Dream logs

[Sweetcherrie]

Lane says:

“Hiya ”

 

Marco says:

“Hi”

 

Lane says:

“How are you today?”

 

Marco says:

“Pretty good, you?”

 

Lane says:

“Not too bad actually, just finished that project for school.”

 

Marco says:

“Cool, I still need to start ”

 

Lane says:

“Don’t worry, I’ll send you mine and it’s not that difficult really.”

 

Marco says:

“Thanks Hey, did you hear the news the other day?”

 

Lane says:

“What news?”

 

Marco says:

“That little girl that was kidnapped”

 

Lane says:

“That happens daily, not that it’s a good thing, but most of the times you don’t even hear about it.”

 

Marco says:

“True, but this story was so strange. The little girl showed up at school and during class she had to go the toilet, and never came back.”

 

Lane says:

“ ”

 

Lane says:

“How old was she?”

 

Marco says:

“Only 9 years old, the funny thing was that apparently she had told her mom that morning that she was scared to go to school.”

 

Lane says:

“Eeek, that is bizarre.”

 

Marco says:

“*nods* I hope that this girl will be ok”

 

Lane says:

“Hmm..I have another window flashing, give me a sec.”

 

Marco says:

“Sure, no problem.”

 

Kyrina says:

“Can you help me?”

 

Lane says:

“Hi?”

 

Lane says:

“Who are you?”

 

Kyrina says:

“I’m lost, please help me.”

 

Lane says:

“I can’t help you if I don’t know who you are.”

 

Lane says:

“This is so weird, this person wants me to help her, hehe, or him.”

 

Marco says:

“Oh? Who is it?”

 

Kyrina says:

“I need help, he will do it again.”

 

Lane says:

“Who will do what again?”

 

Lane says:

“I still don’t know, she doesn’t reply to my question.”

 

Lane says:

“How can I help you?”

 

Kyrina says:

“I’m in the basement. He touches me….and it hurts”

 

Lane says:

“What basement? Where? Who are you?”

 

Marco says:

“Probably some random weirdo, just block the address.”

 

Kyrina says:

“My name is Kyrina, and I think I’m at school.”

 

Lane says:

“You’re at school? What are you doing there at this hour?”

 

Lane says:

“She seems really scared, and also young still.”

 

Marco says:

“Haha, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a fifty year old man, who typed in your name randomly ”

 

Lane says:

“Do you happen to know what the name of that girl was that was kidnapped?”

 

Kyrina says:

“I can hear him coming, he will touch me again. Please help me!….Help ME!!”

 

Marco says:

“hmm…it sounded like Katrina or something. Why?”

 

Lane says:

“ Could it have been Kyrina?”

 

Lane says:

“Where are you?”

 

Kyrina says:

“It’s dark here and cold..and…and there is water on the floor. You have to help me, please?”

 

Marco says:

“Could be, why?”

 

Kyrina sends school.jpg

Accept, Decline?

 

Lane says:

How can I help you?”

 

Lane says:

“Because this person is called Kyrina, and she’s asking for help.”

 

Marco says:

“ Did you ask how old she is?”

 

Lane says:

“How old are you?”

 

transfer of school.jpg complete

 

Kyrina says:

“He’s coming, Please help me, please, PLEASE, HELP ME, NOOOOOO.”

 

Lane says:

“Wait!”

 

Marco says:

“and?”

 

Lane says:

“Wait a sec, opening the file she send me…”

 

Marco says:

“Hmpf, I hope you’ve scanned it on viruses.”

 

Lane says:

“Don’t be stupid, she sounded very scared.”

 

Lane says:

“omg”

 

Lane says:

“OMG!!!”

 

Marco says:

“???”

 

Lane says:

“I think we need to call the police….”

 

 

A ver, very weird dream...and this cannot reflect the feelings when I saw that colour picture apear on my screen in my dream. Feelings of disgust and sadness overflowed me. Maybe I'll get back to this one day, and turn it into a proper story, but for now I can only get it to this oh well, here goes nothing *clicks Post New Topic*

[Katzaniel]

Erg... still trying to get rid of the apprehension, the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach that this gave me.

