I have a troubled relationship with sleep.
Others can drift off easily and wake in the morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. Some dream, some have nightmares, some have neither. I know a plethora of people who would choose sleep over most other activities.
I have exhausted myself for years trying to evade it, with little luck. Our bodies and minds need to rest, and I learned the hard way that they will shut themselves down if you refuse to do it for them.
If I dreamt in the same fashion as others, things would be different. Hell, if I could have an average nightmare I would feel blessed.
I suffer from something I have deemed as “experiences”, for lack of a better term, when I sleep.
It started when I was small, maybe eight or nine.
I fell asleep one night and woke up on a dirt floor in some dingy basement. Though the room was dark, it was packed with people. I could hear a puppy whining in the distance, but there was no other sound.
In my baffled state, I turned to find the pup, and saw rows of cages lining the wall. Every cage held a dog, and each dog was covered in scars. Some still had open wounds and congealed blood coating their fur. I remember feeling bad for them because they looked sick and hungry.
A few of the cages were packed tightly with pups. The little things could hardly move, and they seemed smaller than normal puppies I had seen. Still, they were far more lively than the bigger dogs. In one such cage, there was a little grey puppy. He was the only one that had a cage all to himself, and he was also the one making all the racket.
I tiptoed over to the little guy, he was barely bigger than my hand. One of his eyes was stuck shut with some goopy substance, it reminded me of the eye boogers I would get in the mornings. He was wagging his little tail at me, and kept scraping at the cage with his paw.
I stuck my finger in and gave his chin a scratch, he thanked me by gnawing on my finger playfully. As I stood there smiling down at him, a man walked over and yanked him from his cage by the scruff on his neck. His yelp echoed off the concrete walls.
I followed the man, who seemed unable to see me, as he stalked over towards the crowd of people. He shoved his way through and I followed him, occasionally darting between some oblivious strangers legs to keep up.
At the time, my desire to know what was going to happen with the puppy overshadowed my confusion about the current situation.
When the man stopped, I crept out from behind him and gazed forward into a large cage that was set up in the middle of the room. In each corner of the cage, there were dogs being held in place with thick chains around their necks. The chains were being held by men, who stood outside. They would give the dogs some slack every now and again, allowing them to get close enough to gnash their teeth at one another and then jerk them back violently.
I could see the crowd jeering silently, the only noise in the basement was the whimpering of the puppy. I turned my head way from the scene in the cage to see that the little dog had been raised high in the air, displayed for the crowd to see. It seems weird to say, but it all reminded me of a silent movie my grandmother had show me once. Everyone was pumping their fists as the man shouted, but no noise was present.
The man opened a small door in the cage and launched the puppy through. He slammed it shut as the little guy hit the ground, yelping so loudly I had to cover my ears.
I began to cry as I watched him, limping around the cage. He would drift close to the other dog's, tail giving a hopeful little wag as he sniffed at them, only to lurch himself back forceful in fear when the men holding their chains gave them some slack.
I covered my eyes when I saw them let the chains go in unison. I heard sharp, agonizing, yelps as they snatched at the little dog. When everything had been quiet for a few minutes, I peeked from behind my finger in a moment of bravery and saw that he was huddled in a corner, his fur slick with blood. Three of the big dogs had ganged up on the remaining one, forgetting about the puppy.
I ran to the corner and stuck my hand through the cage, tears dripping from my chin. I was surprised to find him alive, just barely. He flopped his head into my hand, breath coming in short little bursts, and stared up at me.
I woke up then, my face a mess of wet, hot, tears. My dog, blue, was curled up beside me. He was staring at me, just like he had been in the dream. As I calmed myself, I traced my fingers along the scars that littered his body. He whimpered at me before sliding his tongue over my face, making me laugh.
We had adopted him three weeks prior from the animals shelter. He was one of many dogs they had rehabilitated after rescuing them from a dog fighting ring. The woman who ran the shelter told my mother he had been a bait dog, too scrawny to use for the fights but still enticing enough to get the others riled up. My mother had tried to talk me into choosing a different dog then, but something about Blue had felt like home to me.
That was the first of many experiences.
They have only gotten worse with age. I have trouble remembering the last time I had a real dream, but I think I was a teenager. Most times they are experiences of things from the past. Every now and again I will experience something that has yet to happen. It happens with animals and people alike.
There are never any good experiences, just the bad.
Before anyone tells me that I should consider it a blessing, don’t.
You have no idea what it feels like to look at someone and know their worst secrets, the things they hide from the world. It leaves me feeling like some kind of pervert, watching them in their most vulnerable of moments against their wishes.
When I was thirteen, my best friend stayed the night at my house. Her name was Abby.
We stayed up half the night, I would later find that we were both trying desperately to keep our own respective demons at bay. At the time, we stuffed ourselves with junk and watched all the scary movies, we did each others makeup and talked about whatever boys we thought we were in love with. There are only so many hours in a night though, and bodies need rest.
