"I don't know. I can't describe it. I don't really understand."
He spoke in the same way a guitarist tries to pluck a song from an untuned instrument with a string missing. It doesn't matter if you're playing all the right notes, it sounds pathetic and wrong beyond salvation.
Already regretting his answer, he tugged at his untidy mop of dark hair. There was nothing special about his hair; it hadn't been styled in any particular way. In fact, the only thing he'd done with it this morning was to brush it aside so it didn't get in his eyes.
"Can you try?" asked the voice: a female voice, which was trying to sound warm and comforting. It had the air of a primary school teacher; someone who was used to talking – calmly – to small children.
He felt a knot in his stomach – a feeling which was there because he understood exactly what it was. He was just unable to put it into meaningful words. And there really didn't seem to be much point trying.
He opened his eyes. His pupils contracted as they adjusted to the bright strip lights above him. He stared up at the ceiling, clearly painted white to give an impression of sterility and cleanliness. It also looked harsh and cold.
"Try? How am I supposed to explain it if I don't even get it myself?"
The voice again, like the death throes of a wounded animal that is in all likelihood going to have to be put down – because that would be the kindest thing to do.
As he spoke, his hand clenched into a fist. When he realised, he let it drop back into the armrest. She would have noticed that.
She didn't say anything, though. She didn't say anything at all. She was silent for well over a minute.
She'd opened up a yawning void, filled with nothing but the silence. It would've remained that way until he said something.
He sighed. Fine, just say it. It sounded ridiculous, but what did that matter anymore?
"I just sort of… wish I could go back in time… and… and… I don't know."
His mouth opened and closed, trying to make a sound. He looked more like a drowning goldfish. And he felt like one, too.
"I… just don't know." His voice cracked, and he cursed himself internally.
She considered his words for a moment, before responding.
"You wish you'd done things differently?"
"Well, obviously!" he almost yelled.
He screwed his face up, taking all of his restraint to avoid cursing out loud. He went for his pulse, and began counting, to distract himself.
"Okay." She said, maintaining her patience. "I can see you're still not ready to talk about that yet. Perhaps we could talk about something else."
A rustle, as a page turned.
A crawling sense of dread swept through him, adding to the nauseating feeling of adrenaline brought on by his outburst.
She left some time for him to calm down. He didn't know why she bothered. He'd only start feeling worse again the moment he had to open his mouth.
"How about your dreams?" she suggested.
This was a question he had anticipated. It was only a question of how long he could avoid answering it.
He left a long pause that was in reality only a few seconds.
"Which dream?"
He looked at the woman. She was sitting comfortably in a leather swivel chair, a clipboard resting on her knee. She displayed an expression of interest, and would smile, quizzically, he thought, whenever she didn't understand a response.
It was clear that she had not fully understood everything he'd said so far. It probably didn't help that he wasn't being completely honest. Sometimes it's easier to lie than tell people how you feel.
"You mentioned a recurring chase dream last week." She continued. "We were going to talk about it then, but, unfortunately, we ran out of time."
Yes - that dream. He'd been having that dream for some time now, ever since… well, ever since then.
On the first night, the dream left him unable to sleep for days afterwards, and the image of it would haunt him even during daylight hours, imprinted vividly in his memory. After three days of sleepless nights, tired and fatigued, he gave in to his drowsiness. But every time he slept, it returned.
It was happening less frequently now, though that didn't make dealing with it any easier.
It would be midnight. He would be lying in bed, and there would be a creak, or a scratch, or a tap. Not very loud, but amplified by the preceding silence, such that it would be startling.
He would push back the covers and blankets on the bed, and move very slowly and very quietly over to the window. The heavy, blue curtains would seem to sway, minutely. Heart hammering in his chest, he would draw them back, just a few inches.
Nothing.
The only thing that could be seen was the blackness of night, undisturbed by artificial light. Confused, he would keep staring.
And then –
A bright white flash illuminated a figure standing right outside his window. The face was heavily shadowed, and distorted by the glass.
He jumped back in shock, and his heart skipped a beat, before resuming a pounding rhythm that made his ears throb.
Another flash; the towering figure opened its jaws, baring its teeth in a malevolent grin. The rest of its face was shrouded in darkness, and as the light faded from his retinas, the window was black once more.
Flash!
With a sickening jolt, he staggered backwards.