 

Can't wait to see what it looks like in a more refined format... though I suspect this might actually be the best format for it. When I realized you were showing the contents of two message windows simultaneously, I expected to soon be confused, but actually it continued to make sense.

 

Anyway... ergle...

*clicks Add Reply*

[Wyvern]

I definitely found the format of this story interesting... I've actually been considering writing something in the form of internet chat logs myself. I thought that the use of the school.jpg was particularly powerful and effective, and hadn't considered the use of that aspect of the internet in stories previously. I agree with Katzaniel that the story is very disturbing, and I like how the tone shifts over the course of the narrative.

 

If you were to revise this story, you might consider simply expanding it a bit, as the PM from Kyrina seemed to occur very shortly after Marco's mentioning that a girl was kidnapped.

[Gryphon]

One thing that struck me on reading this, particularly relating to the comment Wyvern made that Kyrina appeared very shortly after being mentioned by Marco - it could almost have been a 'ghost in the machine' story.

 

I didn't feel that it made the story any less effective, particularly since we don't know what the picture actually showed, but I could picture in my minds eye something totally horrendous and the "OMG" being a realisation that the little girl had died or was about to and there was a communication happening through a medium that she shouldn't have had access to given her circumstances.

[Sweetcherrie]

hmm...most of it comes straight from a nightmare....for you to decide which parts are dream,... and which parts are dream

 

Dreamlogs 2

 

She laid her head on his chest, and listened to the fastened heartbeat. Their sweaty bodies were shivering after the heat they had created just moments before. Still enjoying the afterfeelings, she saw a spider crawling over the wall. It was skidding sideways, almost crablike, and every time she blinked her eyes it had moved a bit further towards her. Lazily she closed her eyes, and decided not to pay any attention to the creature.

 

When something tickled her shoulder she thought it was her lover. “Again?” she mumbled sleepily, but smiling. Upon opening her eyes she saw that he was fast asleep, and with a stinging bite she realised that it had been the spider-like creature that had been tickling. It had not only bitten through her skin, it had bitten itself under her skin it seemed, since it was gone. She turned around and noticed that her lover had disappeared, as if he had been a hallucination all along.

 

Her shoulder hurt badly, and she got up to have a look at it in the mirror. Her reflection told her that the little monster had nestled himself comfortably under her skin. With awe she touched the little lump that was now showing on her shoulder, and felt it moving around. She looked back in the mirror, and saw that the lump was growing before her eyes. It felt alien in her body, and she started clawing at it, but her nails somehow didn’t even manage to scratch the skin.

 

The lump had now reached the size of a football and started sprouting arms and legs. It was moving wildly from the inside, and was kicking against her shoulder bone. She put her hands around the lump and pulled. It came loose with a tearing sound, and she started screaming out of pain. It was as if someone was slicing a knife through her skin, stuck a salted finger in the wound, and was now twisting it around. Waves of pain and nausea overtook her, and surged through her body like a tidal wave. With a final pull the lump came off her shoulder, and she held a full-grown baby in her hands. Looking in the mirror she saw the skin on her shoulder close again and after only second not even a scar was left at the place where moments before had been a gaping wound. Her shoulder was as pure and white as it had ever been.

 

She looked at the baby in her hands. It was clawing and tried to grab her neck. It managed to cling on to her and with its tight grip it chocked her breath away. In a away she felt sorry for this thing, but her feelings of disgust were stronger. She pulled it off her neck, and put it down on the sofa. The thing started screaming straight away, and stuck out its chubby arms to be picked up again. She looked at the creature and saw that, although it had no hair, it had the facial features of a four-year old. The high-pitched screams cut through her soul, and out of guilty feelings for this unwanted child of her shoulder she picked it up again.

 

Immediately it clung back to her, and sank its pointed teeth in the soft flesh of her neck. With a scream of terror and pain she ripped it off her, and threw it in a corner. The moment it hit the floor it transformed into a sort of hellish dog, and started bouncing around the room. It was laughing with that same high-pitched tone it had been crying with before. Suddenly it stopped bouncing and sat down, shivering, in a corner of the room. Sharp, pointy teeth flashed in the half-dark room when it grinned evilly in her direction. Its almost white eyes rolled sideways, and showed the blood red behind of the eyeball.

