Dreams and Nightmares

Everything is black. No depth. No volume. No space. No mass. In the darkness, I hear the deep, gruff voice of an old man. It sounds like my grandpa. “It was a nice vacation trip, but what really bothered me were those old women out on their porches, displeased that they had to stay outside when it was cold and raining.”

As the voice describes the scene, I can hear the rain. Lights appear in front of me, the porchlights of log cabins. The voice describing the scene fades away as I become aware of my surroundings. I am walking in front of a large group of people: my friends and relatives. The gray clouds overcast in the dark sky make it impossible to determine whether it is day or night, for all is darkness except for that which is illuminated by the porchlights. There are wrinkly old women standing on the porches, scowling at us. They seem like they don’t want to be there, out in the cold. I wonder why they don’t just go back inside if they hate being out here so much.

There is a wooden cabin on either side of us. We pass by and find two more wooden cabins, one on either side. On the porches of these cabins, there are couches. The old people are sitting on the couches watching televisions that they have on their porches. We pass by two more cabins, these also have couches on the porches and televisions there, but this time it is more than just old women. There are entire families on these couches watching television. We passed by two more cabins. Now the size of the families gathered on and around the couches are so big that they cannot all sit.

There is now a single cabin on the left. Everyone on the porch and the couches are looking across to where there normally would be a cabin on the opposite side. Instead, there is a giant screen. Just a few feet past this cabin and screen is a tall dark mountain. The path leads through a tunnel in the mountain. The old man narrates once more, “They did not like how people passed in between them and their movies. But they shouldn’t have put their screen on the side of a common pathway.”

Sure enough, as we run past the cabin to keep interruption of their movie short, we hear groans from the kids and even some of the adults. We enter the tunnel. I am still in front. The tunnel is narrow, so we must walk single-file. The tunnel is well lit by porch lights jutting from the natural stone walls. I can see where the tunnel leads because it zig-zags, forcing us to constantly turn and yet always face stone. The tunnel opens up into a large room. A carpeted living room where a family is sitting on the couch, watching TV. I see that at the opposite end of the room, the tunnel continues. We will have to pass in front of another family, interrupting their movie. I turn back to my friends and family and tell them to keep as a cohesive unit, so that we may keep this interruption to a minimum. Then I warn the family that we will have to interrupt their movie by passing in front of them. They groan but don’t argue. They are probably used to such interruptions if a tunnel runs right through their living room.

We run past them and go through the other tunnel. It is much the same, with zig-zag paths and porch lights lighting the way of the narrow path. We come across another living room in someone’s house. There is another family watching a movie. But at the opposite end of the room from me is only a wall. Where do I go? I look from left to right, but I can’t see anything. So I walk out into the open, embarrassed to be interrupting their movie. Then I see it, it’s right next to their TV, it was hidden before because of the angle of my view. I hurry to go through the tunnel and hear the footsteps of my family and friends still following behind me.

At this point, I am just sprinting through the tunnels. It takes only a moment for me to find the exit to each living room we enter, but sometimes it takes an embarrassingly long few seconds when the exit is in an odd place like the last room I described.

Odd. These rooms no longer appear to have people watching TV. In fact, they are not living rooms at all. Some are kitchens. Some are just hallways. Then I hesitate for a few seconds as I run out from the tunnel and see a stairwell leading down into a cavernous below. It looks like the stairway leads down the side of the mountain. Have we already run so high up the mountain? Who cares, I just need to find the exit. I run through a doorway and to my left is a couch. Further in that direction, they are watching a movie. But in front of me there is nowhere to go. This room is a dead-end. The father of the family turns around when I enter and says, “The exit is down those stairs.” He gestures back through the doorway I just came through. Sure enough, there is really nowhere else I could go. So I wait for my family to catch up and inform them that we must now go down those stairs.

There is a problem. I am afraid of heights. So I let others go first. My grandpa realizes that I am hesitating and tells me that I should go ahead of him. I hesitate. He takes out a bow and arrow and shoots it down the side of the mountain past the stairwell. “Oops. I seem to have dropped my arrow. Could you go fetch it for me?” I grumbled but obeyed. He certainly couldn’t go without his arrow, right? So I had to go get it. I climbed down the trapdoor onto the stairwell. It was a rickety wooden staircase that went down into the open air high above the mountain side. I had to climb down this incredibly thin and narrow staircase. There were wooden railings, but I still felt unrealistic fear. I could see through the spaces in between the steps just how far I would fall. If I somehow flipped over the side of the railing or broke through the wooden step, I would certainly die. But those ahead of me are still going. They have not fallen. Why should I fear? Fear doesn’t listen to reason. I am scared as I slowly climb down the steps.

