Awakening: Part Three

I was screaming? I….I was screaming. My wife sitting in the bed beside me was shaking me fiercely and trying to wake me from my dementia. I sat up at the sound of my own screaming. Where was I? It took me a minute to realize, who I was: William Trevor, husband and father of only 1. I looked over at the clock, 3:00 AM.
Then the startling facts hit me; instantly I realized that I was Micah, in my dream, no in my nightmare. I found myself awakened to a new evil. Fear was his name.
I leaped out of bed as if the house was on fire, and ran a sprint through the house turning on every light. Then satisfied that not a single bulb remained unlit, I stood in the middle of the living room panting, hoping the fear would now subside. Yet it didn’t. It gripped me stronger. The lights shown a faint yellow dim light all through the house, but yet the corners still held shadows. Shadows that I could hearing calling my name…
Finally I was hit with the shock of reality. I was standing in the middle of the living room, talking to myself while my wife and child stared at this newly formed mad man in their house afraid and not knowing whether to calm me down or call the mental hospital. When I saw the fear that gripped their faces I finally calmed myself. “Sorry. I know I must have given you an awful fright. It was just a bad dream, nothing more. Go back to bed.” And with that I began to turn the lights off one at a time. With each light whose yellow faint light was snuffed out by my turning of the switch, my flesh would crawl. I felt the darkness closing in on me, yet trying to convince myself it was all a bad dream and I was being childish, I pushed on turning each light off…
When back in bed I lay on my back staring at the ceiling. My wife tried to get some faint understanding of what happened from me but all I could shudder was “It was just a bad dream”. It was my nightmare, my demon; she shouldn’t have to help me with this. And within a few short minutes her questions stopped as sleep overcame her once more. Yet I would not be so lucky. Sleep would not find me again that night, as each shadow, each corner, seemed to hold the distinct sulfuric smell of that creature once more.


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All items contained in this story are the property of the Author and can not be copied in any form without written permission. Copyright May 2008 by Curtis Cecil