250 Words: Banishing the Nightmare

The final showdown came after several nights in which I got closer and closer to either snatching the creature out of the thin air or swatting it with dreamed up weapons.

Soon, though, I resolved that I could never get quick enough and that what was required was something more real and the following occurred:

I dreamed I was in bed trying to sleep.  I couldn’t regain sleep because something was scratching at the glass covering a print hanging above my chest of drawers.

I was once more confused about the sound I heard every night and slowly eased myself up to take a look.  As I caught sight of the creature, it stopped the scratching and turned to look at me.

This time, though, rather than look back at it, I summoned all the strength I had within me and moved my eyes, just my eyes, toward my bedroom door.  Curious, the creature looked across and so, before it had time to leap at me, I did; or started to at any rate.

I stood up on my bed, bringing the duvet with me so that as the creature sprang at me I was able to capture it.  The last thing I saw before I woke was its surprised face.

I woke up when I hit the floor on top of a duvet, under which was a writhing mound.  I took the cricket bat I’d left on the floor and bashed the mound until the writhing stopped.  Problem solved.

250 Words: The Nursing Home Nightmare

Fran’s Grandfather lived in a nursing home in Kent and I pretended to be an oral history interviewer in order to get in.  Once alone with the man I came clean and asked him about the creature.

“You are the first to believe me.  The staff here said we’d made the scratches ourselves,” he told me.  “Well, it’s hard not to when I’m living it.  I guess I wouldn’t have before.”

He told me how the creature had been visiting a different room each night, frightening the inhabitant and leaving its mark somewhere in the room.  “Often destroying cherished photographs,” he added, looking away at where his had presumably once stood.

“In the end my desperation grew to the point I felt all I could do was fight back.”

“I’ve tried that but it’s always too fast.”

“You must become the master of your own dreams.  I know it’s hard-  it took a death here before any of us could bring ourselves to take it on.  It’s like in Inception: you must not be scared to dream creatively, even if no one’s dreams are quite as epic.  It is on your ground, young man, and that is its weakness.  It can only win while fear rules your dreams.”

I went away with hope in the knowledge that one of these creatures, at least, had been defeated, though not knowing why it was there.  “I wish I knew the answer to that.  Just a case of bad luck it would seem.”

250 Words: The returning Nightmare

Over the following weeks similar episodes occurred, each time the creature appearing in a different place in my room: various parts of the wardrobe, each drawer in turn, under the bed, on the lampshade, behind the teasmaid, even on the landing- entering the room slowly, its eyes shining brightly in the gloaming: always appearing accompanied by the awful scratching that would keep me awake in the dream and cause me to look up in its direction- and always the marks when I woke up: gradually my bedroom began to resemble that of someone who’s taken against the walls with a pair of scissors.

I began to become too scared to sleep, trying to stay awake all night in the hope of avoiding the creature.  Always, though, I would eventually succumb; always it returned.

I tried dousing myself with sleeping pills, hoping to dull my brain’s senses enough to halt the dream but that didn’t work either.

I googled the problem, visited forums.  Nothing.

I even started to try and take the creature on in my dreams but it was always too fast for me to even move.

In the end the answer came at work.  Gradually I became more despondent during the day.  Plus I was looking worse and worse.  Most people ignored this, kept their distance.  Not Fran, though; dear Fran.  She told me I was looking like her Grandfather had until recently, “Said it was all down to some night-time spirit, the mad old coot.  Fine now, though.”

250 Words: A nightmare in the corner of the room

I dreamt I was in bed trying to sleep- one of those vivid dreams you get sometimes after waking up early and drifting back to sleep.  I couldn’t sleep because there was a scratching sound coming from the corner of my bedroom.

I tentatively sat up to have a look.  Just as I caught sight of the creature it swivelled its entire body round to look back at me.  It was two foot high, green with a spiky head and long arms and as I stared in disbelief it grinned a huge, nasty grin full of sharp teeth.

While I thought about the fact I’d been watching Gremlins the day before it suddenly leapt across the room and landed on my chest knocking the air clean out of my lungs.  It then dropped onto its own chest, wrapped its arms around me and began to squeeze very tightly.

I tried my best to breathe but couldn’t move my chest muscles at all, the creature was holding on so strongly.  I began to panic, feeling my life ebbing away until…

I woke up, taking in a lungful of morning air in relief.  Though it felt like the creature was still on my chest, it was not, thankfully.  However, I looked across at the corner of my room, which, although it was also clear, I thought I could see… unless I was mistaken… I left my bed for a closer look… yes, claw marks in the wallpaper.

This was the first time.