Grandpa is behind me, urging me to go faster as I take the steps one at a time, very slowly. Several seconds between each step is making everyone behind me irritated. I finally make it down to a wooden platform that is wide enough for those behind me to continue on past me. The wooden staircase continues on downwards. At the bottom, I can see those that went in front of me are waiting. Why is this family so large? I have caused so many to wait because I was afraid. I continue down the staircase and I see that there is a stone wall that blocks travel further down the side of the mountain a few yards past where the staircase reaches the ground. I finally reached the ground.

The stone wall is taller than my house. It goes all the way around the mountain. I see that there are several pairs of snow gloves on the ground, scattered next to many of the people. Everybody has a pair of snow gloves that were thrown down before they reached the bottom of the staircase. Many have already found theirs. I can’t tell the difference between the snow gloves, they all look the same to me. Mine will be whichever doesn’t belong to someone else. I find some on the final step of the stairs, but those belong to the man that is waiting at the bottom of the stairs to encourage those that have not yet reached the ground. I find some near the wall, but those belong to someone’s wife, who has not yet is still coming down the stairs.

I ask my grandpa for help. It seems that everyone has found their gloves except for me. I still need to find mine. Of course, mine are not gloves, but an arrow. This is a transition part of the dream where things change and my memory is morphed. I can always determine transitions based on contradictory memories. I came down to find an arrow. I reached the ground and was looking for snow gloves. It wasn’t even snowy on the ground or anything. Then I found grandpa and I am looking for my arrow, everyone else has found their arrow.

“You must have left it behind somewhere.” Grandpa says. I am very displeased with this answer, but I know that it must be true. The stone wall blocks our path, so it is not past the wall. It must be behind me, back the way I came. But back the way I came requires climbing up the mountain side. There are no stairs, just rough terrain and dirt paths. Looking up the mountain, I can see an absolutely massive tree covering the top of the mountain, and many terraces are built into its sides. We are currently on one such terrace. The tree continues below us.

As Grandpa and I climb up the mountain, we pass by ruins and ancient structures and we check them to see if my arrow is there. As we walk up the mountain, we pass by others that are walking down the mountain. It is sunset. Almost dark. We need to hurry. It is good that the weather is clear, or this would have been impossible. I see another pavilion in which we should check to see if the arrow is there. Grandpa tries climbing up the pavilion but he is too old for that. So he gives me a boost and I climb up onto the top of it and there is no arrow here. I climb down. It is getting hard to see in this dark. Some park rangers came up to us.

“Why are you still up so late?” The park ranger asks.

“We are looking for my grandson’s arrow.” My grandpa answers to my embarrassment. It’s bad enough that I lost my arrow. Does he have to let the whole world know? The park ranger continues to talk to my grandpa but it is getting darker and darker. A dark fog, a mist covers the world around. Their voices become muffled. I can no longer see nor hear my grandpa or the park ranger.

The voice of a young woman, soft and laughing sounds right next to me in the blackness. My older sister’s voice. “Remember how you spent the whole vacation running away from a little child just to realize that he was just a slow member of our group. I was running down the path on the mountain side. It’s the middle of the day, but the thick canopy of trees all around keeps most of the burning sunlight off me. I hear a voice of a young boy behind me. “Hey, wait up!” I go faster. The soles of my shoes skid across soome dusty gravel, but I jump forwards to change my direction. The g-forces from my rapid changing momentum isn’t much, but it is more than I am used to. The young boy is still too far behind me for me to see him, but the path only goes one direction. The path zig-zags down the mountain side. He’ll catch up to me eventually, no matter how fast I go because we are both on the same path and there are no forks in the road.

I don’t think about why I am running in fear. I don’t consider that a little kid could never do me much harm. I am too scared to abide by reason and logic. I ran down the mountain side, jumping over bushes and rocks. My sister’s voice sounds like she is right next to me. “That’s a great place to take your picture.” The stone structures in these ruins do have some interesting architecture. They look like they were made in Asia. But we are currently on the border of Ohio and Florida [I swear I know geography. Don’t judge because of my dream’s mistakes]. It is near sunset. This is the perfect time for a picture [There is no one chasing after me at this point. This is another one of those transitions].

My sister takes my picture. She posts it on one of those social media apps [Snapchat, I assume]. Then she gasps. “There is a party tomorrow!” She knows this because she sees the news on her social media app that she is currently using to post a picture of me. I think I look really cool posing next to the sunset on a stone column of Asian architecture. So my sister takes me to the car and drives me home. This ruins was multiple hours away from home, but we believed it was worth scouring the land for a good place to take a picture, even though it took literally all day for us to find a spot good enough for one photo. Based on the GPS, we should be home just past midnight.