 

She couldn’t move. Feeling guilt, sorrow, and fear at the same time, she was glued to the spot. This appalling creature had come from her body. She wanted to step backwards and bring herself into safety, but she also wanted to feel it close to her again, as close as it had been before when it was still part of her.

The decision was taken out of her hands. The creature jumped forward and flung itself at her. Panic-stricken she started hitting at it with her hands, but every time her hands seemed to come close, the demonic hell dog had already moved. At that very moment it started shrinking again, and turned back into the spider like creature she had seen crawling over the wall. She could feel the eight, hairy little legs wriggling around on her shoulder, and all she wanted to do was faint and escape this reality.

 

She woke up with a start, and sat up straight, her eyes wide open staring at the memories of the dream. It took several moments before her heartbeat calmed down enough, and realisation sank in. With her sudden movements she had woken up her lover. “Honey, are you ok?” he asked on a worried tone. She nodded and snuggled back into his arms, back into safety. “Just promise me that we’ll never have kids.” He laughed softly, and kissed her forehead, “You know that we agreed not to.” She didn’t reply and only held on tight to him.

 

But in her stomach a little, hellish creature had started growing……

Edited June 14, 2005 by Sweetcherrie

[Katzaniel]

Okay, you're so good at writing knot-in-the-gut-scary that I'm not sure I'm ever going to click on this topic again. I did not enjoy reading that, but I'll fully admit that that's not because it wasn't good.

[Peredhil]

wow you're good!

[Appy]

That was fascinating, I enjoyed it a lot, thanks

 

*huggles Katz to comfort her a bit*

[Wyvern]

I'll just echo the comments of others by saying that I thought your second dream log was great, Sweetcherrie. Very horrific and disturbing... I too found it difficult to read, as the monstrous imagery was very gut-wrenching and vivid throughout it. Strangely, the most frightening part of the story for me was the ending, which seemed less dream-like than the rest of the piece. The dread that the lover invokes in the protagonist about children and the final reference to a "hellish creature" really gave me chills.

 

Great stuff, once again. :-) This story left me in a cold sweat.

[Mynx]

And THIS is why I don't want kids!

As a fan of all things creepy and macabre, Sweet, I must say I really enjoyed both of these stories. Reminds me of a dream I had once...

Enough creepy creepy psychotic-ness to keep me grinning through my last class of the day

Thank you!

[Sweetcherrie]

erm..I never meant to scare people....hmmm......actually I did

 

Thank you for all the comments, and I will definitely keep adding to these logs

 

That is if I keep dreaming stuff that is at least slightly interpretable in words, some of it even freaks me out

 

*huggles you all*

Edited May 30, 2005 by Sweetcherrie

[Sweetcherrie]

OOC: sorry Katz.....*hugs* I'm still trying to dream less weird dreams

 

An element of a dream I elaborated on.....

 

Dreamlogs 3

 

The ants are building nests, hundreds, even thousands of them. I know that they’re not supposed to be there, but I can feel them crawling. Black masses of ants, all packed on top of each other in the small space of my head. Swarming between my brains, digging tunnels in where order is supposed to be. I know that they’re there, nobody can see them, but I know that they’re there. They are trying to confuse me you know, but I know that they’re there. Swarming and wiggling black pinheads, their tiny shields shining on their backs. Little, black, swarming pinheads. Scratching your arm yet? Tsk, liar. People start getting this itchy feeling when I tell them this. They start scratching their arms, or rub their legs. Some even get that squiggly feeling of shivers down their spine. Hah, as if these ants would ever want to be on their arms. They have my warm brainstem to live in, why would they want to move somewhere else? I’m not talking about fleas you know.

 

The ants come and go. There are days when there are only a few, and I can force them into their tunnels, and there are days when my head is just full of them. Today is one of those days. I felt them coming this morning; they marched in with millions of them at the same time. Not neatly in line like you might expect from such an organised creature. (They’re smart you know, why else would they want to live in my brain?) No, they were just spilling over my cerebral cortex like tar would spill over a full bucket. They started immediately to eat away my calmness. Bite by bite, by bite. I know that if they are there this early in the morning that I’ll have problems with them the rest of the day. I sigh, and stand up to walk to the mirror. I know I won’t be able to see them, but my antless reflection always comforts me on days like this. I touch my reflection. The mirror felt cold and cool. My forehead is wrinkleless and shows no sign of the heaps of moving little creatures that are teeming within. They are trying to make a mess out of my thoughts, but it won’t work. I won’t let it work. I…refuse…to…let…it…work! You hear! I will never let you take control! Never! When I realise I’m shouting at my reflection I calm down again, and my forehead turns wrinkleless once more.

