Day 3

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I sat up, gasping for air and reaching for my neck with desperation. I could feel it, a viscous liquid dripping down from under my jaw all over my lap. I brought my hands to my face; they were a deep, deep red.

"B-Blood!" I screamed. I shook uncontrollably at the sight with fear and adrenaline, wiping my hands repeatedly across my bedsheets. When I finally took control of my breathing, I opened my eyes to the bright cold air that wrapped my room. It was awfully quiet.

I coughed, expecting to gurgle blood.

"H-Huh…?" I touched my neck. It wasn't wet anymore, nor did it feel weighed and heavy. It lacked the serration I'd imagined from a pair of scissors slicing across my throat, yet I could still feel the underlying pain from it. I then looked back at my hands, noticing that they were clean and stain-free.

"Where did the blood go…?" My voice croaked nervously. My bedsheets were as clean as I'd left it too. I was then overturned by the constant noise of an alarm blaring in my ears. The time on my digital clock across the room read 8:00 am.

"Was it a nightmare…?" I turned off my alarm. This was the third time I'd woken up this way, on the same day, at the same time.

I brushed it off.

Self-conscious about the thought that blood still stained my neck, I went to the bathroom and checked the mirror.

Nothing.

I washed my face and cleaned up anyways. I rubbed my face aggressively with the exfoliant my mom had provided me, as if I was trying to clean out something that wasn't actually there. When I was done cleansing my face, I looked up at the mirror, and saw red, all over me.

Blood.

"W-Whoa!" I staggered backwards. The vision disappeared as quickly as I'd seen it. For an instant moment I'd seen blood spilled across my white tank-top. The floors were bloody too. My normally white bathroom resembled a red room. It was frightening.

"Am I imagining things…?" I was taken back by the nightmare I'd had. Was it one, or two nightmares? It was like a nightmare inside of a nightmare. I was confused.

"Whatever, whatever… It was all just a bad dream…" I slapped each side of my face as hard as I could. I was now awake as can be. "Forget about it. Move on, it was just a dream!"

I left the washroom, still disoriented from my succession of nightmares. Both were equally vivid in my head. They felt like they were memories I'd experienced in my life already. They felt so real. I walked into the kitchen, drained of any effort to think about my worries anymore. If I let my mind wander in fear for too long, I'd come close to becoming an imbecile.

As if I'd let that happen.

"Me? An imbecile? Never." I let out a slight scoff at the thought, which slowly dwindled down to silence when I saw what sat on my kitchen table.

An orange, and a small slip of paper.

With absolute disbelief in what I saw, I rushed over to pick up the paper and read what was written:

{ Your father and I will be tending to business priorities in Xavier District for the next month or so. We don't know exactly when we'll be back, but you can take care of yourself anyways. I've bought enough fruits to last you a daily breakfast for at least a month. But they only had oranges available at the store we shop at. It's okay though, you like oranges anyways, right? Eat healthy while we're gone.

- Mother }

"Y-You're fucking joking…" I stuttered. My hand shook as I held the paper, so I dropped it back onto the table. "And always this fucking orange!!!" I picked it up and whipped it into the garbage bin.

"Why… Why?!" I stumbled backwards and fell to the floor, seated against the wall, clutching my curly hair with agitation and undesired fear. Quick glimpses from my nightmares flashed by my mind in quick succession, reminding me of the brutal deaths that followed this exact same pattern of a day in previous visions.

"A-Am I dreaming still!??"

I was scared. I didn't want to feel that pain again. The pain of my neck opening to reveal its anonymous innards, painting the walls that were stated to remain clean by my parents.

"WHY?!" My nails had dug into the sides of my head. I'd lost control of my stress, gripping my head all too tightly. "Why is this happening again…? The exact same thing, happening again, for the third time now!!!"

My panic was interrupted by a heavy knock to the front door of the manor.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

It was the same heavy knock from my dream. I hesitated to move, but eventually my body was in motion. I didn't even bother trying to check who was past the blurry glass window of the front door, so I ran past and made a bolt up the stairs. The only place I could think of hiding was in my room. It was my safe-place.

