Chapter 20
Another Vision
That night I experienced something horrible. Again I was in bed. Again I was trying to sleep and I might have managed it. If I did then that was the last bit of sleep I got that night.
I’d like to say that I had another dream.
It wasn’t because I was awake.
I was in a small dark tunnel. At least I assumed that it was a tunnel as I couldn’t see. What I understood though is that I felt trapped. Completely trapped. And I wanted to get out. My hands were held across my chest as there was no room to put them by my side. I was laid on my back with my head facing upwards. The inside of this tunnel felt smooth and damp and moist.
And I could smell blood. Don’t ask me how I knew it was blood. I just did. It had a sweet, iron smell, something like how blood tastes. It was horrible. It made me gag. For a few seconds I lay there terrified and uncertain, blinking into the total darkness.
Then a voice. Or what sounded like a voice. Muffled. Low. Far away. Somehow it felt comforting. Soothing. With that voice the dark, damp space became less threatening.
Then the voice began to moan. A moan that quickly became a scream of pain. I squirmed in my prison but I couldn’t move.
The screams carried on and I screamed back and struggled and struggled.
Suddenly movement.
The walls of the tunnel moved and twisted around me. I couldn’t see them but I heard and smelt them. It all felt like some horrible ride at a fairground.
And the muffled voice above screamed.
And I screamed back
And drops of moisture that tasted like blood dropped into my open mouth.
And I began to move. Slowly at first. So slowly that I wasn’t sure if I was really moving at all. But with all my twisting and turning and struggling and the walls of this tunnel alive with movement, I slid slowly downwards.
The speck of light at my feet seemed like a spot of gold paint at first. Became bigger and bigger, and me squirming and screaming harder and harder and the voice above bellowing in what seemed like agony. The light got nearer and the walls of the tunnel became so soft that I managed to turn myself around so I could see where I was going.
Then my head was free and I gulped fresh air, my eyes squinting into the light. With a squelch I was out of the tunnel and lying face down on something soft. Something that smelt of...
…old carpet and cat pee.
I turned my face upwards and rolled over to get away from the smell and to try and find out where I had come from. It was dark and I was surprised to see the shapes of some old coats hung on what seemed like nails hammered into a brick wall.
I sat up and looked about. I was in a very small space. A cupboard. Yes, it was definitely a cupboard. I could reach each corner from where I was sitting. It was not quite dark though as there was light coming from a dim bulb on the stump of a lamp left on the floor. The hanging coats I could touch although there didn’t seem to be much else apart from a plate, a mug and a bucket placed near the shade-less lamp. If I leaned forward I could touch the plastic of the bucket. But I didn’t. It looked like it was placed there for a reason. A reason I didn’t want to think about.
And how did I feel?
It’s not easy putting how I felt into words. I had to remember that this wasn’t me and that I’d just been ‘born’ into the mind of someone else.
I have never felt this way before or since.
I, or this person I was inside of, was petrified and confused. It seemed like all the nightmares and fears ever had been poured into a giant bowl, mixed and somehow injected into shaking veins. I felt cold and hungry. I also wanted - wanted more than anything - the heavy wooden door set in the wall to open so I could escape. But I was scared that if it should open it would let in something far worse than the spiders lurking in the corners of this horrible place.
I feared that the most. I feared what was moving about beyond the door. I feared the power of the people out there. What they could do to me and what they threatened they could do.
I realised that I was sobbing uncontrollably, sobs that were in no way meant for the ears of who or what was beyond the door. They were tears of despair. Of hope lost. A film with a terrible ending. I looked upwards and when the yellowed paint of the dim cupboard roof supplied no answers the tears and the sobs went on and on and on….
…and I woke up panting, clutching at my chest with a mixture of sweat and tears running their feint nails down the sides of my face and back. Relief flooded in and I scrambled for the light and turned it on and spent the rest of the night restless and wondering and afraid of the dark.