• I awoke into nothingness, sweat trickling down my face. The moonlight cast an illuminating glow over the contents of my room, making everything look soft and pearly -- surreal, like a dream. Like the one I’d just had, only much, much better. The mannequin that stood upright in the corner looked menacing in the near darkness, a shadow of a person, watching silently. I shivered, but not just because of the eerie figure, but because of the chill wind I’d just felt tickle my neck. Soundlessly, I turned and glanced over at my window and noticed my curtains rippling in the breeze. Weird, I thought. I remember closing that before I went to sleep.
    Shaking myself from my thoughts, I slipped out of bed and padded across my carpeted floor over to my mirrored walls, where wild eyes stared back at me. Who was this person in the mirror? Crazed look, hair a mess, sallow looking skin. I recognized none of these features, yet at the same time did; this was what nightmares turned you into.
    My dream had started out with myself alone in a dark room, as it always had. The same voice called to me, a melodic female voice. I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but I knew that I wanted to. That I NEEDED to. “Let me out!” I had screeched, pounding on the bare black walls with my fists. Then, for the first time, a door I hadn’t realized was there opened. It opened slowly, with a shudder and a groan like an old man would rise from his rocking chair. My screaming ceased, and I stood rigid, frozen in place with terror.
    “The sun rises with a glow
    Innocent and sweet
    And ends with her life
    Not a wail but a squeak”
    The voice sang out, sweet and clear, like a sirens song. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I was positive this wasn’t what the voice was saying before. I knew that my time had run out to fix everything. The warning of something to come was being replaced by a tune so melodic and yet so threatening. I almost felt as if the voice was taunting me, playing a sick game fun to no one but it’s creator. Try harder, it spat, you know the answer.
    I didn’t, though. I rubbed my eyes firmly, pounded on my skull with my fist, yet no answers came to me. What could possibly be going on?
    Fine, it pouted like a sulky child, not good for you, then.
    A hand came around the door first; rotting with bits of flesh hanging off. The arm came next, then another, and then the worst thing possible happened -- the thing rounded the corner, stepping into the confining room slowly. All my zombie nightmares as a child were put to shame by this hideous, monstrous creature. Every bit of it was rotting, but I didn’t need to see it to know that, because the smell was so vile it took everything I had to stop from doubling over and gagging. It was like vomit, rotting corpses, dumpsters, and all the other wretched smells in the world combined into one. My eyes watering painfully, I looked back up to see it’s sallow green skin and deformed body shambling slowly towards the opposite end of the room. Another door appeared, but before entering the zombie turned it’s head slowly… ever so slowly… to look straight at me. I gasped aloud and fell to the floor with a thud that echoed throughout the room. It wasn’t the black red pools of blood where it’s eyes should’ve been, or that it had knifes buried in it’s face, but something far worse. Because I knew who this creature was supposed to be -- it was supposed to be me.
    It wasn’t the kind of thing that you mistake. Before I could react further, it suddenly charged into the next room as if possessed by supersonic speed. I saw the hatchet in it’s hand far too late.
    “NO!” my fathers voice screamed hysterically.
    I ran with sudden strength, pounding over to the next room. My footsteps made an eerie echoing sound. Slap, slap, slap.
    A wail from my father, a squeak from my mother. My world was filled with red and I woke up.
    A sudden gust of wind pulled me from my recollection of my nightmare, chilling my spine from head to toe. I glanced around fearfully, as if once again afraid of the monsters I used to believe were hiding under my bed. I was being ridiculous. Shaking my head ruefully, I went into the bathroom attached to my room and began to splash my sweaty face with water. I swore I heard the women’s voice singing again, but I was surely mistaken.
    Stormy gray eyes blinked back at me, a twin to my own in the mirror. Flaming red hair cascaded down my shoulders and to my back in a slightly wavy locks that reminded me of the sea on a calm day. I had always hated my hair, but now I truly despised it -- hair that resembled blood.
    “The sun rises with a glow
    Innocent and sweet
    And ends with her life
    Not a wail but a squeak”
    There it was again! I whipped around to make sure no one was standing behind me, but there was only an empty expanse of floor tiles. A creak from a door across the hall. I definitely didn’t imagine that. Something was dreadfully wrong, and I needed to know what. Charging from my room and into the un-lit hall, I spun wildly in circles, searching for something that probably wasn’t there. My wild breathing slowly fell into a smooth rhythm as I fell back against the wall.
    I smelled it before I saw it. The vomit, rotting corpse smell was back, but magnified times two -- and immensely close, too close for comfort. I knew what was going on a fraction too late.
    “NO!” my fathers voice screamed hysterically.
    “A wail from her father,
    A squeak from her mother,
    Alone in their minds
    Now they do not have each other”
    The tune was the same, but the lyrics had changed. I entered my parents room to confirm what I had known all along.
    My mothers dead, chopped up body.
    My father sobbing over her bits and pieces.
    The zombie like figure, in some twisted last memento, lifted it’s only remaining finger on it’s left hand to it’s half eaten lips.
    Shhh.
    I knew that I had killed my mother. This disaster was my fault. The window, I remembered dazedly. It had come through the window… my window…
    The disease that targets your nightmares, turns them to reality.
    I had the Nox.