I ran through the entry to my room and slammed the door behind me, locking it and ensuring that it was locked. The knocking by now had finally stopped, so I was semi-relieved.

"Phew…" I noticed that the blinds to my windows were closed, which I didn't recall doing. I remembered them being wide open when I'd first woken up, not that it mattered to me in the moment, because if anything, closed blinds were doing a favor for me by keeping me hidden.

Eventually, curiosity bit my neck, so I took a glimpse past the blinds to the front of my house, only slightly lowering the shutter enough so just my eye could peak through. From the limited area that I could see, there was no one outside the manor. In fact, I'd just remembered that there was an entire gate surrounding the property to the manor, which I saw to be closed and shut from its entrance.

"No one should be able to get past that…" I reassured myself. Yet, that very thought worried me all the more. If no one should be able to get past the gate, why was there someone knocking aggressively at the front door?

I gulped.

Tap.

A familiar faint sound hit the window across from me, so I walked over slowly and checked what was outside. There was a raven seated on the window still.

"Oh, the same bird from my repeated dreams…" That's when I began to unravel my own conclusion for the moment.

"I'm still dreaming, aren't I…?"

My frown suddenly turned upside down. I let out a little giggle of relief. "I must still be in this weird loop of a nightmare, right? No wonder I've been seeing such weird things still, It's because I'm still in the dream! I am now lucid!"

I jumped onto my bed with giddiness, knowing I'd wake up in this very spot again once this horror was all over, except at that time, in the real world.

"Ah…" I dreamt of the idea with bliss. Though the idea of dreaming within a dream sounded odd to me. This thought was overshadowed by the comfy sensation of my oversized duvet, enveloping my body.

"This feels just like the real thing." I noticed how oddly surreal my senses were in this dream world. From what I could see, to what I could hear, to what I could feel, all of it was so realistic.

Especially the feeling of having your throat slit open.

I cringed, and shuddered at the thought. It reminded me that if this were following the same format as my previous loops of the dream, then I may experience that sensation once more. I decided that it'd be best to get it over with, and face my death right away so I could escape this hell of a dream. It would be the only escape from this current purgatory, at least that's what I thought, and what I wished.

That wish was answered immediately.

When I lifted my face from my pillow and turned around to the backside of my room, I saw him standing there.

A black-clothed figure, dawning a black mask that covered his face. From what I'd seen the first time, his eyes were visible. But because he stood against the light coming from the window behind him, he looked nothing more than a silhouette.

I was induced with an unnatural amount of fear in seeing him. Although I couldn't see his eyes, I could feel the cold glare pressing against my neck. I could already tell what he was aiming for.

I made a sprint for my door, realizing that although it was what I'd initially wished, I didn't want to experience death the way he gave it again. Now that I faced death itself, my mind opposed the idea completely. I didn't want to die, even if it was just in a dream.

I didn't want to feel that pain again.

I struggled to get the door open. With fear seeping throughout my body, I failed to remember that I'd locked the door. With panic overtaking my thoughts in the moment, I didn't even take a moment to check that the knob was locked. I only twisted it with urgency.

Heavy footsteps approached me slowly, in a horrific tantalizing way. When I'd lost hope in getting the door opened, I turned around, coming face to face with the black mask.

SHLRK—!

My throat was slashed across, and I felt the same abhorring pain all over again.

"Ack—!" I tried to scream, but it was to no success with the blood that now began to flood my esophagus. It gurgled and bubbled from my mouth, splattering against the door I banged on, while hoping for freedom from this purgatory. My life was quickly draining away, and I slowly lost all feeling in my legs, to my arms, and finally the rest of my body, which fell limp towards the floor.

Thud!

A single, heavy foot stomped over me. I could tell by his presence that he was standing right over me.

"Free…dom…" The words barely left my mouth. I believed I could finally awaken from this painful nightmare now. I believed the end was soon.

SHANK—!

He lunged down onto me, stabbing the scissors directly into my back, over and over again, painting my body with bloody holes all over.

Death.