Night Mares.

Night falls. The last remnants of twilight creep across the sky, slowly, silently, a retreat from its losing battle against the night. One more day in the eternal struggle between the forces of light and darkness. I feel my dread rising, almost as if it were threatening to suffocate me. I almost wish it would succeed. I pray, but I know not to whom, not anymore. I lay in the comfort and dubious safety of my bed, whose sheets have long since been soaked through with my sweat. And tears.

It is no secret that there are hours in seconds and years in minutes, on both extremes of expectation. I must have aged millenia caught in the in-between. Maybe tonight it will finally be over. Maybe it will never end. Then I heard the sound, carried on the wind, mingled with the smell of the sea. I could never look upon the sea again, and not feel the taint.

White, red, black and pale, they rode up to me. Some people say that after dread, anything that finally happens is actually relief, because nothing can be worse than the bad thoughts in your head. They are wrong. I screamed as they picked me up and carried me away, until I could scream no longer, and still I tried.

I imagine we must have travelled vast distances, for with every blink I would open my eyes to different landscapes of different worlds, both wondrous and terrifying. There was once I gleamed a world where there were little lights turned on around me in all directions, and yet there was too an endless darkness stretching into infinity. Those little pinpricks of lights were pleasantly reassuring, but the overwhelming darkness made me feel so small anyway.

Whoa! We came to a stop. I had come now to the edge of my dreamscape. This was where my dreams took shape and my nightmares came to life. Living a dream life, everything else forgotten, I might be a doctor one day, or an astronaut another, and be living in a house by the river, or in the mountains, never by the sea, with the woman of my dreams, whose face I could never remember. That's how it always begins, with me perfectly happy. Then the spectres appear, dark apparitions I can only see from the corner of my eyes.

Then the monsters. In any guise, in any size. The hounds with their otherwordly cries, on the Last Hunt. A beautiful child who'd have been perfect if not for the stitching around her neck and her shoulders and her waist, and who had buttons for eyes. An abomination who could only have been from a child's nightmare, but who'd always been lurking around the back of my head, all twenty metres of it, with elongated fangs and sharp claws, and horns and scales and blood soaked wings.

Everynight we performed the same ritual, like a grand dance in the ballroom of my mind, whose dancers wearily execute the same steps over and over again. My dream world gradually gets overrun, my house by the river, or in the mountains, would be razed. The woman of my dreams would be torn from my arms and I would not be able to bear looking at her fate, and I would clamp my eyes shut in horror, the final betrayal of the woman whom I would have loved beyond words. And they would close in on me, and I'd be able to feel their hot breath on my cheek, and the gnashing of their teeth, then I'd wake up with the sun shining on my face and my alarm ringing.

And then it'd be night again. An endless cycle of bliss and loss. Then one day I entered the dream, and I knew how it would all end, right from the start. I gazed upon all that I had around me, and I saw with frightening clarity how everything would get swept up by the fury of my nightmares. And I saw too the woman of my dreams, and this time I told myself, no, I cannot forget her face this time, so I focused on each and every one of her features, from her ears, to her lips, her nose, all of it, and lastly the eyes. Eyes so beautiful they could not be of this world.

Go. Go away, I said. She half turned around in surprise, her lips half open as she could not find the words to respond. No. No I won't, she said. The words, the way she said it, broke my heart and almost too my resolve. I took a deep breath, and continued. You have to go. You can't stay here. I don't want you by my side. It destroyed me to say those words, but I had to. I wanted to hold her close and cry into her hair but I couldn't. I stood where I was.

Okay. She nodded. I'm sorry. And she left.

It took all I had, and I was left staring blankly at the walls of a once-perfect house. Awaiting what I knew was inevitably coming. I took solace from the fact that she wouldn't be caught up in it this time. She didn't deserve to have to face my nightmares. That was my job. So I waited. For what had to happen eventually. Except that it didn't.

The sun was up but it felt different. I couldn't seem to recall anything of last night, except the knowledge of what exactly didn't happen.

And then once again night was fast approaching. I didn't know what to expect. Here, now, seasalt in the wind. But there was nothing else but silence. No rumble of approaching hooves. So I stepped out and this is what I saw.

White, red, black and pale they were. And three of four were dead. Sitting astride the pale horse was a woman. She turned to look at me. Her eyes. Your nightmares will haunt you no longer, nor your dreams. I nodded mutely, but I couldn't take my eyes off hers. And then I knew. It must have shown on my face for she then said, Weren't you happy? Everynight, you got to live your dream life. Everynight, you got to love.

Yes, I was. But I was also afraid.

Okay. She nodded. And she left.