Tell Your Friends!

1986

The night was dark, darker than it should have been. Eight-year-old Lara was having an unusually restless night. Normally the young girl was asleep as soon as she laid her head down, but tonight was different. It had been two hours since Lara was told to go to bed, and she still wasn't asleep, so she just laid there staring at the ceiling trying to fall asleep. She knew her brother hated when she went into his room so she couldn't wake him up, and besides their mother would yell at them if they were up past bedtime. So Lara decided to just count the glowing stars on her ceiling. There were only twelve so she was counting them over and over again. After another hour or so Lara finally fell asleep, but it wasn't like normal.

Lara's dreams were filled with thousands of different things, all calm, peaceful, and happy. Lara had never really had a nightmare before so she did not realize what she was experiencing was even worse. Lara's whole body was frozen and she couldn't open her eyes or scream when the dream became too much for her, she had to lay there until it was over.

Lara's dream was one that she would have over and over again for a month straight, and every time it affected her the same way. Lara's dream contained only one thing, one person. A man with a purple cloak. Lara had no idea who this man was, she had never seen him before, and she couldn't describe his features because every time she looked at him he became fuzzy and unfocused.

There wasn't much Lara could recall about the dream, only that the man in the cloak caused her a lot of pain, and sometimes the ones she loved. The man in the cloak would sometimes have Luke in his grasp and hurt him as much as he was hurting her. Lara did not like it when people hurt her brother so she hated this man more than anything.

The first night she had this dream when she finally unfroze, she bolted out of her bed and ran to her parent's room, tears falling down her face. She climbed onto her father's side of the bed and laid as close as she possibly could to him, hiding under the blankets. Her crying and movement woke Mitch up.

"Lara? Sweetie, what's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?" He pulled the girl into a hug, which Lara returned but continued to cry. It took Mitch almost an hour to calm Lara down, with the help of Emily who woke up when Lara ran into the room.

Lara returned to her bedroom with a tear-stained face and when she got to her door, she started crying again, thinking the man in the cloak was in her bedroom. So she turned around and walked into her twin's room, not caring if he was asleep. She tapped Luke's shoulder.

"Lu?"

He groaned, "What Lara? I'm sleeping."

"I know, but I had a bad dream, and I don't want to go back to my room, the bad man might be in there. Can I stay here tonight?"

Luke turned around and was fully prepared to say no, but he stopped when he saw the tears on his sister's face. He sighed, pulled the blankets back, and ushered her into the warm bed. She thanked him and the two went back to sleep. Lara kept having flashes of the man, but nothing compared to what she previously went through.

Lara had the same horrible nightmare, which turned into a night terror for a whole month, and every night she would leave her bedroom once she could finally move, and crawl into her brother's bed. After a few days, Luke got used to it and started to get concerned about how often she was getting these bad dreams.

But then one night Lara didn't have a night terror, and she was able to sleep peacefully once again. After a few more months Lara forgot all about the dream, a few more months and so did Luke. No one really thought about Lara's dreams for years after that. 

Sorry, this one's so short, but I figured I should give some background to her night terrors. I may add more to this year later on when I have time. 

-A