Uninvited {.Preface.}

I let out a loud sigh before I sat half-way up in bed to see what time it was. One-thirty in the morning. I groaned and lay back down in bed, covering myself back up with the bed sheet and comforter. I couldn’t sleep at all tonight. My body just doesn’t want to rest. It won’t admit its defeat so I can sleep. It’s one of those nights again where I can’t sleep at all. In exhaustion I toss and turn but my eyes won’t stay closed until dawn. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.1

It’s definitely the nightmares for sure. They’re the reason why I can’t go to sleep anymore. For the past week, I’ve been having these horrific nightmares about the same thing. These nightmares have been causing me to be restless because I’m afraid to close my eyes in fear of having them again. It always starts out the same way. I’m home alone and it’s nighttime. I’m sitting on the couch, watching the television. Then I begin to hear these voices. Demented and horrible voices that never cease. I can hear them vaguely but they’re not distant or close and I can never remember that they were saying whenever I wake up. Out of the corner of my right eye, I notice what appears to be an apparition of some sort. She just stands there and glares at me with ice blue eyes that blaze through me. 2

She looks nearly as tall as I am-5”4’. Her hair is black and silky smooth while mine is dark brown and curly a little bit. Her eyes are ice blue that seem to be on ablaze all the time. They are absolutely beautiful, even when they look intimidating and hateful. And her skin…it’s pale as ice but not translucent and sort of like snow white. Her lips are a pinkish color and full. They’re perfect as does she look entirely but she looks dead as well. Whenever I look at her in my nightmares, I can see her veins very well. They looked poisoned.3

As soon as I see her, everything goes chaotic. Abruptly, the television turns to static and explodes out of nowhere, causing sparks to fly around the living room and hit various objects but doesn’t do anything to them. The smell of smoke rises in the air and is strong. The lights flicker on and off until the light bulb on the ceiling fan and the lamp shatters into pieces. An ice cold sensation fills the room and my eyes met the blazing eyes of the apparition. They’re filled of hatred towards me for some reason and complete madness and terror. It’s like she’s trying to tell me something with her eyes. Fear rises up inside of me because I knew that she’s causing all of this and that she’ll come for me soon. 4

I quickly get up from the couch and try to run away but something suddenly paralyzes me. My body begins to feel weak and numb. And before I know it, the girl disappears in a blink of an eye and then flickers right in front of me. I mutter a loud and scared scream but nothing comes out of my mouth. I try again and realize that I’m mute as well. My breathing becomes erratic as my heart pounds rapidly. I can always feel the blood pumping through my heart and in my veins. It’s a sickening feeling and sometimes I can almost taste it. 5

Somehow with her mind, she forces me to stare at her dead in the eye. No amount of struggle helped me win the mind battle. She always won. As soon as we glared at each other,-her with intesntity and hate and me with fear-, fire literally seemed to shoot in my eyes. I screamed mercilessly inside my mind because the pain was too much for me to bear. The pain wasn’t of burning. It was stinging and unbearable agony that never stopped. I felt like my eyes were liquefying or something much worse. Blood flowed down from my eye sockets. Although I was now blind, I was able to still see for some unknown reason. 6

That’s when the most horrifying thing happens to me. Once the blood stops flowing, a long, sharp knife appears in her hand. It is rusted and covered with dried blood. She raises the knife to me and jabs it straight through my throat. I scream hysterically and then….I wake up from the horrid nightmare. 7

As soon as I wake up from the wretched dream, I continue to scream and cry mercilessly, jerking violently. I am awake during then but my eyes are always shut tight. My foster father Cam comes running into the room and yanks the sheets off of me and sits down on the bed beside me. He wrestles me down to the bed and pins down my arms and legs with his own. My screaming and crying ceases as he uses soothing words to calm me down. He lets me go and lifts me up, cradling me in his arms, holding me against his strong and muscular chest. He runs his hands through my hair and kisses the top of my head, my forehead, and cheek, saying,8

“Shh…Shh…calm down. It’s alright, I’m here now. It was only a nightmare, that’s all. You’re safe and nothing can hurt you now. I promise.” 9

I believe him as always but I don’t fall back asleep after that. I lay wide awake in his arms while he lies on my bed with me as he’s sleeping peacefully. He never has any horrible dreams. It must be nice to be him. I wish I was like him so I wouldn’t have to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. I could go to sleep too but I’m much too terrified of the apparition girl in my dream to do so. What if she comes back for me? What if this time, it’s not in my dreams?