I fell asleep in the car, as I remember I had also done so on the way to the ruins. When I wake up, I am in a cavern. Luckily, this cavern opens up in a cave mouth. It is probably noon or some other time where the sky is bright. The light illuminating the cave definitely makes it seem that way. The cavern on the opposite ends also has another cave opening higher up because we are on the side of a mountain. My family and another family that we are friends with are all gathered around a table that a white tablecloth with patterns of dark green stems and leaves opening in  dark purplish-red rose-shaped flowers.

They are eating a meal. I come to the table as well. They are all talking about separate events. The yacht party we had last night. The vacation so far. The mountain. The island we are on. How lovely it is here in Florida. Looking at the map. We are in the shallow sea that separates Florida from the mainland. [I swear I know geography, I know Florida is attached to the mainland]. We are on a massive island in that sea. Above, the closest land is Ohio. [Did the East Coast of the United States get flooded or something? What’s going on with this map?] This island belongs to both Florida and Ohio since it is in the sea between them.

The map separates the mountain into two zones. The northern part and the southern part [They had cool names, but I don’t remember them]. As the family is looking at the map, I say “My older sister and I went to the northern part yesterday and found a beautiful place for taking pictures.” Both my family and our friend’s family want to go. However, the schedule is pretty busy, so they don’t have time. They still have so much to do.

My dad isn’t here. I asked my mom about him. “Oh, he went to save us a seat on the bleachers. My mom and I go to the bleachers to look for him. And sure enough, we find him, He is sitting there with a bag of popcorn staring at… nothing? There are very few people sitting on these bleachers, they are all incredibly spread apart. They are staring attentively forwards. I notice that these bleachers aren’t next to any stadium or arena or any sort of attraction. They are looking at a smooth stonewall that has barbed wire over it. You can barely make out the tops of some trees over the stone wall, but since the mountain side slopes downwards, there isn’t much visible above the wall. What are they all looking at? We wave for dad’s attention, even putting our hands in front of his face, but he doesn’t even flinch.

I notice that this tier of bleachers is above the bottom floor bleachers. Perhaps there is something of note there. Mom and I go down the stone stairs to the bleachers that are a tier below these bleachers. But these just bleachers set viewers to stare at the unlit area below the top tier of bleachers that ends at the same stone wall that blocks off everything. There are even less people down here than there are in the tier above this, but it is dark down here and they are staring at literally nothing. That stone wall perhaps? There are not even any treetops to see because we are underneath the other bleachers.

Dad comes down the stairs and sees us sitting on these bleachers. “When did you two get here?” Dad asks. I think this is funny. Did he really not notice u trying to get his attention up there? “We got here a few minutes ago.” I responded. Dad is displeased that we came to these bleachers down here when we knew that he was saving us seats on the bleachers above. I complain that when he came to the seats he had saved for us, he ignored us so we came down here instead. Dad is confused. He doesn’t remember us visiting him.

As Mom and Dad discuss with each other, we notice a tunnel that leads through the mountain. Dad had been waiting for us to arrive so he could take us through there. However, Mom doesn’t want to go. So Dad and I start walking through the tunnel and call Mom on the phone so she can talk to us while we are in there. It’s an arcade here. All sorts of arcade machines and games on both sides of this wide tunnel.

Mom asks over the phone, “What is that music I hear?” Dad responds that it must be the arcade games we are passing by. There are all sorts of 8-bit soundtracks playing faintly from the machines. There are many people here all playing games. “Mom doesn’t think the music is from the games. “It sounds like hymns. Someone is singing hymns.” We don’t know why Mom hears hymns through the phone. Dad thinks it might be the Skee-Ball lanes. However, I don’t hear any music coming from the Skee-Ball area. We continue through this tunnel. The walls are still made of natural rock. It appears to be an almost natural tunnel instead of one carved out by man.

And on the rocky ground and in the dirt, there are insects. There are so many insects here. They are all incredibly tiny because they are bugs. But I am incredibly interested in them. Too interested. Something, something is coming over me. This euphoric feeling when I hold these critters. Nightcrawlers, centipedes, tiny snakes, beetles. Oh, it’s so lovely. I let them crawl all over my skin. It feels amazing. It is so great. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything as addictive as this. I’ve never drunk alcohol or taken anything like heroin or tobacco. However, I imagine that none of that could compare to the incredible feeling of millions of tiny legs skittering around on your body. So many tiny legs, tiny eyes, tiny wings. Their exoskeletons rub against my skin. It takes my breath away.

I feel weightless as I am carried by insects. A swarm at my fingertips. I am carried out of the tunnel and into the sky. There is a helicopter pad. I am nothing but a swarm of insects now. My writhing mass is so huge that the helicopter pad is like a small toy in my grasp. The control tower is blinking lights and the helicopter is coming for landing. Whoops. I broke it. The tower collapses and the helicopter flies away to find another landing space. I direct my swarm like limbs. Moving them as though they are my body, which they kind of are at this point, since I have no body of my own.

