Nightmares

It was a cold night in those that make your bones freeze, although I wasn't sure that it was actually the night, my eyes completely open with terror were trying to see something through the impenetrable darkness. I hear steps around me, is more than one person but I can't see a thing. I cover my face with the blankets while I repeat myself again and again that this is not true, "let me alone" I tell them trembling with fear but they don't obey me_ then a cold laugh confirms to me that there's anything that can help me and eventually I know that I'm going to spend another sleepless night.

Suddenly everything becomes silent and something impulse me to get up, I start to move around me puzzled by the sudden quiet, I can't feel my footsteps as if I wasn't actually walking, it seems that time is not normally around me; I see the room in shadows as the parts of the house I'm able to see from here. Beings hadn't gone, I can feel them, they still here but they don't attack me anymore, is as if something would stopped them, I go to the window while I start to remember when it happened for the first time.

I had returned with my brother from Pozarica. My mother had taken the decision to leave and leave us alone; to my little sixteen years I felt the need to have her mother love still so we had a new heated argument she shouted that she wanted to remake her life, she did not care what could happen to us again and again and I wasn't able to convince her. After that I felted defeated and depressed, so in that moment the only thing I was looking for was a little rest. I went upstairs and went to my room, once in my bed I had no trouble falling asleep.

And was then when all began: I was lying face down when the radio began to play; a weak music announced me that it was time to wake up. I heard someone's footsteps and I thought it was my brother out of his room and coming toward me, he turn up the light and not long after I felt a hand on my back as the bed sank a few inches to my side under the weight of that person. I tried to sit up but my body was frozen, that was when I started to get scared "what is happening to me?" I wondered myself but from my lips no sound came out, something told me that "that" wasn't my brother and I started fighting to regain mobility, I felted how my muscles strain from the effort not responding to my will; despair threatened to overtake me and I don't Know if they were minutes, hours of seconds at last I was able to move again; radio had stopped playing, my brother slept in his room, there was no one beside me; but that was the beginning of the visits that would come night after night, making me share in their pain, their hate, desperation and confusion_

At first I though that it was just a bad dream, nothing more, how wrong I was; after that it became almost a routine, a nocturne one. It's when I'm ready to sleep, every night, the darkness become thicker and the temperature usually drops dramatically announcing their arrival. They talk to me, they chase me wherever I am… since then every night I have to wait, completely scared, to their arriving, hugging my legs in a fetal position, always held in a corner, trying to hide, afraid of the night more than anything else… afraid of sleeping and see them again, always so cold, so out of this world.

Some of them seems to be lost, with vacant eyes and wondering what happened to them, other ones come to me crying in despair, begging forgiveness, asking me for mercy… but I always ask them to leave, covering my head with my hands; requiring them to go, to leave me alone!, I don´t want them to get close to me… I don´t want them to talk to me, they scare me… but they don't go, never do, they always stay… they don't obey me, that's why I can´t sleep.

Now I see the empty street, the weak light of the headlights on the sidewalk give it a faint orange hue, cars rest in their porches and branches of the few trees swaying gently to be touched by the wind; is a quiet night, peaceful like many other, I see the stars shinning mysteriously in the sky and I feel calm, fear disappears. But when I turn my head I find that the orange light does not come from the street lamps, my heart starts beating violently against my chest; the presences have almost entirely disappeared, my room is bathed in a bright orange light, I look at my bed and I discover my own body lying next to my niece; but for some reason it does not surprise me is like if I always knew it was there, I return to the bed and I sit in a bank willing to return to the place I belong, automatically, almost without thinking_

Laughing returns and my eyes then goes onto the pot of clothing that is at the bedside, like a flash I see some hands out of that pot and abide me by the body; some bony hands, as hooks, made of some material smoky impossible to describe with words. When I react, I'm completely wrapped up in some strange strings made of shadow; the image of the hands does not seem to be more than an illusion, attempt to free myself but the more I pull the strings, the hold these to my body, the being, slowly begins to drag my body into that pot, almost like a spider savoring its food. Terror starts to take hold of me, as I struggled against that terrible power that draws me somewhere that is unknown to me, my heart pumps hard while I desperate cry:

"Please, wake me up, I'm dreaming! Lilia! " I turn but my niece_ lying peacefully asleep_can not hear "please, wake me up, help me_!

That's when I feel it; there's someone else in the room, the figure of a being that's looks at me from the feet of the bed, I can't see, but its presence is as strong as that of being of which I'm falling prey claws…

"HELP ME" Desperate yell, because something tells me the power that flows from it can release me. Being stands still, looking at me no sign of having heard so I start to despair, the force that fights against me is making more and more power and I can not resist it ... I can feel and hear how it mocks my vain efforts to free myself, struggle as much as I can but the creature pull me effortlessly with the same cold laugh that has accompanied me all night...

That is when I understand, that presence at the feet of the bed is there to help me but only I must find the strength enough to get out of my predicament, fear is ever more pressing, but its only presence is a bit relieving. I print all my strength to free myself from my bonds but doesn't seem to help, I'm on the verge of hysteria… I see my body lying motionless on the bed while from my mouth terrible groans arise, Lilia awake alerted when alerted by the rattle that produces my throat, she sits in the bed looking at my body and shouts.

"AUNT CARMEN" she covers her face with her hands in gesture of anguish and if as that was enough, a vortex carries all while my eyes, my real eyes open in the darkness of the night and observe gratefully to the little figure that is staring at me with her little eyes wide open full of fear. My body feels too heavy to move, and my lips too stiff and dry as to pronounce words, I breathe with difficulty, feeling the air, now heated, entering my lungs and the cold sweat running down my face; and after checking that I am free of that being, I make an effort to talk to the girl standing next to me.

"I'm fine" I tell her in a whisper, she nod too scared and confused to say something else

I look around me once more, in the window a weak light announce the beginning of a new day and I con feel released for it, I smile to Lilia and tell her.

"It's ok, everything is fine"