Dreams or Reality?

Chapter 1: Sometime in the middle of the night

CHAPTER 1: Sometime in the middle of the night

She wiped her hand across her mouth. It came back smeared in red. Blood. Realizing this she screamed a scream that was ear-splitting and more animal than human. It was the kind of sound that pierced your ears and curdled your blood. It was something that stopped everything else and caused heads to whip around, searching for the source of it. The screaming woman rushed forward and- I snapped awake. It was still dark out. More than anything I wanted to go across the hall to the bathroom so I could splash water on my face but I knew I couldn't. Just like normal the nightmares left me scared to do simple things. I was afraid to push the blankets down any further because the strange woman's scream was still ecohing in my ears. I was covered in sweat but didn't do anything about it. I turned my head slowly to the side. The glowing numbers on my alarm clock said it was 3:47 am. Hm. I slept longer than normal. I wonder when I started dreaming. Most nights the nightmares caused me to get up earlier, around 2 or 3, not at almost 4. Still, no point in sleeping. I have never, ever, slept after a nightmare. You see, I like to draw a lot, and because of that my imagination is more vivid than others. When I dream of something, it's in the most realistic and 3D form.

My eyes darted around my darkened room trying to pick out things I couldn't see for lack of light. I glanced out my window. The stars were startlingly bright against the dark sky. The crescent of the moon I could see was so regal looking, even though it wasn't whole. To me it seemed like the moon was in charge, that it was bigger and more powerful than the stars. Brighter and more untouchable then anything else up there. That was a really childish thought. You people must think I'm a real nut-case. Everyone knows it's the other way around. The stars are a million times more untouchable the the moon. Have we landed on the stars? No. Probably because they're really far away and firey balls of inescapable heat but still. I breathed in a shaky breath as I tried to calm myself down. I kept seeing the woman standing there, waiting, screaming, running and then, nothing. Most nights the dreams disappeared quickly, vanishing back to where ever they came from. Some stayed for hours on end but they had always disappeared by the time I went to school. For the millionth time since they started I wondered why they came. They were always four things, but never the same, they were always different. They always ended abruptly, as if cutting off the part that I was supposed to see. And lastly, they're always terrifyingly scary. I know that it doesn't seem that way, but when you see and hear your dreams as if you've been teleported there, it gets to you a little bit.  I don't know what happened to the woman, truth be told I don't really know what happened before either. I know I heard pounding feet, gunshots, screaming and the unearthly sound of metal on metal as two swords clashed together. 

Every night it's a different dream; sometimes I see a woman, sometimes I see a man, and sometimes I see nothing and all I can do is listen. I see all of my past dreams through a big, thick glass window that causes all the shapes to be indistinct, with blurry movements and muted sounds. That's where my old dreams go. I can't figure out why but all of them have. It's like an old memory of a kindergarten teacher. Years later, when you haven't seen them because they quit or you changed schools or whatever, their face has blurred and you can't remember their voice, it's just how it is. That's how the dreams feel, except, it's like that with the nightmare I had just yesterday. Just like pulling out that teacher's face, I can't pull out my nightmares, not that I'm complaining, I don't want to pull them out. It's just that it's so strange not to be able to. I don't remember what it was like before.To sleep the whole night through, uninterrupted by anything. I don't think it's been going on forever but I have no proof that this isn't the only kind of sleep I've ever known. . Well, there's no point dreaming about it. (Get it? Nightmares, dreaming. No? Yes? Oh well) Now my alarm clock says 3:51. I sigh. In a little while I'll probably work up the courage to turn on my lamp.

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Picture of Faye when she's drawing ---------------------------------->