears that were flowing on my cheeks could be felt, the only indication being how blurry my eyes were becoming every moment as I cried. I decided to take a glance at my feet, to see how they looked after all that running around and that immense pain only to see them swollen, battered with bleeding cuts, some of my nails in very awkward and crooked positions and all I could say was crap.

"Now it's all going to end," I say in a whisper, a stroke of good luck not making me choke on my own words and closed my eyes.

The faceless man applies a little more pressure on the knife and he laughs again.

"Open your eyes!" He commands in a deep eerie tone.

I comply for some reason. His voice had something laced in it that drew me in, and against all the alarms going off in my head not to open my eyes, I do so, just to see his face morph into my face and blood flowing from his mouth like a waterfall onto my legs, my throat seemed to be burning, and finally, I'm able to scream, not just a scream but a shrill ear-piercing one as he raised the knife to stab me.

I shot out of bed with an equal scream just like in my dreams with a sweat-drenched shirt clutching tightly to my body like a second skin and a drenched bed.

I looked at my feet to check if I was dreaming and yes I was. But my shirt and blanket were drenched in sweat as if I just jumped out of a mighty storm. I glanced over to my wall clock and the time was 4 am.

"A great way to start a great fucking day" I muttered and sighed.

I tried getting down from my bed but didn't have the strength so I laid back and drifted into sleep again with a silent prayer to not have a nightmare again.

A/N: After a long time of putting this up here and leaving...I'm back again(06/05/2025)😭. I wanna rewrite this without taking away from it, its originality but instead make it better and more easy and fun to read. Again thanks for the support so far and I'm definitely putting in some new works so watch out for them!

Hey guys here it goes, it just began, and pardon me for my mistakes. Vote, comment, and anything at all. Thanks for passing by... And though this story doesn't really belong to the horror genre, I'm willing to begin one for those who loved this, and so I did, its called The Doctor's Casa, hop onto my profile and let's get some horror down.