 

I scratch the back of my head, knowing that it won’t work, but I do it anyways. Maybe I can just poke my finger deep enough in my ear to kill them. Or maybe I only have to stick a pin through my eardrum. They’d come spilling out like tar from a full bucket. Wriggling while I stamp on them. Die! Die you! Die! I laugh, and notice that it sounds hollow in the bathroom. My reflection calmly stared back at me, and nothing wrong can be seen with my wrinkleless forehead. I move closer to the mirror and stare at the white of my eyes. Did I just saw one move? I think it snuck away in the corner of my eye. I look closer. I’m sure they’re there, if I stare long enough I’ll se them. Shiny, black little buggers! I’ll get them one day, you know, cause I know they’re there. I know they made a home in my frontal lobe, that they use my parietal lobe for dinner, and my temporal lobe for storage. I know.

 

I walk back to the couch, and lie down. Today is one of those days that the ants have taken over. That my head is a mess, and that they are wiggling inside. I should force them to sleep and go away, but it’s too crowded in my head. I can’t think, not today. Today the ants are here. I open my mouth and stick in my finger. Maybe I can get them out that way? I feel my nose itching, and know that they’ve taken over every available spot in my head now. They’re swarming like millions of little black pinheads. I open my mouth wider, feel itching in my throat as well, and remove my finger. My tongue starts tickling. Not too bad actually, just enough to make it feel funny. Billions of small little feet march over my tongue, and try to stick out my tongue as far as possible. Will I see them? My eyes start burning from trying, but I know that they’re moving from my brains to my mouth. Thousands of black ants stream from my nose and mouth. Like tar spilling from a bucket…..

 

One of these days I’ll find a way to get them out of my head. I’ll find a way to get rid of those itching legs, those wriggling little buggers; heaps and heaps of ants, all tickling in my head. Do you feel them? Their feet moving through your head like a feather moved in your neck. Hundreds of them in swarming through your head; their antennae touching the back of your throat if they come too close. While they all tumble over each other they writhe around like spiders can. Do you feel them? Squirming their way around inside, giving you a shiver when their disgusting bodies irritate your spine. When you feel them moving around between your ears, annoying you like a drop of cold water that fell in with your clothes and now slowly, bit by bit, is crawling along your spine. Do you feel them? When their paws are touching your skull, and when their saliva itches away on your brain cells. Do you feel them! Hah? Do you!?

 

Itching yet? Tsk, liar.

Edited June 14, 2005 by Sweetcherrie

[Sweetcherrie]

I have posted Dreamlogs 4 in the Scarlett Pen, I felt I couldn't go around the use of certain words, but this did make the story unsuitable to post it here.

 

*sighs*

 

I'll have to accept that my mind is totally twisted when I'm asleep

[Sweetcherrie]

Dreamlogs 5

 

OOC: It seems like every major change in my life is accompanied by these sort of dreams. The first time I worked in France, and was away from my 'home' for a longer period, I dreamt that my mother was dying. I woke up crying, and it was so real that I went up to a phone boot and called her in the middle of the night. Since then I've moved around a lot, and with every major move I've had dreams like this one. I guess that they help me to accept the changes. I've learned in the five years that I'm travelling now that 'home' is where I make it, and I enjoy the experiences thoroughly, but the dreams keep coming.

 

When she woke up she stretched her body like a lazy cat can do. She looked around the room, her home; it felt so her own after the four years she had lived there now. Her single bed stood in the corner and the white sheets were all crinkled around her. In the other corner stood a small closet with her TV on it Against the opposite wall were standing her desk, and a cupboard with her books. The titles varied from study books to fantasy novels, and her CD collection was as diverse, from rock to classic, and from metal to folk. The last wall wasn’t actually a wall. It was a dark red curtain, made of the heaviest velour that divided her part of the house from the rest. In total there were fourteen girls living in the house, but she knew that she was the only one here at the moment. The others had all gone home for the summer holidays, but she had stayed behind for another week just to be alone with herself for a while. It had been a very hectic semester, and she needed the time to recharge.