I struggle to put the control tower back together but accidentally crack the pad itself into two pieces. I am exasperated by how I am only making things worse. Luckily, my friend, a billowing cloud of birds, bats, and buzzing flying insects comes to my aid. My friend holds the pieces together as I position the pad into place. Then I seal it together with my swarm, filling the cracks with beetles to hold the slabs together. Soon the control tower and helicopter pad are back together. And just in time, too. A helicopter comes down and out comes a young man… woman? I can’t tell. This person doesn’t seem entirely human. They’re skin is pale pink. They have two demon horns curved upwards from their head. The horns are ringed with white and blue stripes. This person is wearing a gray leather jacket and is singing a beautiful song. And by singing, I mean it sounds like electronic music with no voice detectable. My friend, the writing mass of feathered creatures, coalesces into the form of a toucan. I am still a massive mass of insects, so he seems tiny compared to me, like a toy.

My friend toucan is so much like a toy, that in response to hearing this young demon person “singing,” he blushes because he realizes that this is his idol, his favorite music artist. And by blush, I mean the toucan takes out a pink glass window pane and holds it in front of his beaked face. That’s not actually blushing, but it does mean that his feathery face will look pink through the window.

I also decided to coalesce back into my true form. That of my normal human self. I am in my house and all my family is there too. I have my swarm of insects, greatly reduced to only as much as I could carry with me, in a massive brown paper bag. This brown paper bag is half as tall as I am and about one foot in width and length. The writhing bag of insects is mostly filled with centipedes and worms. I hold the bag close to me. I hug it. It is so wonderful that I could bring these home with me. My swarm. Of course, I can’t spend all my time holding them. I have to use the bathroom sometimes. And sometimes I have to eat and drink water. And sometimes, I even need to sleep. However, the rest of the day, I spend hugging my wriggling swarm in a bag.

I get up from bed. I slept in today. I immediately pick up my brown bag and… it’s empty. “No!” I shout. “No! They’re gone! They’re gone!” My little brother looks up from his computer and frowns. “What’s wrong, brother?” He asks.

“My swarm! It’s gone!” I repeat. “I worked so hard to gather those together. I took the Alphas from three different hives, and combined their swarms into one. I cared for them and loved them. They were my swarm, and now they are gone!” My brother looks a bit concerned about how upset I am over losing a bunch of bugs. “Bro, you know those are just bugs, right?” He asks. I am furious. They’re more than just bugs. They’re practically family. I accuse him of getting rid of my swarm. “You threw out my swarm, didn’t you?” I accused. “You were jealous of my insects, so you threw them away! You knew you could never have so many lovely bugs, so you got rid of them.” My little brother is now getting a bit scared. So he goes to Mom and asks her to help him with how creepy I’m behaving.

I feel so empty and hollow without my swarm to keep me company. I’m so cold without a living mass crawling all over my body. I’m so numb without stinging pinpricks biting into my every pore. I’m so distraught to have lost something so attached to me that it feels like I’ve lost part of myself. That day is a day of anxiety. Out of the corner of my eye, in my blurry peripherals, I swear I can the squirming movement of my swarm. But when I turn, it’s not there. It was just my imagination, my vain hope. Everytime I see an insect, I dare to hope that it is one of my swarm, that my swarm is still here. But it’s just a random bug. I seem to find them so often now. I’ve gathered these bugs into a plastic bag that used to hold vegetables. It’s not much, but the least I can do is try to rebuild my swarm from scratch, using the insects in my house.

I’ve collected several pounds of insects now. The bag holds an amount of insects that is equal to two baseballs in volume. I’ve scoured the entire house for any stray insect I could find. I think I’ve found them all now. But this isn’t enough. This isn’t the same. Even with a bag of spiders and ants, and even a few earwigs, it’s not the same. I don’t have enough to coat my entire body. I don’t have enough to carry me, to envelop me in a cloud of exoskeletons. I don’t have a cohesive unit made of several hives. I just have a bunch of stray bugs that don’t like being held captive in the bag.

My Mom, little sisters, and little brother are standing together looking at me. What is this all about? “Brother, we’ve come here to have an intervention.” I don’t understand. “An intervention? For what?” I ask. I’m not addicted to substances or activity, so it can’t be that. I have no idea what they could be trying to intervene. Their eyes all turn to look at the bag of bugs in my hand. I don’t get it. Why are they looking at my bag of insects? “Son, you have an unhealthy relationship with insects.” My Mom says sadly. My face burns, my eyes are hot coals, my fists clench tight around the bag. “It was you who got rid of my swarm!” I accuse.

