Day 4

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I lunged up from my sleeping position and screamed in pain. "Argh!!!" I swiped at my back to get him to stop stabbing me, the pain still evident in the holes he'd left. But then I looked around. I was back in my room, laying in bed, broad white daylight, cold winter air, and 8:00 am on the clock.

"I'm awake now…?" I looked down at my hands. They were clean, but the vivid image of bloodstains reemerged from within my imagination.

I sighed of relief.

I turned off my alarm, assuming it'd be the last time I would. The reality of morning had finally arrived. I was finally awake and gone from that horrible series of nightmares. "Maybe I should do a check up with a professional… The heir of Hattum Enterprise can't be allowed to have such brutal dreams."

I grabbed my face towel and went to the bathroom to wash my face. I soaked for longer than I normally would, giving any chance of a reminiscent from my dreams to make its reappearance. Bloody spills, a black mask, scissors, or even the raven black bird? None of it reappeared in that moment. I took it as a confirmation that I was now in reality, and not in that nightmarish loop of death and repeat.

"What an excruciatingly long dream…" I dried my face with the towel and headed downstairs. I was taking my steps slowly, almost worried that I'd be shown what I didn't want to see again. But the image of an imbecile appeared before me when I looked in the mirror at the bottom of the staircase.

"No!" I told myself. "You can't allow yourself to be affected by such nonsense. That's imbecelic behavior!" I marched into the kitchen with confidence, only to be slammed with a brick wall of a sight.

A stupid, bright orange, and a paper note with my mom's handwriting.

"AGHH!!!" My frustrations let loose in that moment. The note read the same:

{ 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 }

I tore the paper to shreds. "You're kidding, you're joking, you're kidding, you're joking, YOU'RE KIDDING, YOU'RE JOKING!!!" I picked up the orange and threw it into the trash with so much strength it shook the entire bin.

I couldn't believe it. I was still in the nightmare.

Then, like every other time I'd been through this, I heard a heavy knocking coming from somewhere in the house. This time it wasn't my room door, nor the front door, but the backyard door directly behind me. I turned around already knowing what to expect, and saw my perpetrator standing there outside the glass sliding door. His darkened black body held his tilted mask-covered head, and he stared at me with a gaze colder than the outdoor weather.

I could feel intent in the way he looked at me. He looked at me with familiarity. He then gripped the scissors in his hands tightly, as tightly as the grudge he seemingly held against me, and he raised his arm and swung forwards.

The glass door shattered open.

"W-What?!!" I saw him smash through the remaining shards of glass held by the door's frame, entering the manor where he could kill me in my own domain.

"No, no, no!" I turned around and ran. But when I saw what awaited behind me, I froze in place.

He was right there, again, waiting.

"H-How?!" I ran back the other direction. My kitchen was a dead-end. The only way forwards was through the broken glass door and out into my backyard. I hesitated movement at first, but once I heard the heavy footsteps approaching, I took off immediately. I dove through the hole in the door, having the pointy tips of glass shards slice my body on the way out, when I finally landed in the cold fluffy snow. The warmth of the blood that seeped from my scratched hips was cooled by the freezing frost that began to settle. But I wouldn't allow myself to freeze along with it, seeing as the black masked man was stepping into the snow at that moment.

"WHO ARE YOU??!" I screamed. I picked up some snow and threw it at him. To no one's surprise, there was no effect. He continued to stomp towards me, scissors gripped and readied in hand. I wanted to ask why this was happening, but I was too bewildered by what happened in the moment, what happened previously, what happened before that, and what happened before it all.

Why was I still dreaming this horrific nightmare? Maybe I would finally wake up after this final fourth time. Maybe this was the last time for it all. The end, was this it? I prayed for it, even as an atheist, I prayed for it in that slow moment of limbo before death.

SHANK—!

The blade of his scissors sank directly into my left eye.

"AGHHHHHHHH!!!" I screamed in anguish. From the persisting sight in my right eye I could see blood and tears gouging from my punctured left eye socket. The pain was so immense I could have possibly died from shock alone, had I been any older. But my young heart held on to dear life, which I cursed a hundred times and over. I wanted to die so badly in the moment. The pain I endured was absolutely dreadful and I just wanted to be put out of my misery. But the man in the black mask just looked down at me, his eyes as cold as ever, staring into the sobbing state of his prey. I continued to scream.

"AGGGGGGGGRRRHHHHHARRHHHHH!!!"

He finally came down, landing even more stabs to my stomach and my neck. I was flooding the white snow with red. It would soon look like a sea of blood. My dying warmth melted everything around me, and by the end of this agony was a prey and his predator, surrounded by the blood-soaked grass of winter time frost.

I could finally feel the last inches of life I had left, leaving my body in tiny speckles.

Freedom. What I wanted was freedom. I didn't want to wake up to the same day, with the same set of events, all over again. I wanted to wake up to a new morning, and a new day, without the pain of scissors impaling flesh. Without the cold glares of a man in black. Without the sight of viscous crimson liquid painting my vision red. Without death, or horror, anymore.

I wanted to be out of this purgatorous loop.

Death.