Chapter 6: The Dream

Getting a hot bath is the first and the last thing I ever wanted to do today, after this long, fun and stressful day. Thank god the waiters didn't know it's my birthday or else it's gonna be like what happened last year. You know how awkward it is when people were singing happy birthday song to you and you don't know how to react? Trust me, it's much awkward when the restaurant staff do that to you in front of everyone else in the place and uncle thought it's a good idea.

Starting your day and ending it feeling refreshed is the most majestic feeling in the world. It reminded me of my childhood rainy days of showering in the rain, jumping around in puddles and the innocence of being a child. I feel like a seven-year-old child again, ignoring everything that is happening and just running and jumping around in the rain. Just like what my childhood friends told me, "Let the rain wash away the pain of yesterday". And that is what I'm doing today. I am letting all of these worries wash away along with the water because tomorrow is going to be another day.

When I'm finished taking a shower, I returned to my room. It was on the very last room on the second floor. I carefully walked up the stairs trying to not make any noise because I don't want to disturb anyone. As I was tip toeing to my room, I saw uncle's room. His door was slightly opened, with the small light from his lamp illuminating the dark hallway. I took a peek inside and saw uncle sleeping with his laptop and lamp still on. There was a pile of documents in his desk – looks like he accidentally took a nap while trying to finish some work. He might really be finishing a lot of work especially since Christmas is coming. I wonder what is he planning for this time?

I looked on the other side and the door of the room of the twins was locked and there's no signs of human activity inside, they must really be sleeping. Well, they should be, they have 7am classes tomorrow.

I finally made it to my room. It looked exactly as how I left it this morning – really messy. It was quarter to midnight, I charged my phone and my laptop and grabbed my diary, I wrote everything that had happened to me today as my ritual every night before going straight to bed. December 9, 2019, Monday, 11:57pm.

During that night I had a dream. I was in a blank place, a place of nothingness. Just a place of pure whiteness. As I look into the distance, I saw a tunnel glowing in a silver light. I slowly walked forward, it was so quiet that the sound my feet makes when it touches the ground makes the silence crumble. After getting used to the silence, I walked faster and faster until I was running to the silver tunnel. Upon reaching the tunnel, I observed it and took a closer look. The light was being blocked by a silver transparent glass. It has poor reflecting properties but still enough to see my face. As I look at my face in the glass, I noticed that there was a golden thread tied around my face.

The thread spread out to my neck, my right arm and it stopped to my right pinky finger. I tried touching the thread with my left hand, but my finger just passed through it. On my second attempt I tried sweeping it away with my left hand, but still, nothing happened, it also just passed through it. I don't know what that is but whatever it is, it cannot be physically touched.

The golden thread started to move again, it is moving in a snake-like motion going towards my right pinky finger. I started to panic, I punched the silver glass with my right hand, which did nothing other than bruising my hand. I kept on punching it until I felt something, I feel like glass is trying to show me something. I stopped for a moment, I focused my attention on the silver glass, the more I look at it the clearer the reflection I see.

After a few seconds, it started to change its color. The silver glass tunnel was slowly starting to turn into gold. Or maybe I should say, it was strongly reflecting something behind me that looks like gold. I slowly looked behind me and saw another glass tunnel opposite to the silver one, but this time it was gold. Was it there the whole time or it just appeared out of nowhere?

I scanned the area, it was still the same - infinite nothingness. Since I had no choice, I went to the golden tunnel. The golden thread stopped moving and it shrank into a smaller thread, about 2 inches long, small enough to tie itself in a ribbon to my right pinky. My worries lessened a bit when it turned into a cute ribbon.

I am a very curious person and as I continued walking, it grows bigger and bigger. They say curiosity might kill the cat, but I am hoping I am not the cat in this situation.

After few more steps, I made it to the golden tunnel. It was facing the silver tunnel in a same exact position, opposite on each other. It also has the same features as the silver one, the golden glowing light, and the golden glass blocking it.

I looked at myself in the reflection of the glass and this time, I saw the golden thread glowing the same way the light behind the glass tunnel glows. Without thinking too much, I reached out my hand and touched the glass with my right pinky. The golden thread slowly disintegrated, turning into golden light passing through glass.

I felt calm for a moment. I took a deep breath of victory after the thread disappeared. When I thought that everything is fine, I felt a presence behind me. It was a dark and sinister presence. My curiosity kicked in again, I looked behind me and saw a shadow standing in a distance. At that moment, the calmness that I felt left my body like a car crash. I felt completely frozen from fear.

The shadow was walking towards my direction, actually no, it was floating in my direction. Was it its territory? Am I not supposed to be here? Is it going to kill me? I don't know but I'm pretty sure it's not friendly. It was wearing a dark robe, with its hood covering half of its face. Yep, not friendly. As it was getting closer to me, I was also getting closer into peeing my pants.

The shadow materializes into a person, he was about six and a half foot-tall and the only thing I can see from his face was his mouth. Upon reaching me, he raised both if his arms and inhaled deeply like he was about to curse me. After successfully peeing my pants the only thing I can do was to do a countdown before he says something terrible to me that would probably give me more reasons to piss my pants. As he was moving his head upward, I was caught up in an angle in which I can see his left eye. His eye was deep red, like it was covered with rage and bloodlust. The only thing I can do was to close my eyes and count.

5

4

3

2

1