 

She blinked lazily with her eyes, deciding that today would be a lazy day, a day on which she hardly had to do anything. After another hour of drifting in and out of sleep she decided to get up and get a shower. She put her long slender legs next to the bed, stroked past them with one hand, and noticed that she would have to shave them. “Well,” she decided, “It’ll be a nice long shower then.” She stood up, and unbuttoned the silk nighty she wore during the night. Carelessly she let it slide of her shoulders, and it ended up in a soft bundle on the floor. Walking passed the dressing mirror she concluded that her hair also needed the shower. She chuckled, her curls always went everywhere during sleeping and it looked like she hadn't combed it for weeks when waking up. In the shower she stepped out of her string and turned on the shower. It was so hot outside that she decided to keep the temperature a few degrees lower than what she was used to. The lukewarm water streamed over her body and she sighed with regret as she felt herself wake up entirely.

 

Ten minutes later she turned the shower off and grabbed a towel from the towel rack. She wrapped it around her, and walked back into her room. From her clothing cupboard she chose a light blue, sleeveless blouse that went well with her eyes. She looked for a short to go with it, but when she couldn’t find one, she decided that it was warm enough to walk around like this. She walked to the communal kitchen to make herself some breakfast, and jumped almost two meters in the air when she was suddenly standing eye to eye with one of her housemates. They laughed together about her silliness, and she made for the kitchen counter to get something to eat. “I thought you went home for the summer?” She started putting jam on a cracker; “you want one too?” she looked over her shoulder, and discovered that the girl had disappeared. Her hand started shaking, and she almost dropped the cracker that she was holding in it. The kitchen was empty, and where she had thought her housemate had been sitting, was now only the large kitchen table. They’d had many good evenings there together, two cooking and the others just laughing and making jokes. It must have been part of a dream still. She stuck the cracker in her mouth and while chewing smiled about her own sleepy headedness.

 

With another cracker in one hand, and a cup of tea in the other she made her way back to the room. But when she entered, her mouth dropped open. With a loud crash the teacup splattered on the hard wooden floor, tea splashing all over her feet. Shaking all over she looked for support at the cupboard. The TV had been moved and the curtain was drawn open. The sheets of her bed were gone, and she could now see the mattress. Careful not to cut her bare feet on the glass from the teacup she moved to put on some shoes, and sank down on the bed. What had happened? Who had been in her room?

 

Forgetting that she was still half naked she walked towards the room next to hers. There was nobody there, but it didn’t look one bit like her housemate’s room anymore. In the corner she saw four antique chairs. The chairs were all crimson coloured and made of velour. In the middle of the chairs stood a small antique table and it looked more like the room of a rich old lady than the room of her fellow student. Even the wallpaper had changed, and instead of the soft yellow now showed a pattern of roses. She turned around when she had the sensation of eyes in her back. There was nobody there, but again her room had changed. Her books were almost all gone now, and the CD’s had disappeared entirely. She felt a lump rise in her throat, and tears were coming dangerously close to the surface. The little porcelain statues her mom had given her for her birthday had disappeared as well, and she wanted to scream that she wanted her stuff back, but there was nobody to scream at.

 

Anger rose inside of her, and she stormed back towards the kitchen. When she pulled the door open, it felt as if she had walked directly into a brick wall. The table had disappeared and four single beds had replaced the kitchen counter. Each of the beds was made tightly with creamy sheets of expensive quality. Who was taking her memories from here? This was her house, she had lived her for four years now, and they had no right to change it like this. In total panic she ran to another housemates room, and discovered that this room now looked as one of those antique smoking rooms she had seen in fifties’ films.

