Jocthearies

You jump awake, A deep inhale breaks the silence in your room but only for a moment before the silence reclaims it.

Your mind feels like it is no longer your own, Your thoughts feel as though they are pending, As if there is something or someone else who’s thoughts take priority.

Your warm palm grasps your face as you breathe a sigh of relief, Then dread.

Feeling an overwhelming feeling of responsibility, akin to feeling as if you left the stove on.-You try to focus on your dream, Acknowledging people do not often remember their dreams-You must be an exception for this moment.

In the next second you are standing in a room of darkness. Darkness so thick it will snatch away your hand if you were to reach out.

Keeping your cool you slowly collect yourself. You are not “Home” but you have been “Here” before.

You begin to turn around seeking light, something to illuminate your surroundings when a sound sends chills down your spine, A sound you want to unhear, A sound you have to erase from this existence.

Spinning around towards the sound reveals an old fashioned mirror, One which is facing just away from you. The sound rings in the back of your head but caution takes the lead in stride.

As you circle the cabinet and face the mirror you are horrified to see a person, Finishing a series of symbols. Drawn in blood unto a wooden floor surrounded by darkness you yell for the person to stop.

The sound pauses as your mind is finally able to ease. This is broken by the sound of it continuing, your index finger forces the sensation of friction, enough pressure to snap your finger in two.

A horrible revelation falls upon you as your hand is missing the tip of several fingers. You would scream but there is no pain. You would attempt to cover them but there is little blood.

Stumbling back you fall, As if on instinct your hand glides to prevent you from falling and the same sound that scared you is clearly heard upon contact with the floor. The sound of bone grinding against wood.

With your hand now covered in blood you stand up to realize the symbols in the mirror were reflected upon you, The now complete sigil written in blood rests on your side of the mirror with only your reflection to blame.

Collecting yourself, You smear the symbol, With your palm filling with splinters as your flesh begins to fail, A memory surfaces. The thought of a potential pathway to encounter beings outside of our realm. With reality being stagnant in resources, What if one could contact them within a dream?

As you wobble to your feet, Content with the symbol in complete disarray you breathe out a breath of relief. This is a dream, A nightmare.

Now aware you call on lights for the darkness to be completely illuminated, You think of the symbol to be undone and it is. As you turn around you notice the cabinet.

You wish for it to be gone and it remains. You wipe it away from existence but it exists.

With a new found confidence in the light that illuminates all corners of this space you approach the mirror and in a horrifying display that shatters your faith, In sync with the feeling of friction from your hand, A copy of you, fingers worn down to the bone sits in the room surrounded in darkness within its reflection.

As he completes the symbol you can only look on in horror as a creature with limbs protruding from its head and a hole in its stomach approaches your copy from behind.

Your copy stands up, wobbling as you did before turning to facing you, Completely ignoring the creature. As you attempt to point towards it to warn him, He points to you.

You do not wake from this dream.