Before Your Eyes

Chapter 1 {Nightmares}

A little girl in a white nightgown stood with tears in the kitchen. It was daylight, and her mother looked to her with added frustration, setting the phone down she was talking on. She stirred the mixture in her pan with more zest, shifting her weight to one of her hips.

“They're coming for me.” She pointed to the hallway that lead to her bedroom.

“Oh, you had another nightmare.”

“But, Grandma said—”

“Grandma doesn’t know what she's talking about! Nobody's coming for you; there's no monsters or bad guys.” She bent down, grabbing her child by the shoulders, looking her sternly in the eyes. “This is the real world, Avery, and in the real world, those things don't exist.”

.

Avery flung her self up from a dead sleep, gasping for air like she'd just run a marathon. She shivered in the slight Autumn air that drifted through her bedroom from the open window. Gingerly, she examined the French door that creaked with each new gust of wind. Strange, she thought, I could have sworn I closed that. Pushing the thought aside as another strong gust of wind stung her cheeks, she closed the door. By this time her breathing was almost back to normal, only a few beads of sweat remaining on her forehead. The only lingering sign was the damp roots of her hair.

How many years had it been since she last had a dream like that? She remembered when she was a child dreams of some kind of spirit-monster would haunt her. They were never like made up dreams—the distorted kind that never made any sense, like a movie that skips every other scene. Her dreams were more like memories. The one she just had certainly was.

It was the last summer her family would ever visit her grandmother, the next day after her family had gotten back. During the stay, she had fallen deathly ill; she was told it was from being too startled by some animal she met in the woods. That nightmare had started that afternoon when she went to take her nap. It took years to cure her of them, and she thought she was finally rid of them. Until now. Avery knew this was the start of the nightmares again—the nightmares that pronounced her death.

There was a forest. It was always a forest. The season was always different, but she was always lost. She was a child. No older, no younger then when she first had these nightmares. There were trees all around here. They looked like they were ready to reach down for her, desperately trying to grab at her to pull her into their clutches. She stood in the middle of those trees, looking around with a frightened expression on her face. Her beautiful eyes,an auburn brown that everyone always complimented, were crying. She was hugging herself, calling out to someone/something, but her voice wasn't working, and there was only silence. Then the voices would start. “We're coming for you.” “You're going to die.” “Be prepared for your last days.” “The debt will be repaid.” Over and over the voices spoke, gaining speed until everything was circling in a vortex of color. One last voice spoke in the vortex. A scream filled with hatred, rage. “YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.” Then she would wake up. Crying, shivering, sweating; the whole lot.

The darkness had always scared her. So did open space. So she moved to the city. Got a small apartment by her college. Filled the space with anything she could. The walls all had something on them (there was even a wall with just clocks on them, all kinds of different clocks; she was quite proud of it, and spent many hour just staring at them ticking away without any care to the troubles of the world), the windows would have plants all over them, the counters would have small plants or decorations or kitchen utensils (most of which she probably would never use), the bookshelves were always packed with books from top to bottom and side to side, counters has some kind of clutter on them, the floors were packed with standing shelves or couches or ottomans. Some people called it cluttered, said it gave them claustrophobia, but it made her feel safe. She liked it. It was secure, her comfort blanket.