Impossibly, the figure was inside! Inside his bedroom – standing less than a metre from him. How the -?
A hand extended from its robed arm, ready to reach out and grab him. Sharp, blackened fingernails protruded from the ends of its wizened fingers.
The figure seemed to move like a character in an old silent movie: little snapshots stitched together, giving the effect that it had been strobe-lit.
A gasp was trapped in the back of his throat. He was too petrified to cry out. He did the only thing he could think of: run.
He wrenched open his bedroom door, bolted across the landing and took the stairs two at a time, almost tripping up in his haste.
This part of the dream he had had countless times before. Chased by a nameless, terrible thing; always right behind him, always catching up, whispering, taunting.
And he was alone.
The front door! Locked. Of course it was locked. That never stopped him from trying the handle.
He felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, as his hairs stood on end. It was about to happen.
He slowly turned his head, peering out of the corner of his eye. It was there. No! He couldn't look at it, and shut his eyes. Cold fear immobilised him, as the thing grasped his shoulder with a claw-like hand.
His eyes snapped open. He was back in his room, shivering, sweating. He would rub his shoulder – because the ache was always very real when he awoke.
"Charlie?" her voice shattered the silence; he had not spoken for some minutes.
He shuffled into a more comfortable position in the reclining chair. Well, "comfortable" was a relative term. Charlie returned his attention to the woman, and she continued.
"You only started having this dream, when…" She trailed off.
"Yes."
"I see."
About time! That must have been the first thing she'd actually understood. Although, Charlie knew, it was not her job to understand. She didn't even need to care. She was really there to help him understand. She was somebody to talk to, just for the sake of talking.
'Get it off your chest,' people would say, 'don't keep it bottled up.'
Clichés. He hated clichés.
"They say the subconscious mind works on problems while you're asleep." She said.
"Yes." Replied Charlie. He'd heard this before. "And during the day it's when you're listening to music. Watching TV. Talking… to people."
"What do you think it means?"
"My dream? You're suggesting that my subconscious is trying to tell me something? Giving me a warning?"
Her smile flickered for a moment. Clearly, he had misunderstood.
"Or perhaps it's a reflection of real problems and real feelings."
Alone. Trapped. Chased. Running. Just wanting to run. To get out. To get away. Just to get away from… life.
"Yes." Charlie conceded.
Unfortunately, 'Yes' did not effectively convey the thoughts that had just formed in his mind.
"Most 'chase' dreams are a result of your anxieties when you're awake. And whether you run, or don't run, is reflective of what you would do in real life. So instead of facing your… fear-."
"I run away." Charlie finished.
He always ran away. Thinking about it, he had never really considered where he would have run to, in the dream. Why is it, when you're dreaming, that you just don't consider the obvious?
She nodded. "Yes. Do you know what it is you're running from?"
"Um…" Charlie began, bothered. It could be any number of things, really. "No."
"Have you considered the idea that the… figure is you?"
Yeah.
"Me?" Charlie uttered, hoping to mask his true thoughts with confusion.
The lying again. Well, it wasn't really lying, was it? Just not… the truth?
"Yes, an embodiment of an emotion, such as anger; a part of yourself that you've rejected."
Charlie's eyes flickered towards her. Once again, he had the crushing feeling that he didn't want to be here, and he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. He could feel the tense muscles in the back of his neck twitching in frustration.
"Consider… confronting the chaser next time you have this dream?" she suggested. "Find out why it's chasing you. Find out what it really is. And perhaps you'll feel ready to share it."
Charlie's eyes widened with terror at the very thought of facing the creature.
"But I couldn't… it would kill me."
"Charlie, the dream isn't real." She assured him. "You can take control of it."
When she was certain that Charlie understood her, she filled in the notes on her pad of paper.
"There's one thing I don't quite understand, teleporting men aside." She continued, "How can something stand outside your window? It's not on the ground floor, is it?"
The question confused Charlie. It had taken him by surprise, and was completely pointless. It took him a moment to formulate an answer: "There's a roof. Flat. For the extension. You can walk on it."
It was a dumb question, and he felt stupid trying to answering it.
Oh, Charlie realised. Except it was another distraction. To keep his mind away from the reason he was here. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, he was getting good at second-guessing her subtle methods.
"Right. Yes, I can see how that might… play on your mind." She sighed, and pushed her cascading red hair behind her ear. "Our session's almost finished."