Mom looks down. “Yes.” I am so angry that I don’t even listen to her attempts to justify herself. She says she hoped that I would just forget about the swarm. That I would go back to normal. What’s wrong with my family? Why do they think that these bugs are a problem? Why is it bad if I spend every waking moment hugging a bunch of insects and let them wriggle around on my body, up and down my legs, in and out of my clothes? What’s wrong with that? I’m not hurting anyone. They’re saying I’m addicted? How silly. Are they addicted to doing things they enjoy? Sure, they can stop talking with each other and sharing stories, but why would they? I can stop being engulfed by a pool of insects, buty why would I? I feel betrayed by my family. How dare they take away the thing I love. How dare they meddle with my life and my own harmless decisions. Can’t they see how happy I was? Life was perfect until they took away my joy.

I refuse to give up my bag of insects. I’ll make another swarm, like the one I brought home from vacation. My family is very non-confrontational, so they don’t know how to react when I reject their attempts at an intervention. I continue to live with an ever growing group of insects. My bag is now bulging with the weight of the swarm. I can feel joy again. This swarm is all I ever wanted. All I ever needed. It’s all-

I woke up in my bed. The bed… something is off about it. I walk forward and trip. However, my fall is cushioned by the bed. I barely seem to have moved at all. I notice there are a lot of insects on my bed. Crickets, roaches, grasshoppers, cicadas. They are all really close to my face because they all seem so bi-... I bump into one. Oh my goodness. It’s a dream come true. I’m a cricket. These are the bugs of my swarm. I’m a cricket. I have become one with my swarm. They seem so big because I am tiny, not because they are close to my face. This bed seems like a massive cushioned platform compared to me. It’s like I’m in heaven. It’s all so wonderful. This swarm is my family, unlike those bigots that thought to rid me of my only joy in life.

A man with gray-white hair that all stands up and is wearing a white lab coat enters my room. He sets down some chocolates and crumbs for us insects to eat. He looks directly at me. He can discern me from the other insects. He knows who I am. I don’t listen to him ramble on. He is probably talking about something very scientific, but I ignore him and instead eat some crumbs of the chocolate. At some point, he realizes that I am not listening and just sighs. A little while later, he leaves.

That’s when the rats come in. I do recall that he had warned me about the rats, that they would come into the room any minute now. But I was too busy ignoring him to care what that meant. But now, I wish I had listened to him. He had been trying to help me. He had a plan for escape. What was the plan again? I wish I had paid attention. The rats are clawing at the bedsheets and climbing up the blankets. If they get up here, they will eat me and my swarm. The whole floor is an ocean of rats. The rats are climbing on top of eachother. They’ll reach us soon. What can I do? What can I do? There is nothing to be done. They are upon us. I close my eyes and hope for the best.

I am a rat. My family had a nice feast of insects today. We jump down from the bed and enter the living room. We continue running through the building, a raging wave of fur. Strange, some of my fellow rats aren’t following me.They are gathered together at the perimeter of the kitchen, as though unable to enter. I look behind me and see that I am the only rat to have entered the kitchen, the rest struggling as though against an unseen wall. I return to my fellow rats and we push through a doorway into some massive basement. This room is full of cages. But strangely, these cages are merely cubes of iron frames but glass panels. A man with gray-white hair that stands up on his head and who is wearing a white lab coat sits on a throne above the cages. These cages are all holding all sorts of vermin. Insects, frogs, birds, mice. Even a few hold rats.

The man singles me out and speaks to me. “These cages are made of an invisible energy and can be placed anywhere in the world with a press of a button.” I recall the invisible barrier that prevented anyone from following me into the kitchen. “However, it is not foolproof.” He continues, “A small proportion of the population is immune to these force fields and can pass through with ease. I plan to learn how these people are immune and fix my forcefields so that none can escape. But for that, I need your cooperation.” I am now amply intrigued by this. I find the concept amazing. He can simply make invisible barriers appear anywhere in the world. The man says, “With 7 immune specimens, I can complete the project. I have already gathered 6. I just need one more of you that are immune to the force fields and I will be able to create force fields that can block any creature of any type.”

I agree to the procedure. My eyesight is covered up by imagination as I conceive just what could be done with such a technology. That’s when I realized that if this experiment will allow him to make barriers anywhere in the world that can block any creature he wishes, then he could use it to block other humans. With that realization, I am set down into the backseat of a car. The test is to make a forcefield that will last 7 years. He will continue to modify the force field until I am unable to leave the cage. At which point there will be no way to remove the cage.

