Dream Relief

Lucid dreaming is described as a dream in which you have full control. You know are dreaming, so you are able to manipulate things in this said dream to your every will. I have wanted a dream like this, but this experience seems nearly impossible. Insomnia has haunted me since high school, and I'm always restless. Naturally, this makes any sleep I do have leaving me feeling as if I should've just stayed awake. Insomnia naturally brings bad dreams, nightmares, whatever you want to call them. I eventually just got used to it, but one night, there was one nightmare I had that I just couldn't forget...it stuck with me.
It was two months ago, and I had just got to my shitty apartment from my shitty job. One bed, one bath, and the smallest "living room" you would've ever seen. I just wanted to escape that day so the first thing I did was get into my boxers and head to bed. I passed out.

I don't remember everything, but I remember enough to haunt me to this day. I found myself standing in an apartment that seemed a bit worse than mine, with dull lights and paint chipping off the walls. Upon further inspection of the walls, I could see that there were holes on every wall leading to the pitch black outside, and it was on ground floor, which means that this one shitty "building" was built here on it's own, with nothing else to it. I remember thinking how it didn't make sense to me, but in a dream you don't question things a lot.

A feeling of immense dread came over me as I felt an ice cold breeze hit the back of my neck. I turned to see a door wide open, with one dim light at the end of a long hallway. It wasn't there before. Seeing as there wasn't anything else to inspect in this room, I timidly started walking down the dark hallway, toward the dim light.

As I walked down the hall, I could hear faint, subtle whispers that sounded like they were coming from all around me. I couldn't make out everything, but I repeatedly heard the words "Escape", "Torment", and "Relief". It didn't make sense to me at the time, but I just kept on trudging toward the light.

When I reached the light, I saw people and figures slowly start appearing. They all ran past each other in such a way as people in a play might run to find their spot on a stage. I would soon learn they were performing for me. A little boy, no older than eight years old, came from the back of the crowd and repeatedly whispered "torment" to me until another person, a middle-age looking man, came up from behind the boy and put his hand on the boys mouth, dragging him back to the back of the group by his hair.

This is when I realized I was dreaming. None of what was happening could be explained by anything except that. Technically, that meant I was having a lucid dream, however, I wasn't in control of anything, I was at mercy to the nightmare I was shoved into. This is when a woman, seeming to be in her early thirties, who was more toward the front, walked up in front of me and didn't stop until she was two feet from my face and I could feel her stinging cold breath against my face.

"Why do you settle?" she asked me. I didn't really know how to respond because I haven't understood anything that has been going on this whole dream, so I just played along and shrugged my shoulders at her. She immediately showed a face of great annoyance. "Tsk tsk tsk." She remarked. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the people in the huge group disappearing. They all disappeared, and suddenly, there was one, then two, then five, then five thousand. A whole army of shadowy figures with hollow, white eyes appeared behind the woman.

They looked more thin than paper but taller than the tallest tree. They stood over me and the woman with menacing, hollow stares...waiting.

"Do you not lust for opportunity? You could do anything and everything, and yet you settle for whatever people leave you. Your a goddamn rat, waiting until you can fetch the table scraps and scamper off. You peasant." She remarked. I was shocked, stunned. I didn't know what to do, it was so sudden and in my face. "You know this, yet you choose to be pathetic. I've been watching you, waiting to finally ask you why you're so pathetic. Your energy, it's different, different than any body's I've observed. Yours is strong, but you choose to let it go to waste." This can't be happening. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A dream is supposed to be part of your sub-conscious, but I KNOW I've NEVER thought about any of this. How is this happening?

"Your a pathetic excuse for a human. I hope you've learned something." She remarked. She disappeared, and I was left there in the room with the army of shadows, with nothing but that dim light to let me see. All of a sudden, a loud vibrating could be heard, and the shadow army started shaking convulsively. The closest one picked me up, with ease, and I could feel it's darkness sucking the life out of me. I was the size of it's hand. It raised me up until we were staring right at each other. I looked into it's empty eyes, and felt myself being pulled by an invisible force, stronger than any I've felt.

Then I awoke from the terror, speechless, gasping for breath, my bed drenched in my cold sweat. I got up and went to my bathroom to wash up. After dabbing my face with water and looking at myself in the mirror, I could see a scratched marking engraved into the mirror:

"Pathetic, pathetic pathetic"