Time flies when you're having fun. So that's why it felt like it'd been hours.
"What can we aim to do for next week? Have you considered writing your thoughts down, in a diary?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. What have you written?"
"Nothing." Charlie stared out of the window, and watched the bare trees swaying in the wind. "There's a lot of things I never get round to doing."
There was one more thing. One more thing that he needed to say. It was another dream. Not a dream in the hallucinating-whilst-asleep sense, but more of an idea. A vividly dreamt idea, you could say. It was just something he'd made up to get to sleep.
There was a man. A man who stood guard outside his window, battling the monsters that dwelt in darkness. He watched over him – watched over everyone. He was old, but kind, and had knowledge and powers beyond all human understanding. He wasn't afraid of nightmares. He wasn't afraid of monsters. Monsters were afraid of him. Wherever he went, people were… safe.
The very idea of this protector made Charlie feel better. Makes things better…
"Formalities." She announced.
"Hmm…?"
He was handed a clipboard.
"Sign that form to prove you actually turned up. Otherwise they'll think I've been talking to myself for an hour." She chuckled at her joke.
Probably best not to mention that, Charlie thought, as he scrawled his signature on the paper. Don't want her to think I'm totally insane.
"As always, everything we've said is completely confidential. Nothing will leave this room unless I think you're in any danger."
Retrospectively, the irony of her statement was astounding.
"Don't forget," she said, as Charlie was about to leave the room, "There's always somebody you can talk to. If there's anything you take away from this, let it be that."
"Thank you, Sandra." He said, as sincerely as possible.
She smiled at him, as he turned away.
Charlie hesitated. A question had come to him, as he had his hand on the door handle. He turned back to her, and asked:
"You know when I told you, last week, that I had that dream… about being chased?"
She nodded.
"Why did you ask me if it was a snake?"
Sandra took a moment to recall the conversation.
"A snake is not an uncommon chaser, when there's something you have difficulty facing, or if there's something you're afraid of. There's a lot of theory out there about dream symbolism, but it's not worth getting too caught up in the details."
Charlie nodded, and left, deep in his thoughts, a puzzled frown blemishing his features.
Sandra watched as he pulled the door silently shut behind him. She sighed, and finished jotting down some notes.
After a minute, she placed the clipboard down on a table, and moved over to the window. She pushed the blinds aside, and stared down at the world outside. There was a light drizzle spattering the glass, painting the drab world outside, making everything seem a little more greyed out. Typical English summer, she thought dryly.
She saw Charlie leave the building, and trudge down the street, not bothering to pull his hood up to shield himself from the rain.
Sandra didn't want to believe that he didn't care anymore. Because, she thought, Charlie was brilliant. He had a sharp mind, and he was incredibly creative. For one session several weeks ago, she had asked him to express his feelings artistically. She had been surprised when Charlie had returned, pages of a sketchbook filled with horrifically detailed, and frankly disturbing, imagery. Some of them were so disconcerting, that she hadn't at all wanted to ask him to explain his thoughts behind them.
She watched Charlie cross the street, barely glancing both ways before stepping out into the road. He continued walking, without even glancing up at the people he passed. He turned a corner, and disappeared from her sight.
She felt certain that he wouldn't put himself in danger. He wasn't a risk taker. He wasn't a drug user, and he didn't drink alcohol. The only real danger to his well-being was himself.
She had noticed, for all Charlie's creativity, he was a bit of a dreamer. He had trapped himself in his own world – to protect himself – but he couldn't stay there. Very soon, he would have to wake up, and face reality. He couldn't stay in a world where A-levels didn't exist, and nightmares were real.
Yes, she thought, turning away from the window. The rain was easing off, yet the clouds began to darken further, an angry shade of grey.
Well, the teleporting man was one of the more interesting monsters, Sandra mused with a weary smile. She wondered where the idea had come from. The result of too many horror films or computer games, probably.
She sat down heavily in her chair, an overwhelming wave of exhaustion crashing over her. There was something in the way he'd recounted that dream. She knew it wasn't real, but it was almost as if Charlie believed it. It placed an ounce of doubt in her, which, as she worked for the remainder of the day, grew and strengthened the uncertainty in the back of her mind.
Tonight, she would have difficulty falling asleep. Tonight, she would have her first nightmare in years.