“Why are you so afraid?” The voice sounded calm, and felt known, but she was sure she’d never heard it before. She spun around expecting it to be another figment of her imagination, but she stood face to face with a girl. The girl had the whitest skin she’d ever seen, and if it had been any more fragile she would have been able to see through it. Dark, sleek hair fell around her face, and she had eyes like an owl. “You have to let go,” the girl’s words were soothing, like a mother’s words would be, “and you know this as well.” A shiver went through her body, and she felt the urge to throw herself in the arms of this strange young woman. “But this is my home?” Hot tears were flowed from her eyes; still her words had held a question, and she knew as she had said it that she was starting to accept the changes. She wanted to hold on to it, it had been hers for so long, and it felt as if they were taking away a piece of her heart with every piece of furniture that changed. Why did everything always have to change? Why couldn’t it just stay the way it was? “Because that’s the way life works,” The words were spoken calmly and held such great truth in them that she couldn’t do anything but accept. She fell on her knees and howled from the pain this new knowledge cause inside her. A cool hand was placed against her burning cheek, and she looked up. “You’ll be fine,” the smile on the young woman’s face touched her from the inside, and left a little spark. The girl pressed a kiss on her forehead, and disappeared. Alone once again she crawled up on the cool floor to cry her tears for the loss of what had once been.

Edited June 24, 2005 by Sweetcherrie

[Sweetcherrie]

New and Improved (and just as gruesome!)

 

Dreamlogs 6

 

The queen was having problems believing that he had denied her once again what she wanted. The king had opened the treasure chamber, had told her to look at all the nice treasures he had gathered over the years, and had then said that she wouldn’t get any.

 

People weren’t allowed to deny her anything, and she wasn’t used to it either. So, while she carried herself with dignity as long as she was in the presence of the high ruler, she threw a major fit as soon as he had disappeared from sight; her face turned sour, and her poor chambermaid got a full layer of cursing and screaming.

 

I had seen it happen from a distance. I had seen her go in, happy as a spoiled little brad, and I had seen her come out, looking as a beaten down puppy. I had seen her, but I didn’t care too much. What bugged me the most was the fact that we would now have to listen to her moan a lot more than she normally already did.

 

I have to admit that I wasn’t entirely fair. The queen was my best friend, but I was simply sick of the mood she had been in lately, and I didn’t want to hear her moan for another two days that he was so unfair to her.

 

Her faithful chambermaid did everything she could to cheer the queen up, but it didn’t work this time. The poor girl even pulled on some clothes that would have looked better in a tale of Arabian nights than in the dessert palace we were in. She had put her black hair up in two silly ponytails, and was dancing and bouncing like a jack in a box, but the queen didn’t even smile.

 

Two days after the treasure chamber episode, we were just hanging out with the three of us, feeling bored, in the courtyard. Now you have to know, that our courtyard looked more like a Mexican villa court, including cactuses and men with sombreros, than like a courtyard that went with a palace. When we saw the bus.

 

The bus drove by every Saturday evening around this time to pick up tourists, but with the queen pouting and all we hadn’t even noticed that it was Saturday. When the queen saw the bus her eyes lit up like Christmas decoration.

 

“I will escape!” She proclaimed, and poked the air with a finger.

 

I tried to talk some sense into her, after all, if she would escape then what would I be? Best friend of a chambermaid? But she was determined, and even her royal chambermaid thought it was a good idea. So we watched the bus approach. The queen with Christmas lights in her eyes, the chambermaid bouncing with black-haired ponytails, and me with a sour feeling in my stomach.

 

The bus came closer and closer, and then it made a half-turn on our courtyard and was about to leave again. The thought crossed my mind that we never saw it pick up any real tourists, and why it even came to our Mexican palace. Then again it had felt that until then the bus had been more of a stage prop than something that was really used.

 

When it was already driving away again, doors open, the queen jumped on the bus. Through the back window we could still see her, she was waving and smiling at us as the bus drove off.

 

The chambermaid and I stood there for a while to look at the departing bus, until it was only a cloud of smoke. Then she started crying. I tried to comfort her, and tell her that the bus would be back next week. But she wanted her queen back apparently, not the bus. I knew that would never happen; it was my dream after all.

 

I walked towards the fields next to the palace to be released of moaning people for a bit, and suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my right ankle. I bent over to grab it and see what had bitten me, and then HE was there.

 

The man of my dreams, the man I felt comfortable with, the man who’s arms I wanted to feel around me, but never would. He was as unattainable as the water of a mountain stream (hey, I’m in the dessert remember?) and his sight was as refreshing to my eyes.

