Fear

A short story inspired by Trista and Kendra.

Fever has always brought with it The Dream. The Dream is vivid and crisp and the colors are highly saturated. There are three elements to The Dream. Grassy hills, a large sign with numbers and a canon.

The Dream fills me with anxiety - none of the elements are actively scary on there own. The sign slowly changed its numbers, the canon isn't aimed at me, or even aimed at anything as far as I could tell. But the combination terrifies me. I wake from the dream drenched in sweat which, of course, is my fever breaking, but The Dream alone had the power to drench me.

Occasionally I will sense parts of The Dream when I get a fever, but it is never as vivid as it was when I was younger.

Around the time when it was still age appropriate to surround myself in stuffed animals before bed I had a particularly rough run-in with The Dream. I was tucked into my twin bed with my stuffed animals (did I mention the stuffed animals?). My room was the last on the right down the hallway and the door at the end of the hallway was my parents. Our doors were about two feet from each other. Anyway, I'm tucked in and I fall asleep. I begin to hover in the grassy hilly fields while the ominous number-sign and canon play their part in holding my attention until my fever breaks. Except it doesn't break.

I wake up and there is a woman in my doorway. It isn't my mother. I am paralyzed with fear. I could do nothing except lie absolutely still while she stared at me. I wanted nothing more than to call for my parents, they were so close. I just kept thinking they are so close, maybe I can make a run for it and escape the mean, staring woman. But I couldn't move.

I honestly don't know how this situation was resolved, the woman was in my imagination of course (she was a witch actually), but I remember this as one of the absolute most terrifying moments of my life. Obviously I have had many, many terrifing moments during my life, but this was my first experience with terror.