We fell asleep on the floor, soon after I woke in Abby’s room. Her step-father was sitting on the edge of the bed while she pretended to be asleep. I knew she was awake, because I could see the tears falling from her eyes as she clamped them shut. I hid in the closet, knowing I would be of no use. The door did nothing to stop the sound of her cries.
When I opened my eyes, she was still sleeping. Her hand was balled into a fist around mine and I had to to tug sharply before she released it. I dried my eyes and waited for her to wake up.
When she finally opened her eyes, I confronted her with what I knew. She cried for a while before I told her we needed to tell her mother.
Abby lost it then, told me that it was none of my business. She called me a freak and told me that if I told anyone she would tell them I was lying.
I promised her I would keep it a secret, but three days later I called the diner where her mother worked the night shift, I told her about what her husband had been doing to her daughter while she was away at work. I thought I could help her, but it was the worst decision I have ever made.
I guess her mom always kept a loaded gun in her purse, for protection since she worked at night. She left the diner without a word to her boss, drove straight home. She caught her husband and after a heated dispute, she shot him six times.
Her mother went to prison, crimes of passion are still crimes after all. Abby was sent to live with her grandmother three states away. She never talked to me again, despite multiple letters and messages left with her grandmother.
You may disagree, but she had every right to hate me. She still has every right to hate me. In trying to help her, I essentially ruined her life.
So no, this is not some super power I can use for the betterment of mankind. I was not bestowed with some divine gift. At best, I would consider it a curse.
The only reason I am even sharing this with you is because I am finally to a point where I feel like I need to talk to someone, anyone, about it. After my experience with Abby I basically exiled myself. I would talk to people here and there, but I tried to keep them at bay for the most part and I refused to tell anyone else about these occurrences. I thought if I kept myself from getting close to anyone, I could keep these episodes from happening.
I guess I never really needed to be close to people for it to happen though. I saw everything regardless.
Back then I was always alone in these little scenes. No one else ever noticed me, and the only noise I could hear in that space was from the person or animal it was focused around. I learned that if it was an animal, I could interact with it to an extent. They seemed to sense me, the way that Blue had. If it was a person, I may as well have been invisible.
As I got older, I grew accustomed to the loneliness. I knew it was better for me to stay away.
Still, a small part of me wished I could confide in someone. There were nights when I was trying to fight against the urge to sleep and I would to find someone else like me, so I could have a confidant. I guess misery really does crave company.
I am afraid that I may have gotten my wish.
A few weeks ago, I started seeing some kind of entity. I would wake up in these places, wander through whatever scene was playing out before me, and then this thing would creep into view.
The thing that drew my attention to it at first was the noise emanating from it as it moved.
That particular experience had been focused around the murder of some women I did not know. When her cries had faded to wet sounding gurgles, I heard a series of odd clicking noises.
The shock of finally hearing another sound pulled my attention away from the dying women, and I tried to locate where it was coming from in the shadows.
I realized, as it finally crept into view, that the pops and clicks I was hearing were coming from the things joints as it moved.
In all honesty, it looked mummified. The flesh was discolored and taut around the bones. Everything about its proportions was wrong, with elongated limbs and a neck that seemed to stretch too far forward. I watched as its shriveled fingers began to convulse hungrily as it drew close to the man, who was now silently wrapping the women in plastic.
The noises were making me sick to my stomach. It sounded like the bones were breaking with each movement, I was worried the skin was going to split. When it reached the man, it turned its leathery face to meet mine and I stifled a scream.
I had assumed it would be unable to see me as it had paid me no regard up to that point. Obviously I was wrong.
It lifted its leathery finger and waggled them at me in a jovial manner, a series of clicks and pops followed. Its eyes, which had been shut on its emaciated faced moments before, peeled open to reveal two sticky wet eyes. They were completely blank and just as discolored as the flesh. Grey, but with purpled greenish spots flecked around the surface. The jaw unhinged and a raspy huff slipped from its mouth.
It focused on the man after that. Sliding its arms down the length of his. I watched as its hands fused into the mans and it rested its head against the nape of his neck.
Every night since then, it has been there with me. On occasion it will acknowledge me, the vast majority of the time it focuses on the perpetrator of whatever horror I have been brought to witness.
Although it is vaguely reminiscent of a human, it seems parasitic in nature. Every time I see it, it looks a little fuller. I think it leeches the essence of these moments and uses it to revive itself a little at a time.
The skin seems plumper and the color is now that of an eggplant, getting darker each time we cross paths. I think it may also be growing. The legs and arms, which were already grotesquely long, seem to have an extra joint to them now. The jaw has gotten wider and the neck seems impossibly long.
I am honestly at a loss about what I should do at this point.
Something about this creature feels off to me. I freeze up each time it comes clacking out of the shadows. I do not scare easily, I’ve seen far too many horrors in my lifetime for that to be an issue. But this thing, this thing scares the hell out of me.
Whatever it is, I am almost certain that it should not exist. Which leaves me where I am right now.
Lonely, scared, and confused. Still, I think I may break my own rule and try to stop this thing. I may not be able to do anything about the people who do monstrous things, but I think I can stop this creature from thriving off of their dirty deeds. Maybe I can find some answers about my own condition along the way.
