Forced to Rest

Let me preface this story by saying; I don’t dream. Let me rephrase that, when I was younger, I used to have dreams almost every night, but since one particular recurring nightmare that I experienced, I haven’t dreamed nearly as often. Maybe once or twice a year, I still have dreams; but they will always be nightmares. This is the true story of the recurring nightmare that ruined my dreams forever:

Up until I was seven years old, my dreams would be filled with the wonder typical of someone that age, but one day I experienced a new nightmare, one that I was not prepared for. It would begin with my watching the news with my family at breakfast, just before I was leaving for a school trip to a national park, somewhere in the peak district. The news presenter would open with the eerie line “Across the country, thousands of children are being struck with a strange condition, in which they will suddenly fall into a deep sleep, regardless of what they were doing at the time.” The second news presenter would continue “Medical professionals are thus far, unable to wake them, and have observed increased brain activity in the region that controls the dreams of a person.”

The dream would cut to me sitting on the coach, on our school trip. I would be sitting with my friend Alex, and we would be chatting about the strange news, but midway through the conversation; Alex would simply fall asleep in his seat, occasionally twitching as he experienced what I could only imagine were horrific and vivid nightmares.

Without even a moment to process this information, the dream would cut once more. We would be in a massive field of gravel, with grassy hills and mounds surrounding us. The teachers had organised us into a running race, but I was clearly still unnerved by what had happened to Alex; he still hadn’t woke up, and was simply lying there on the coach, still twitching occasionally.

But no one seemed to care, we would simply be told to line up. The race would begin and we all ran as fast as we could, but I noticed a strange black fog creeping in over my vision, slowly blocking any and all light from entering my eyes, until all I could see was black. I could tell that I was asleep, staring into an endless black void, until a spec of colour would begin to flicker into being. A small purple light began to appear, slowly growing in size until I could see that it wasn’t just a glowing light, but a vortex of purple energies. From within the vortex would come a distorted voice, I couldn’t tell right away what it was saying, or who the voice was, but it slowly became clearer and clearer.

I could make out some of what it was saying; “Rest.”. It would pause after that, seemingly knowing that I could tell what it was saying now. “Your friends also rest. You have finally joined them.” The voice spoke once more, I could now make out the voice itself; it sounded just like me. My vision would flicker with images of each and every one of my friends, floating near the vortex, slowly drifting to the centre of it, before being absorbed into the light. I would then notice a strange sensation, that feeling when someone is tugging on your arms. But there was no one there, I was simply being dragged toward the vortex, until I was mere inches away from it. I would hear the screams of my friends from within, all screaming in pain and anguish; begging for whatever was happening to them to stop. Then, I would abruptly be thrust into the vortex too, and the nightmare would end.

This nightmare has haunted me ever since, and even today I will sometimes glimpse into the vortex once more, and hear their screams again.