《The Dream Journal》


 The Dream Journal

    I always finished my journal entries before breakfast.


    I was increasingly glad for having kept a dream journal. It hadn¡¯t been easy at the beginning, but I quickly got accustomed to it.


    The doctor was adamant about finding coping mechanisms. After the first two treatment attempts failed, he decided we would be trying something more esoteric, I would try to distance myself from the attack, merely studying the situation, acting as an observer, recording everything I saw.


    I had been suffering from awful sleep paralysis episodes regularly for the previous five months. My parents took me to see several doctors and finally settled on a psychiatrist who claimed to be experienced in the treatment of the disorder.


    For some time he looked for the underlying causes, I was treated for everything from depression to narcolepsy, however, nothing seemed to work, that¡¯s when the dream journal began, and soon after I began to notice something wasn¡¯t quite adding up.


    You see, I developed a bit of a habit, I would record my experiences in the journal after the episode was over, every single day, and then to somewhat still my heart I went over some of what I had written previously.


    Eventually, this method started showing some results for me, I would even laugh at myself for being frightened by such a silly situation. Plus, the episodes didn¡¯t have any effect on my body apart from scaring me a bit, so I could certainly learn to cope.


    And then I almost died.


    I was crossing a street in my little suburban neighborhood when I heard an ear-splitting screech, I froze in place as I watched a massive truck speeding towards me; at the last moment it swerved to the left, and I subconsciously took a step back. The truck flew straight at a house, demolishing a large part of it before coming to a stop.


    The image at the side of the truck was engraved in my mind, it was a snake curled around a bowl of cereal, hissing in delight.


    The next day I had another episode, after recording it in the notebook I turned a couple of pages back to read some of what I had previously written. I came across a certain image on the first page and stopped, my body temperature seemed to have dropped 20 degrees in that moment. There was a snake curled around what looked like a ball, it was hissing and a malicious grin appeared on its viperine face.


    I immediately started reading my account of the episode. A great beast rushed towards me, in the vision it had knocked me away and I had felt a terrible pressure on my chest, it had woken me up, but I remembered an image engraved on its side, and had drawn it to the best of my ability, it seemed strikingly similar to the image on the truck.


    Later that day I heard more about the accident. The truck wasn¡¯t supposed to go through my neighborhood, the investigators assumed the man had taken that route in an attempt to get to a less populated area. Apparently, the driver had lost control of the truck since the brakes had malfunctioned and the throttle had got stuck. He died in the collision, along with three members of the family that lived in the house. Two kids had been crushed under the wreckage, one of them died instantly and the other died in the emergency room, their mother had been crushed against a wall by the truck. Only their elder sister had survived, along with her father, who was away at the time. The remaining members of the family were inconsolably heartbroken, the father had put the house up for sale ¡°as is¡± to pay for mental care for his daughter; they were moving away.


    After hearing the news I immediately thought I had dodged a bullet, I hadn¡¯t told anyone I was at the site, since I was so shaken up at the time, and I didn¡¯t plan to. A crazy thought sneaked into my mind at that time, I thought maybe the visions were trying to warn me of trouble, and I could use them to stay safe.


    That assumption lasted a week.


    I acquainted myself with the first few pages of the journal, especially the one directly after the truck incident, there was a grey-skinned man with long thin fingers. He wore a black suit that was besmirched by bright red blood, it flowed from his smirking mouth. He stood silently at the end of my bed while staring directly into my eyes.


    I kept the demon in my mind every day, searching around for anything that loosely approached its description and ready to flee at the first sight of trouble.


    Then, one day, as I walked home from school I saw a man wearing a black suit. This by itself shouldn¡¯t have caused me to worry, however, people seldom wore suits around my neighborhood, and I had carefully prepared for any situation that resembled my visions.


    I immediately ducked under a bush and quietly stared at the man, waiting for a chance to run. The man walked up to a house, rang the doorbell and waved a piece of paper at the large man who opened the door.


    They seemed to argue for a while, and then a tall thin boy left the house as if to see what was happening, at that point, the man in the suit began waving the document in his face as well. After shouting for the last time the man in the suit turned as if to leave, but the burly man grabbed him by the shoulder and loudly told him to stay put. The man in the suit pushed him and this prompted a shout from the boy. He advanced towards the perpetrator and pushed him back, he got pushed back again for his trouble, but he tripped over his own foot and fell on the porch of the house.


    A muffled snap echoed through the street as the boy¡¯s head hit the stone steps.


    Blood flowed from his prone body. The burly man approached the boy and touched him lightly as if he were about to break.


    The man in the suit advanced towards him slowly, and whispered something while crouching, the other man screamed furiously and threw himself at him. He tackled him to the ground and dragged him into a sitting position by the fence, then he pounded the man ferociously over and over, the man struggled for a while, but he couldn¡¯t shake off his massive opponent. He couldn¡¯t even raise his arms to fight back. After a while the man stopped moving, after soon afterward, the second man stopped hitting him and fell down while weeping.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.I stayed there for a long time, looking at the man in the suit, his face was a bloody mess, and after a while, I swore his skin started to turn grey.


    The police eventually took me away from the scene. A large crowd of people had arrived without me noticing; my parents picked me up. I vaguely remember speaking to the policeman about all I saw and then went home.


    I finally understood the real nature of my visions. I reviewed my notebook several times while crying profusely. I saw the deaths of other people, not regular deaths either, but completely gruesome and atrocious deaths. I wondered what kind of curse had been befallen me.