 

“Are you ok?”

 

I nodded speechlessly.

 

“Let me have a look at that.”

 

His hands touched the skin of my ankle, and I wanted to sing with joy, and pain. He had pressed his fingers around the bite, and a drop of blood appeared.

 

“Damn. Skythee.”

 

I had no idea what that meant, but if it would mean that he would be there a little longer, then it was all fine with me.

 

“You have to knock for them to come out, and then you can grab them.”

 

He knocked on my ankle and, what looked like a little worm to me, but apparently was a tiny snake, stuck its head out; as if his door had been knocked upon, and the snake came to open. He grabbed it and pressed his shoe down on it.

 

“There,” he said with his lovely warm voice, “you’re safe.”

 

I nodded, and continued walking towards the field. I still have no idea why I did that, but it felt like the right thing to do. Silently we walked next to each other, and when we found a good spot we sat down. We said nothing, and in my head I was thinking about what had happened with the little snake. It had simply eaten its way into my leg, and I suddenly remembered that I had once before felt a sharp sting like that, but then in my other ankle. Back then I thought it had been a mosquito bite, but now I wasn’t so sure anymore.

 

I glanced next to me, and when I saw that he was looking elsewhere I knocked on my other ankle. A little head came twirling out and I knocked harder. This snake was as big as a large rain worm, and the sight of it made me sick. I grabbed it, pulled it out from my skin, and threw it behind me in the grass.

 

It was then that the chambermaid came running into the fields. She flopped down not too far from us, and started howling loudly. I couldn’t distinguish her words, but knew that she was still morning her queen. I didn’t care. I had other things to worry about. Like skythee.

 

I looked closely and saw that the skythee had left a hole in my ankle. Inside the hole I could see more snakes crawling and slivering around. Their black bodies tumbling over one another, and they were inside of me. I knocked again. An even larger snake stuck his slick head out of my dead flesh, and I grabbed it firmly to pull it out. More and more snakes appeared, and I kept grabbing. Feelings of despair rolled over me, and I felt that I would have no ankle left if it kept going this way.

 

I grabbed, and I grabbed. Their slick bodies leaving a slimy trail on my fingers, but I knew I would have to get them all out. They would eventually eat my whole body away. And even though I knew they burned all the veins shut as they ate past them, I still didn’t want to be eaten from the inside out by shiny black snakes in various sizes.

 

The chambermaid had stopped crying, and finally, all the snakes were out. With a shudder I looked at the pile of crawling snakes next to me that had come out of my ankle. I looked at what had once been my foot, and in between the ankle and the soles of my feet, I saw nothing but the bones; the skythee had eaten all the flesh away. I gagged. There was no more foot left, only air. I could see straight through. I had no foot!

 

This was the moment that he chose to look back at me. I tried to hide it, but was too late. He had seen my fleshless foot. I wanted to cry, and so I did.

 

“Don’t worry, you can still walk.”

 

“But I have no foot, how will I ever be able to live?”

 

I cried warm tears, and then, I have no idea how, I was in his arms. It felt good, and surprising for a moment I forgot about my foot, but then I realized that he would never be able to love someone with only one foot, and this feeling despaired me even more. Now I would have no foot, and no love. I wormed myself out of his arms, and took some distance.

 

“We should get you to a hospital.”

 

Even in my dreams I realized how ridiculous this suggestion was. We were in the middle of the dessert and the one-time weekly bus had just been two days ago. We would not get to a hospital.

 

“Hey, don’t worry. I have the same thing.”

 

He shoved his trousers up, and showed me that he could take out the bottom part of his own foot. It was clear that he had indeed had the same thing as me, and that he had decided to wear a fake foot instead.

 

This, I decided, was the right moment to wake up. I woke up shuddering with a disgusting feeling still in my body. After rubbing my left foot past my right to check it was still there in one piece, I looked at the time. It was six thirty; I still had another hour before I would have to get up.

 

I burned the images of the dream into my head so I could write them down later, and turned around to try and sleep some more.

 

“You do have to be careful though, There might be an even larger snake in your body.”

 

His voice was there, he was there. Had it been a dream at all? Did I have snakes in my body? And would I be able to live with the fact that he had only half a foot…..like me?