ओह! यह छवि हमारे सामग्री दिशानिर्देशों का पालन नहीं करती है। प्रकाशन जारी रखने के लिए, कृपया इसे हटा दें या कोई भिन्न छवि अपलोड करें।
That evening my sleep was intermittent and restless, what dreams I had were closer to nightmares and filled me with dread. I felt as though some shapeless mass was moving closer to me just out of sight. Occasionally I heard short bursts of movement, scratching, scraping noises seemed to come from opposite ends of the room. My eyes darted about, unable to settle on anything for very long. When I tried to focus on the sounds there was only silence, then as I felt myself relax a noise would come from somewhere else. There was a menace to this shapeless form and it moved as though its sole purpose was to toy with my fraying nerves. I could sense it shifting as one, breathing, thinking and searching in unison and all the while it remained a collection. It was one thing that was many things, and for some reason I felt an unusual connection to it, I somehow knew that I was one of its parts. I felt its fear in my sweat and its pulse in my veins, I felt its cold demented fury in my heart and pain; such resounding intensely hopeless pain, layer upon awful layer of agony, each layer deeper, each layer more desperate. I was trembling uncontrollably, tears streaming from my eyes. And all at once I had a sense of what was leaving sticks on my lawn.
It was an undulating multitude of rats, scurrying everywhere just out of sight. They were below every surface and all around me. They were under the floors. They were in the walls. They were above me and below me. Lift a piece of furniture and they would scramble into the shadows. But what was worst of all, they were aware of my presence. They were drawn to me in some nefarious way and I could sense their thirst increasing the closer they came. I awoke with the feeling that I was about to be bitten. I lay awake and the room was silent except for Laura's peaceful breathing beside me. I smiled to myself, it seemed that now I was now tormenting myself in my dreams. I was still uncomfortable and unable to settle, there was a wrinkled bit of sheet or a sock right under my left leg. I thought about getting up but it was far too early, so I tried to smooth it out by grinding my leg against the lump. When it wouldn't budge I began to knead it with my heel. I lay there for quite some time in a state of frustration wondering where this lump had come from. Pushing my heel firmly into it I was overcome with horror when the lump suddenly darted to the left. I wriggled furiously in the bed. It continued moving inside the mattress wiggling its way upwards toward me. Now suddenly I could hear scratching, it was coming from all around me, I looked around in a state of panic as the scratching grew louder. I couldn't take it anymore and was about to fling myself out of bed when below me there was a sudden shift. The whole mattress moved beneath me. Its surface wildly undulating all over as innumerable little bodies wriggled around below me. I pulled back the cover, sitting up with a scream.
'What is it!' Laura shouted in wild dismay.
I patted at the mattress all around me, unable to believe what had felt so vividly real wasn't actually happening.
'Mark, what's wrong with you! What's wrong Mark?' her voice was raised, but it was somehow distant, 'Mark! What's wrong!' she shouted, grabbing at my arm and startling me to my senses.
