Caught in a Nightmare

Pharai

I wrapped my arms around myself as I felt my body shiver. There was an intense chill to the air that I had only experienced during the winters back home. Yet the ground below me felt so incredibly hot that it almost felt like my back was sizzling away on the ground that could be confused to be a furnace.

When I opened my eyes, instead of being met with the white ceiling of my bedroom, I was met with the star adorned sky of the night. It took me a second to understand what was going on as I felt the wind caress my skin almost like a snake.

The feeling started from my toes crawling its way up under the cotton material of my pyjama pants. Even though my body processed it to be wind, in my mind it truly did feel like a slithering creature as it moved up my left leg.

In panic I slapped my thigh and let out a groan in pain from the harshness my hand collided with my body. I sat up and shook the material of my pants to find there truly was nothing there.

My panic, however, only seemed to rise when I looked around my surroundings. Instead of the four walls of my bedroom, I was surrounded by nothing but the sands of a desert.

My heart fell to my stomach as I looked around frantically, hoping in some way I was still close to civilization. Blood rushed to my face as once again I felt the slither of something going up both my legs this time.

Before I could even process, my body lifted from the sands as if I was possessed by an unsaid being. My left foot moved forward then landed on the soft hot sand before my right followed in pursuit.

My body started to walk on its own accord even though I tried desperately hard to resist the motion. I found myself being unable to even scream as if my mouth had been taped shut by an unstoppable force. It felt like my body and mind were two separate entities as my body continued to move forward at a slow pace.

The only part of my body I could control were my eyes. I allowed them to scan my surroundings, hoping despite the odds, I would find someone who would be able to help me.

Hoping I could find a source to this sorcery.

Instead my eyes caught sight of a flicker above a sand dune to the west. The flicker was not random but instead seemed to follow a rhythm. I counted between each interval from when the light switched on and off. After what felt like minutes I finally figured out it followed the same rhythm of a heartbeat.

My eyes enlarged as I realized my body was walking towards the flicker. This felt like one of my dreams, the strange realistic visions just like the one of the woman at the Nile. Yet this time it felt like something was guiding me. That something was beckoning me to come closer and see what was over the dune that resembled a mountain.

In this world I could barely calculate time. What I felt were minutes also felt like hours. I could not even calculate the distance I had walked because it felt like I was getting nowhere closer to the flicker of light.

Even though my body was being guided, I could still feel the exhaustion in my muscles as they screamed in agony. I would let out a grunt in pain as it felt like the soles of my feet were peeling away. I was thirsty. My stomach was growling. A headache pounded against my head so hard that I knew if I had control, I would have passed out long ago.

That was the only indication of how long I had been walking. By the way my inexperienced body was to exercise, I would guess this was how it would feel to attempt to walk a marathon.

I pleaded in my mind with whatever was controlling me. I pleaded with it to let me go because I feared at that point in time I was close to death as I felt my body slowly shut down. Every step felt like I was being torn apart and at a point as hot tears rolled down my face, I feared I was caught in a nightmare.

My whimpers echoed off the barren desert as I silently cried.

This was torture.

Suddenly just as strange as the vision started, everything turned black.

I woke up with a gasp as I sat up on my bed and placed my hand over my frantic heart. My heavy pants filled the room as I coughed and rolled on the bed in a desperate search for water. I fell off my bed then attempted to crawl to the bathroom. It truly felt like I had been stranded in the desert for weeks on end by how my body ached.

With a cry I made it to the bathroom and with shaky legs stood up to drink water from the faucet. I greedily drank as much water as I could until I felt my stomach beg for me to stop. I closed the faucet then fell to the ground as I tried to just remember how to breathe.

I looked down to my scalded feet in complete astonishment. Parts of my skin had been peeled off and painful red blisters had formed. A thin stream of blood landed on the cream tile staining the grout.

Between my toes I noticed the sand that had gathered and stuck to the open wounds. I pulled my right foot close to me to inspect it and almost fainted when I saw my own hands had the same blisters.

My heart was about to jump out of my chest at that stage as I ran my fingers over my skin. It took a few minutes to finally stand on my feet and when I saw my reflection, I wondered was it even a dream at all.