I realize that this means that I would be trapped in the cage for 7 years once he successfully figures out the formula. I blink. I am a human. I am on the driveway of my house. There is a car to my left. My little sister is in the backseat of the car. She is the only one in the car. I shout to warn her that she’ll be trapped in the car for 7 years, but it is too late. The doors close and are locked, and the car starts driving by itself. As it speeds up down the road, it disappears into a puff of smoke. I return to my house, sad at the loss of my sister. Then the car returns from the same direction, but it looks awfully bumped up and worn. There are a lot of scratches and it is a completely different color. I go out the front door to see what’s going on. The entire roof of the car and side windows are missing. There is a woman in the driver seat. There is a man in the passenger seat and a little boy in the back seat. The woman introduces herself. She is my little sister.

She says that she is pregnant and points out the man as her husband and the little boy as her son. They leave the car and enter the house. I stay outside. The scientist that initiated this experiment is confused. This was supposed to help him with force fields, not… do whatever it just did. It begins to snow ever so slightly. That’s when I tell him that the liquid coating the car works miracles. He doesn’t understand. So I place my hands against the slightly wet hood of the car and then walk over to the giant stone frog that is on the lawn. I place my wet hands on the back of the giant stone frog that is about the size of a human. The frog comes to life. The stone cracks and peels away to reveal a very real fleshy frog. The scientist is completely bewildered. I go back inside.

I close the door behind me. There is no one else in this house. We only moved in recently, but it was my grandparents house. My Mom used to live here as a child. She will probably be home soon. I notice that some of the windows are open, so I close them. The neighborhood is empty. No one is around. But then as I close a window I catch a glimpse of someone standing on their porch staring directly at me. I look into their eyes. Or rather, the dark, black pits, circles of coal and pitch where their eyes should be. It is only for a moment and I instantly snap my gaze away and close the blinds, not bothering with closing the windows anymore. I go to the living room and hide behind a chair. The window is behind another wall now, but I can still feel that person’s gaze, staring at me through the wall.

I know it’s still there, watching me. That’s when I notice something else. My vision goes blurry. When I blink, my vision returns to normal clarity but rapidly degrades into blurry fuzz, forcing me to blink far more often than I ever wanted too. The worst part, it forces me to think about blinking. I hate it. I just keep my eyes closed for a while rather than bothering with blinking away the blurriness. I hear the handle to the door of my house jostle. I snap my eyes open. I instantly close them again to blink. I need to blink so much. It’s terrible. The door creaks open and I hear footsteps slowly slapping against the stairs up towards me. I stay as still as I can, hiding behind the rocking chair. I hold my breath, worried that my panicked breathing will give me away, but I’m so out of breath that I need to keep breathing. I try to keep my breathing slow and quiet.

I can see its shadow in the doorway to this room. Its shadow moves past the rocking chair, so it’s coming towards me. I can’t make out any footsteps on the carpeted floor in this room. But its shadow warns me that it is coming closer. How does it know exactly where I am? The rocking chair squeaks as a weight settles in it. It is sitting in the rocking chair. I can see their smooth soft arms on the arm rests of the chair. I am behind it. I dare not look up to its head, I can already imagine those black holes for eyes staring back at me. Of course, given how its arms are on the arm rests, it would have to twist its head backwards to face me. So I dare peek upwards.

Long hair covers it. At first, I am still convinced that this is the front of the face and not the back of the head. And I am afraid. But I quickly realize that this person has long hair and must be a woman and I am staring at the back of her head. Then it speaks. “Son, where are you?” I sigh in relief. It’s just my mother. I come out from behind the rocking chair and smile. It’s just Mom. Looking at her face, everything goes blurry like I’m underwater until I blink it away for another few moments. Mom notices that I am blinking abnormally frequently. But more than that, she says she can see my face warp. I fear what that might mean. I told her about the person I saw out the window.

Mom looks down. She believes me without hesitation. She is quiet and solemn. I ask her about her reaction and she looks up to me. Her face is contorted into a swirling spiral of flesh. Her eyes, nose, mouth, all twisted like a blackhole is pulling them into her face. Then two holes open in her twisted face where her eyes should be. These holes close and then open again, normal eyes. Her face is no longer twisted. “I’ve seen it too.” She says, “Blinking keeps it at bay.” She gets up to close all the blinds and curtains. I help, but we both keep our blinking eyes down, looking at the floor. I fear that if I look through any window, I’ll see that face staring back at me.

Ever since I saw that face, something has changed. I can’t be sure what exactly it was. My mom and I hide in the dining room where there are the least amount of windows. We keep our eyes closed as we eat from bags of chips and other junk food that we don’t have to make ourselves. We are too paralzyed with fear to get up and move around, to do what we need to live a normal life. We’re running out of food. This bag of Cheetos is the last one in the house. We don’t have the courage to go out and buy more.

