Have you ever felt unable to sleep? Whatever you try, you just can't sleep! Almost everyone must have had this once. But what if it goes to a greater extent? You don't get sleep, but you have nightmares. What would that be called? What would you do all night? Here is a story, which takes you to a new world of Insomnia.
I was running, fast and swift. Eluding from what, I didn't know. But I was running. There were doors around me. But my fear won over my curiosity of opening them. So I ran, without looking back. Was there anyone behind me? I didn't know, neither wanted to. I was in a corridor or something. It was pitch dark, except for a light coming out of nowhere. I ran straight for the light. I was suffocating in here. And then, I tripped. On what but? The floor was deserted. I fell with my nose down. It pained. Just then I realized the floor was kind of weird. It seemed wrongly aligned and...Wait, what I was doing observing floors?! I had to run! I got up and continued. My nose was bleeding by now. And then...
BANG
I hit an invisible wall. WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING! I couldn't go any further. I tried kicking it but that only proved ill for my toes. Great. I looked around. "Oh look, more doors" I thought to myself. But then my eyes noticed a special door. Unique, it seemed. It was different from all others. Seemed as if it was made of a different wood. I could see light coming out from its corners. But this definitely wasn't the light I was following. Its handle...wait, it didn't have one. I examined it from top to bottom. There was something printed in the middle of it. I tried reading it.
|M|A|T|T|H|E|W|
The hell? That was my name! How was my name here, I did not even have the remotest idea. My name being on such a weird place really freaked me out. There was a cross. That cross against my name gave me the creeps. What did it mean? I touched the cross. "Aaagh." I cried. It burned. I immediately withdrew my hand. Gosh. I ran from that place. There was no invisible wall now. I didn't turn back. I ran and ran and suddenly everything was dark. There was no floor. Like, everything just vanished into a void, swept away so fast that no one could have noticed. Everything was black again. "Black is the new best thing I hate after Justin Beiber," I thought to myself. And the next moment, I was falling, to where I didn't know. My stomach churned. I was falling too fast.
THUD
I crashed on a floor, my own bedroom's floor, to be exact. My bed was there and I had probably just fallen from it. My room was a total mess. Curtains were ripped apart, my bed sheet torn. There was a red stain on it. What would come to your mind when you saw a red stain after having the most horrifying possible dream ever? Definitely not ketchup. I went to the bathroom (or what looked like bathroom to me; my vision was blurred) and looked up my face in the mirror. My nose! It wasn't bleeding but it looked hurt. Right then I noticed my hands; the burning sensation had prevailed, but how? I was in my room all the time. I wasn't even asleep. I knew that inside me. And I rarely get sleep nowadays. My eyes had dark circles under them and I felt exhausted. Head ache was another thing. I still remembered the nightmare. How does one have nightmare without sleeping? And how can a nightmare turn out to be a badass reality? What's happening to me? Why me?
Insomnia. This thing was killing me. It suddenly started a fortnight ago and is prevailing since. I rarely used to have it before. I was used to of sound sleeps where I didn't have to sit like a freak most of the night waiting for a sleep that probably hates coming to me. (Don't ask me how 'sleep' can hate me. Believe me, it does) and then this nightmare where I am stranded in a corridor. I am 19 years old, studying in St. Xavier's college. My name is Coleman, Matthew Coleman. I am fairly tall with a height nearly 5'8". I like to work out so I have a pretty good physique. My parents died in a car crash, or so was I told. I live with my caretaker, Nathan Bryan. He is a strong man. He likes watching TV a lot, mostly of which consists news channels. He makes all our food. He even helps me in studies. Sometimes he acts strange, I don't know why. But he is like family. We live in a fairly good house in Hillsborough, North Carolina.
"Nathan!" I ran downstairs screaming his name. I was so freaked out after the nightmare that I wanted to see him badly! "Nathan where are you?" I searched for him in the Drawing room, then the Kitchen but he wasn't in either. Then I saw him sitting in the balcony on a chair with his back to me. I went near him and accidently bumped into the chair. He fell down.
"Oh god. Sorry" I said.
I went to pick him. I pulled his arm hoping he would pick up the rest of his body himself. But he wasn't trying to get up. I turned his face.
I looked in his face, it was white as lily, cold as frost, and hard as graven stone. Immobile he lay there. Killed, murdered. My life seemed lost even then, I felt solitude. Mere words could not have depicted the pain I bore.
I noticed a few scars on his face, and some pretty big ones' on his back. Who had done all this? Who had killed him? And I couldn't get a second more to think about it, when I blacked out.
"No…NO. Please don't kill me. PLEASE!" cried a man's voice. The distant sound of footsteps grew even as he breathed. He could see me, a simple yet deadly boy. I could see him, all scared. He had nowhere to flee. And it seemed as if fighting back was the last thing he wanted to do. He cornered himself to a wall, secretly hoping the minute chances of somebody reaching there to help him, as in movies. But no one came…
He was alone. "HELP ME!" he screamed. His voice was heard by none but me. Out of the other corner I came into view. His fear doubled when he saw the knife I so tightly gripped in my hand. He backed but eventually hit the wall. I lifted up my knife-hand, ready to strike.
"Please…" My hand went down with a strong blow on his back. Too late I realized that the man was Nathan. And the moment I came to my senses, I realized, that the boy who killed Nathan, was none other but me, Matt.
