I Don't Want To Wake Up

1.

Hi guys. Hope you enjoy my short story! If you spot any spelling/ grammatical errors, please let me know in the comment section so I can change them. :)

~Alice's POV~

How do I know if I'm dreaming or if I'm wide awake?

I pinch at the loose skin around my wrists, I don't want to lose myself in the reality I've created in my head.

Small splotches of discoloured skin crawl up my lower arms as I pull the covers over myself and lower my head to my pillow. I stare up at the plain white ceiling with wooden beams running across, then turn from being flat on my back to my side with my legs curled up towards my chest. 

As I slowly close my eyes lids and are welcomed into the darkness. I can hear the chirping of birds in the forest; in which my house is surrounded, dissipate. The sounds of once close cattle and our other livestock start to fade away into peaceful nothingness. 

I'm used to the darkness engulfing me, taking away my pain from the day before. I love to sleep, not only to escape the same never-ending day but to feel at slight ease and comfort.

Ever since my mothers passing, my father and I have been left to look after the farm. I try to help my father with as much work as possible but most of the time I feel he's disappointed in me. I think he would have much rather preferred a son. Someone strong who can help him with heavy agricultural equipment and maybe someone to understand him.

He seems happy but personally, I know it's easy to hide emotion. He says I remind him a lot of my mother before she was ill, so I feel my duty to him is to serve as a remembrance totem of her. 

I've felt a missing part of me become more and more agonisingly painful to bear. It's the absence of the feelings of comfort and love which my mother possessed, pains me so greatly that makes me still long for it again. My father, before and after my mothers' death, was never good at showing too much emotion towards me.

I like to sleep so I can dream of her, dream of my mother and her presence so that I never forget or lose her, any more than I already have. I miss her.

The darkness which clouds my sight starts to slip away as a bright speck of light in the horizon of darkness causes me to open my eyes. Instead of being awoken by the light glow of the sun through my bedroom windows, all I see is a black and white blur. It's too dark to see much.

As my eyes focus on my unfamiliar surroundings, I look up from my feet, which are slightly buried in pebbles and small stones, to the walls around me. They seem to be made up of large rocks and slabs of concrete which are cold to the touch.

 I look backwards away from the light and see only darkness and that my tunnel-like surroundings seem to cave in front of me. I turn back round towards the light at the end of the tunnel and stubble slightly on the surface under my feet.

Still in the distance is the bright light, it draws me closer as my curiosity takes over my feet. Nearing closer to the light the tunnel seems to expand and lets in more light to fill the darkness. 

Stepping out into the golden light, the warmth fills me and a gust of wind gently brushes against my skin, runs down the back of my neck and through my hair. The abandoned steel train track lines run along and round the bend onto a straight wooden bridge overlooking the water. 

Between the wooden slats that hold up the tracks are vines, they loop and intertwine themselves into the rough exterior surface. Almost showing the inactivity of these train lines and much like me have become lost and forgotten in this desolate environment.