    It¡¯s true I was never actually hurt in any of my visions, and after a time, I doubted it really was sleep paralysis that afflicted me, I never fulfilled all the criteria, or even most. In fact, many people who did suffer from the disorder thought I was lying and making fun of them.


    So a curse, I could only think of a curse. Two extremely unlikely calamities had happened, not a week apart from each other, and I was somehow involved in both of them after having seen and recorded a collection of foreboding nightmares.


    I carefully considered my position for some time, but after a while, I was far too tired and fell asleep.


    Before waking up I had an incredibly realistic vision. It was filled with color and detail, two things that had never been included in my episodes before. A woman happily walked through a fair, when a boisterous creaking sound was heard, and she was flattened by a falling Ferris wheel.


    I woke up. How ridiculous could these situations get? Some things were simply impossible, right? I tried to rationalize. Certainly, the shock of the past week had caused me to link two unrelated things together, and my growing stress only served to worsen my condition. That would explain the change in the quality of the nightmares as well, I assumed.


    Content with the explanation I concocted I put on a brave face and carried on with my life, deep down I expected something terrible to happen once again, but these fears were pushed away and I abandoned all my previous notions for a time.


    One week later a girl was flattened by a road roller right before my eyes.


    The whole town erupted into unrest, the police believed the recent streak of deaths was caused by a particularly unique serial killer, with many resources. I began investigating curses and how to remove them, herbs, angels, crystals, incantations, rituals, I tried them all, however, that didn¡¯t stop the next death from happening. A week later a boy fell from a window, I saw it from less than 30 meters away.


    The deaths kept getting more and more ridiculous, the town more uneasy and even the media got involved after a woman was cleaved clean in half. I couldn¡¯t avoid the death scenes. The best I could do was walk away and try not to get implicated. My dreams got more and more vivid and detailed, but it was impossible to avoid them until I got to the Ferris wheel lady.


    I nicknamed her the Ferris wheel lady, that¡¯s where my curse would end, I told myself if I can somehow avoid all fairs and Ferris wheels there¡¯s no way for me to witness such a scene, right? Maybe people would keep dying, but at that point, it wouldn¡¯t be my concern anymore and I would be free.


    So I kept waiting, matching each death to its corresponding journal entry and waiting for the Ferris wheel lady. The deaths were eerily constant, a week would pass between each one, it wasn¡¯t perfectly exact but the margin of error reported by the police was of about four hours. After a while I grew numb to it all, the ridiculous deaths just didn¡¯t affect me anymore. Even when I was sprayed with blood or physically struck I barely blinked.


    Eventually, the day of the fair arrived. Except there wasn¡¯t a fair in town, and I had stayed indoors just to be safe. The journal got extremely detailed from that point onward, and I was certain I could easily avoid it. I hoped if I just avoided that one death, it would simply stop. It felt like a pivotal point.


    I sat on my bed staring at the clock on my wall, waiting for the time to come. I barely even blinked. The four-hour window passed. I closed my eyes, waiting for something to occur. Nothing happened.


    I was excited but didn¡¯t dare move a muscle. I stayed on my bed until night came and I fell asleep eventually. I dreamed of Ferris wheel girl, she was at home with her family, she sat on her couch, watching some cartoon with her kids, they were laughing. I hadn¡¯t slept so well in a long time.


    When I woke up in the morning I picked up my notebook out of habit, opened it, and then closed it again. I sighed, then smiled, and decided to open it once more for the last time, and write one last thing on the last page, ¡°It¡¯s over¡±.


    I happily went through the pages, looking for the next free page. But when I got to it I noticed the previous page, which had been filled, was empty. I thought it was weird, but I had probably been mistaken. I numbered the ages by hand, after all; mistakes could be made. I turned the page.


    My heart skipped a beat.


    The two previous pages were empty too, as were the previous two. I went back to the first page and found that it remained unchanged. I panicked, I couldn¡¯t think of a good explanation. It didn¡¯t look like the pages had been replaced, the numbers were still done in my handwriting and the seams were undamaged.


    I didn¡¯t think the gel pen ink could be erased, so that wasn¡¯t an option. How then did the last pages disappear?


    I tried looking for the last page recorded, and came across Ferris wheel girl, the description had changed, she was now sitting on a couch watching a movie with her family, and it was accompanied by a very well drawn picture of the scene, everything about it was close to photorealism, except for the creepy-looking washed out colors.


    But that wasn¡¯t the last page, I kept going and found a detailed description of the previous day of my life, down to my prominent thoughts and feelings.


    I have been sitting here for about a day now. Reading. Writing. The notebook doesn¡¯t just record what I do as I do it, I thought it might so I might be able to change it, but it¡¯s been writing my actions before I actually carry them out for a while now. It said I would write down this account and I thought of stopping, it said I would stop for a while and then keep writing.


    At this point, I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s even predicting what I do anymore, or if it¡¯s influencing me. I could stop reading, yes, I have stopped reading, but the uncertainty is too much. I know what this means. I¡¯m not thick enough that I wouldn¡¯t know.


    I¡¯m going to die.


    So yes. Maybe I¡¯m just doing what the notebook wants me to. Maybe not. I don¡¯t care. I know I will die, and I want someone to know how I died. Maybe they will be able to find out why as well, something that has eluded me all this time.


    Is it a curse? Maybe it¡¯s God¡¯s will, I¡¯ve heard about it. A ghost? Destiny?


    Ah, the notebook stopped.


    Should I read it?


    I know I will anyway, it said so before.


    ...


    So that¡¯s what will happen.


    Ah¡­