Nightmare

Taking a deep breath I laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes.  Just as I had expected, the nightmares came.

I’d only recently arrived here, to this small rural town on the Eastern side of the United States of America.  At least I thought it was the Eastern side.  Where I had lived before I didn’t know.  I just kind of appeared one day, wandering the streets.  People always asked where I came from and I was never able to give them an answer.  Some of the residents tried to be polite and asked me about my past in an attempt to befriend me.  Who were my parents?  As far as I knew I didn’t have any.  I simply was.  Did I have any siblings or a significant other?  If I didn’t remember any parents, I definitely had no clue about the answer to that question.  Was I planning on staying?  I didn’t know anyone in the whole world as far as I knew.  There wasn’t really anywhere else for me to go.

This time in my nightmare there was a creature of fire, fighting a creature of ice.  They didn’t have any names, but I stood in between them, motionless, like a ghost.  Completely unaware of the two gigantic beasts about to crush me.  I couldn’t clearly see myself, I just knew that I was there.  One side of my body was burning hot, the other icy cold.  I didn’t appear as a male or a female, I was just there, in the midst of a dangerous fight.  Just as the large claw of the fire monster was about to crush me, I woke up.

“Hey!” A voice called to me from across the road.  I ignored it, knowing full well who it was.  Jessica, the town gossip.  “Hey, wait up!” She trotted across the street and fell into step with me.  I kept my hands, paws, talons, or whatever they were, tucked inside the pockets of my jeans where they would be safe.  Hands were one of the most valuable parts of anyone that had them, I was determined to keep mine.  In all my nightmares, at least one character lost a hand, leaving their arm dripping red liquid at the wrist while they severed body part writhed on the ground flinging blood everywhere.

“Hello.” I replied, trying to keep the conversation simple.  I didn’t want anymore prying questions or strange looks when I couldn’t answer them.  I really had no idea who I was.  I didn’t know my own name, or even if I had one.  Was I male?  Female?  Monster?  I didn’t know.  No one did.  But when people talked to me, I felt like they looked through me instead of at me.  Was I transparent?  Did I have any skin at all, or was I a walking skeleton?  Whenever I looked into a mirror, instead of seeing my own reflection, there was only the room in which I stood.  I had never seen myself.

“Figured out your name yet?”

I somberly shook my head and sped up my pace.  I didn’t like where this was going.

Jessica sighed.  “You will eventually, don’t worry.”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk.  I sped up even more.  Now I wasn’t really strolling, I was more of speed walking.  My attempts to get rid of Jessica failed and she kept pace with me.  I was about to turn and ask her to leave when a sharp pain exploded in my head.  I cried out and fell to the ground.  My vision became cloudy.  I could hear Jessica yelling for someone to call an ambulance.  Then instead of seeing the sidewalk, Jessica, and the town, I saw a bright red light.  And in that light appeared a monster I had never seen in my nightmares before.  It beckoned to me.  It’s face was hideous, but I couldn’t look away.  I felt as if I should go to it.  I rose to my feet, and started walking towards the creature.  Someone grabbed my hand and called to me, but the voice was a mere echo in the back of my mind.  The call grew stronger until the monster faded and I was back in the little town with Jessica gripping my hand.

“What are you doing?” I asked, jerking my hand out of her grasp and thrusting it back into my pocket where it was safe.  No one had ever touched me before, and I discovered that I didn’t like it when they did.

“You fell to the ground, then got this hollow look in your eyes and got up again.  You started walking, but I could tell something wasn’t right.  It was as if you were in a trance.”

I shook my head to clear it.  “I don’t know what happened.” I said.

“Well I did.” Said Jessica.  I knew that she in fact did not know, but I listened to her ridiculous theory.  “I think you’re possessed.

I rolled my eyes.  At least I thought they were eyes.  As I mentioned before, I’d never seen myself in a mirror.  I could have cyber eyes for all I knew, or no eyes at all and some strange thing implanted in my brain to help me see.  I knew I had a brain, all living things did.  It made me feel good to know I had at least one thing I was sure about.  “That’s ridiculous.” I said and went back to my fast walk.

“You can deny it all you want too, but that’s not the first time I’ve seen you wander around like that.  Looking like you have no real direction.  Don’t think I haven’t seen the way your eyes turn color when that happens either.”

So, Jessica had been spying on me.  I wasn’t surprised.  She had said my eyes changed color, so I did have them after all.  Or they appeared to be eyes to her.  I didn’t know what to believe.  In my nightmares, creatures could adopt themselves to appear as they wanted people to see them.  Perhaps I was a monster of some kind, but I appeared human because I was among them.  “Leave me alone.” I said gruffly.  My voice didn’t sound normal as I spoke.  It sounded deeper almost….monstrous.  I had heard that voice before, in a nightmare.  I read in a book that most people, or beings, forget what they dreamed.  I never forgot.  I could remember every single nightmare I’d ever had since I’d appeared.

Jessica looked shaken.

“I’m sorry.” I said, my voice back to normal.  I don’t know what came over me.”  I sped off before Jessica could catch up and made it back to my apartment.  I locked the door and went to the mirror.  I stood in front of it and just as usual, there was no reflection of me.  My sofa and coffee table were in the mirror as if I wasn’t standing before it at all.  I sat down on the ground and sighed.  If only I could remember something from before I appeared.  Then my mind suggested a strange thought.  What if there was nothing before this?  What if I had just come into being and been dropped off in this place?  Then my thoughts turned to my nightmares.  Maybe I didn’t belong here.  Maybe I belonged in the nightmares.  Perhaps that is why I couldn’t tell which gender I was, or even what species.

I pulled a piece of paper out of my desk and sat down with a pen in hand.  I wrote three words at the top of the page in large, strong letters:

Who am I?