I hear a knock on the door. I freeze. Stupid bag. It’ll make noise if I move at all. Mom is also perfectly still. The door knocks again. I can’t move, I am so scared. My vision goes blurry as I am too scared to even blink. But then the door creaks open. I hear footsteps. It’s not Mom this time. I know she is in this room with me, even if I can’t see her through my blurry eyes. The colors of everything mesh together. It’s a gray haze. Footsteps. They’re coming towards me. Breathing. I can hear it breathing. Probably because it’s subtle breaths are loud compared to the silence of my own unbreathing body. I am perfectly still. I’ll die, not breathing if I don’t work up the courage to breathe, even though it might hear me. I consider my options and think that suffocation might not be a bad way to go in comparison to facing that thing again.

Someone taps on my shoulder, before I can react I swivel my head to see who it is. I can’t make it out. It’s all blurry. I hear a hiss as it lets out a breath of air. It steps backwards, rapid. It stops suddenly, catching itself. For once, I struggle to keep myself from blinking. Too paralyzed to move, I can’t look away. But as long as I don’t blink, I won’t be able to see it. It’s too blurry. But how long can I possibly keep my eyes open? My eyes are already watering.

As tears pool on the folds of my twisted face and the whole world appears to mesh together as one, the irritating pain in my eyes grows unbearable. I can’t handle it. It’s only been a second or two and I’ve already given up. I blink. The face staring back at me, with it’s mouth agape and eyes open wide, is that of a friend that lives in a different state. Seeing that it is not the thing I thought it was, I breath rapidly, coughing as I have gone so long without air. My sputtering breath and rapid blinking. Tears and spit fly everywhere.

My friend sees my coughing fit and says, “So sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just thought I saw… Well, it doesn’t matter.” He proceeds to explain that they were on their way home from vacation and were in the neighborhood, so they wanted to drop by for a visit. They had tried calling us to ask if it was okay, but we never picked up.

When my vision goes blurry, my friend’s face appears to begin to twist. But blinking returns it to normal. It’s my face that is twisting, not his. He sees how the house hasn’t been cared for, and seems to get a bit concerned. He also observes our stress, so he offers to take us for a drive to calm our nerves. It would probably be good for us to leave, but we can’t accept that offer. That would require us to leave the house. To go outside, where we know that thing is waiting. Eventually, my friend sees that we just aren’t cooperating with him and we won’t do anything at all. So he gives up and leaves. Mom and I close our eyes, as we sit in the dining room. It keeps our faces from twisting. That is enough.

With my eyes closed for so long, I must have fallen asleep. I open my eyes, and for the first time in what feels like forever, the world doesn’t go blurry. I’m confused. How is this possible? I look over to the other side of the kitchen, Mom isn’t there. It’s crazy. Are we cured? I know Mom would never leave that spot, never move, not even to eat or use the bathroom. But that is because of the face that haunts our minds and causes our eyes to blur. But now, my eyes don’t go blurry. And since she isn’t lying there anymore, she must be cured as well. This is wonderful.

My breathing is calm and quiet now. It’s been so long since I could hear anything beyond my own pounding heartbeat and heavy breathing, but now I am cured. It is wonderful. But in this newfound silence I can hear something directly to my right. Breathing. Soft breathing accompanied by hot, wet air tickling my right ear. I realize that my right arm is interlaced with someone else’s. There is warmth, a body on my right. I don’t know if I want to turn to look at who it is. I can tell that it’s not my mother. The body is too small, it doesn’t weigh much. And the hand locked in mine is so small, its skin so smooth. The person is younger than me.

Finally, I worked up the courage to face it. Staring me in the eyes, breathing softly, is my little sister. Large, dark brown eyes with dilated pupils looking at me attentively, as though I were the most interesting thing in the world. Long brown hair flowing down her neck. She is absolutely adorable. I can’t believe I was so scared of my little sister. I figure I should go find Mom. I stand up, still clutching my little sister’s hand. She walks by my side as I go through the kitchen. Mom is surely already eating breakfast, I should get some for my sister and me.

In the kitchen, a small body is holding its knees to its chest, back against the metal fridge. The little girl looks up when I enter the room. It’s my little sister. She looks exactly like my other little sister. Of course, these, my twin sisters, are probably hungry. I should really get them some food. I grab hold of the hand of my other little sister and use my foot to open the fridge. I examine the contents and then ask my little sisters, “What would you like to eat?” They don’t answer. Instead, they continue staring at me as they have been doing the whole time. “Not hungry? That’s okay, I guess I’ll just get some yogurt and cereal for myself.” I say. I let go of their hands to gather the food. As I set it up on the table, I notice my two twin little sisters are still standing right next to me, staring me in the eyes.

