They came that night. The nightmares.
She fell asleep listening to her music, her dreams starting out pleasant and fluid. Then suddenly the dreams broke, like glass shattering and she was dipped into pitch black. Her heart froze, the familiar fear of what she knew came next. The darkness continued to hold her, keeping her trapped in nothingness for what felt like hours. Then it lifted slightly, giving her the sense of smell back. The stench of blood filled her nose, surrounding her no matter which way she turned.
Next came the fear. A fear she neither controlled or contained, leaking into her body and consuming her. It was a fear she had never felt awake, yet in her dreams it felt familiar too, and it terrified her more. The stench rose, laced with another scent: death. Nya head snapped left and right, trying to get the awful smell out of her nose, bile filling her throat. Flashes of color began to assault her like blinding lights dancing in front of her eyes for a few seconds before disappearing. Red, lots of red. And yellow…no blonde? More colors, more red…so much red.
That fear surged, growing worse as she tried to back away, running into the darkness around her, but not moving an inch. As hard as Nya tried to move it felt like her legs were trying to pump through thick mud, barely inching as hard as she tried. When she tried to move her arms out to feel around she got the same feeling, her arms struggling. The urge to scream was strong, and the flashing colors were growing harder to ignore.
Nya knew this nightmare too well; it started like this every time. The darkness, the regaining senses, the fear. Next came the sounds, the growls of monstrous creatures she couldn’t fathom, the thousands of screams she could not understand. The only freedom from this night terror she knew of was to let it play out.
But it was too much. The noise suffocated her and he tried to lift her arms to cover her ears. But they were impossible to lift, and the fear reached a high, consuming her every thought. She couldn’t move, couldn’t stop it all. She was trapped. Trapped and scared.
Her mouth fell open, but the scream that escaped her did not belong to a twenty-year-old woman. Instead it was the wail of a child, a shrill scream of a baby crying for its mother. That scream drilled through her ears, drowning all else out as she continued to try and break the dream, Nya wanted escape.
But the dream wouldn’t let that happen. It refused to let her wake, instead throwing her backwards, her arms and legs freed as she fell…fell…fell…
Arms caught her, and her eyes shot open, expecting the dream to be over. She’d fall screaming and open her eyes to her dad holding her. But as her eyes opened it was not the clear green eyes of comfort she looked into but dark black eyes, cold and accusing that glared at her.
Nya screamed. Purely screamed, that childish shriek mixing in with Nya’s own screams of fear, staring into two strange angry eyes. Then the eyes looked away and the face moved back, revealing a young woman leaning over her. She struggled, wanting free of their grip but her arms felt larger than Nya’s entire body, holding her trapped. She followed the woman’s gaze instead, her screams a low whimper now as she struggled, tossing and turning to get freed.
“What’s this Searrinna?” the woman purred, her voice silky smooth and soft, drowning out all other hideous noise around them.
There was another woman before them, looming over them. She was so tall Nya thought she was a giant at first till she realized they were looking up from the floor. Her head was covered in vibrant red dreadlocks and her eyes…
Nya knew those eyes.
Fear turned into unfathomable terror at those eyes and her screams returned, her body tossing and flailing violently to be free of the nightmare. Darkness surged up around her, erasing everything but her screams, everything but Nya’s voice. Those eyes reminded her of pain, pain she didn’t understand but knew nevertheless. Pain that no one could erase, not here, not trapped in her mind.
“Help me!” she screamed, realizing her nightmare was over and yet she was still trapped, still terrified of those eyes seared into her mind.
“Mommy?! Where are you?” another voice screamed, identical to her own. It was younger, much, much younger, but just as scared, “Daddy?! Help me! Help me daddy! She’s going to kill me!”
It was well into the night when Reyn woke suddenly, something not right. Immediately she heard it, the distance sound of Nya moaning.
“Eli,” Reyn turned over, shaking him awake hurriedly, “Elijah, baby it’s Nya.”
He was awake in seconds, and they could both hear her now, those moans turning into louder groaning.
“She’s having another nightmare,” Reyn exclaimed, crawling out of bed, noting he had tucked her in.
Suddenly the house rang out with a clear scream, the high pitched sound able to break most people’s ear drums. It was their poor daughter, caught in another night terror. Reyn surged forward, throwing the door open and running down the hall. Sometimes Nya didn’t scream, instead waking and coming to them for comfort. The times she did scream were the worst; it meant she was struggling to wake up, and the heartbreaking sound of her scared cries always bothered her parents.
Elijah got to the door first, wanting to reach his daughter. Reyn’s eyes fell on the struggling mass in her bed, flailing violently as the blankets held her trapped. Her mouth hung open as the brutal wails continued unwavering. It was hard to even get near her with how much she was tossing and flailing, her bed creaking with the effort. Down the hall, Reyn could hear Nolan waking, caught up with the noise.
“I’ll settle Nolan,” Reyn yelled over the screams, “Wake her up Eli.”
She got two steps down the hall when the scream cut off abruptly. and Reyn froze, an unsettling chill crawling down her back. Nya never stopped screaming…not until Eli woke her.
“Mommy?!” Nya’s voice was a small squeak, sounding more like a child’s than her own, “Where are you?”
Reyn heart clenched, as Nya’s calls became more desperate, a sound no parent wanted to hear.
“Mommy?! Daddy? Daddy?! Help me! Help me daddy! She’s going to kill me!”
It took everything out of Reyn not to run back to her baby girl but to continue to Nolan’s room where her son stood at the door, tears in his eyes.
“What’s wrong with Nini?”
“Nothing sweetheart,” Reyn pulled him back into his bedroom, trying to keep her voice steady and calm even as her chest shook, “Daddy is taking care of her now. She’s just having a really bad dream…”
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