I’m not so sure why it took so long to happen, but after about nine months in our new house, something strange started to occur within my dreams. We lived in a small apartment and my room was very tight, which meant everything was close. To the right of my bed was the door, and to the left the window, brushed up against an oak tree. In the right hand corner of the room was an old wooden chair. It had been there since we moved in, and nobody thought to touch it.
Mom wiped it down a few times with cleaner, and even when she did so, I felt nervous, and wanted to scream at her to leave it be. To tell her that it didn’t want to be touched or cleaned. I had a dream one of the following nights of waking up in the dark. Something, a shape at first seeming to be a formless mass, was full and black in the corner. I squinted, and panicked when I saw a pale boy with an old fashioned, side parted hair cut seated in the chair, staring at me with eyes that seemed to glow.
I woke up terrified. The next night I prayed. The boy looked and smelled like disease. Even by nightfall the next day the initial dream still burned me. I got anxious about falling asleep. Eventually I would. And when I did, I dreamt again of the boy, seated in the chair, with a dark striped shirt and jeans, eyes glinted white, staring at me with an expressionless gaze. Mouth hanging opened slightly. Only now the chair was a bit closer than before. I awoke in a sweat, and looked at the corner. The chair was in place.
I kept dreaming about him, and every night I prayed, he would come. In the dreams, the chair would get closer and closer to me, to the bed. One night he was in the center of the room, and I got a closer look at his grotesque face. I initially thought the whites of his eyes were just streetlight reflections, but once I studied them, I could see they were a milky cataract film over barely visible light blue irises.
Once I noticed his faded pupils and the infernal intensity with which he stared at me, my terror became indelible and transcendent. I’d hide under my covers and wait for morning. I’d wake up under my covers, only to realize everything was fine. I memorized the Lord’s prayer and recited it two nights ago. I became self - aware inside of the dream, moreso almost than if I was lucid and awake. I said one last prayer, and then went to sleep.
Once the dream commenced, the boy was no longer sitting in the chair. God had done his work. They always say God listens, and he answers your pleas and prayers with subtly. I lingered around in my dream for awhile. Somehow I recall everything about it in a linear sequence. Getting out of bed, going to the kitchen to get a drink, etc. Then I got back in bed, and in the dream, fell asleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night again with the covers and a pillow over my face. But I recalled having a good dream. I waited a few minutes for the terror to subside, but it didn’t. It intensified. “Was I dreaming now or before?” I kept asking myself. I tossed the covers off of me with reluctant courage, and that’s when I shrieked and began falling inside of myself. The chair was at my bedside, pushed up against my mattress, right next to my pillow where I lay my head.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t react on any impulse beyond the paralytic grip of absolute, abject terror. The room was dark just the way it was in my dreams, so much so that I wasn’t sure if this even was a dream. Finally the icy grip loosened and allowed my reflexes to push myself off the bed and run into mom and dad’s room. Nobody had heard me.
I laid down on the floor on the opposite end of the room, as far away from the door as I could. I started to get angry, wondering why anyone would do such a thing. My sister liked to scare me when we were little, but that was a long time ago. I felt a bit more comfortable now. I huddled myself in the covers and layed back in the pillow, staring at the ceiling from the floor, and then I had a horrifying revelation - I’d never told anyone about the dreams.
How could they have known to move the chair? I covered myself up and and tried to get to sleep. I awoke during sunup, and I could hear Mom and Dad talking in the kitchen. I smelled sausage broiling in the greasy pan and syrup. The familiar sensation of home seeped back into me. Then, I felt fingers tracing up and down my back. Felt her breath on my neck. She’d often try and wake me up in the summer. Still half asleep, I shooed sissy away, and told her I’d be up soon, and to leave me be.
Then I heard her outside playing, and realized I was lying right next to the underside of the bed. I ran out screaming. My family laughed it all off. However I recognize that I’m trapped. I don’t know what this boy wants, nor how to get rid of him. The Lord’s Prayer just seems to anger him. Perhaps I ought to pray to the devil.
I still have yet to sleep another night, and all I can ask myself is one single question — if the chair was up against my bed last night, then what could possibly come next?