I eat the cereal in the yogurt, my little sisters staring at me the entire time. After I am done eating, I put away my dishes and decide to get out dishes for my family while I’m at it. I take out three bowls and set them at the table. I also get spoons and cups. Two small plastic cups for my little sisters, a tall glass cup for Mom. Two small metal spoons for my little sisters, a large metal spoon for Mom. Two small plastic bowls for my little sisters, a large glass bowl for Mom. After I have the table all set, I take hold of the hands of my two little sisters. I enter the hallway to Mom’s room to check if she is awake yet.

In the hallway to Mom’s room. My little sister stands, staring at me. She looks just like my two other little sisters. They are triplets after all. “Hey, little sis.” I say, “I set out a bowl and spoon for you if you're hung-” I stop. I didn’t set up a bowl and spoon for her. I had set up a bowl, spoon, and cup for Mom and my two little sisters. Why hadn’t I set one up for my third little sister? I look back at the table, sure enough, there were only three sets of dishes there. And one of those sets is clearly for Mom. How had I made such a mistake?

I turn back to face my little sister in the hallway. She just stands there, staring at me, like the two at my sides. They don’t speak. The third little sister is standing in the hallway just outside Mom’s room, and the door is slightly ajar. I walk up to her with my two little sisters following by my sides, holding my hands, looking me in the eyes. I peek into Mom’s room. There she is, lying on her mattress. We only moved here recently after all. We haven’t had time to get a proper bed. Actually, now that I think about it. I can’t remember much about the last few days. I think someone came to visit me yesterday, but it’s all blurry. I walk up to Mom. She is facing away from the door. I peek over her to see if her eyes are open or… her face is twisted beyond recognition. I stumble backwards. I feel hair against my right hand. I look down and my little sister’s face is covered with her long brown hair that goes down nearly to her feet. But her head is tilted as though she is facing me. I blink.

I remember. Blinking. Blurry. Twisted. A face so nightmarish that it sent my Mom and I into hiding for nearly a week. The hand clutching mine feels cold and hard. I release my grip and stumble backwards. But my third little sister is still there standing just outside the door. They are all looking at me. I look back at the sister that had been holding my right hand. Her hair no longer blocks her face, and it is not nearly as long as I thought I had seen it. Her dark brown eyes stare into mine. Her face, an expression of curiosity. They all have the same expression. But that cold grip. Was that real?

“Are you really my sister?” I ask, pointing at the one that had held my right hand, the same one that I had woken up next to. It just cocks its head and continues to stare at me. I can sense that something isn’t right. Now that I think about it, I had only put out two sets for my sisters. And what are the chances of identical triplets? I don’t have three sisters. I only have two. One of these is a doppelganger. But which one could it be? That sister had felt cold and I thought I could see its hair much longer than it really was. But… Mom isn’t cured like I am. So how did she get into this room? I know she must still be paralyzed with fear, unable to move. The doppelganger must have dragged her here. And one of the sisters is standing right outside Mom’s door. The door had been slightly open when I came to this room. She must have brought Mom here.

I look between the right side sister and the doorway sister and wrack my brain trying to figure out which one is the fake. That’s when it dawns on me. How do all of these girls look exactly the same? If they can fake memories, making me think I have more sisters than I really have, then any number of them could be fake. I only have one sister. The one that they copied. The one that was scared, sitting next to the refrigerator. The two fakes had been near those of us that had seen the face.

The face. The last few days are still blurry, but… wouldn’t my little sisters have seen the face too? Wouldn’t they have been traumatized by how Mom and my faces contorted? “Please, sister. Give me a sign, I must know which of you are really my sisters.” But they just stand still, staring at me. Finally, I understand. They don’t blink. Any number of them could be fake… then why not all of them? But how could I be sure? What if this is just another mind trick? It’s just as likely that at least one of them is real. How can I know? I must keep my sister away from these monsters, but do I even have a sister?

Banging on the door and the door handle is rattling. Someone really wants to get in, and they’re not waiting for an answer. I bring the third sister into the room from the hallway and close the door. Maybe it isn’t so bad having fake sisters. If they’re all the same, then it doesn’t which, if any, are real. I hope whoever is trying to break in through the door doesn’t find us. But surely the bedroom is the first room they’d check.

If the sisters are scared, they don’t show it. Curiosity as they continue to stare at me, completely ignoring the banging on the door. I hear cracks and as someone smashes through the door. Footsteps racing up the stairs. Even on the carpeted floors, their thumping feet are easily audible. I can tell they’re in the dining room. Now they’re in the kitchen. Now they’re coming down the hall. The door to the bedroom slams open and two people in dark suits and sunglasses stand in the hall. A man and a woman. I can’t see their eyes through the sunglasses, but at this point, I think that’s probably a good thing. Looking into people’s eyes hasn’t been going so well for me lately.