An Illusion of Reality

The dreams always start the same way. A birthday party – my birthday party, I think. It's definitely not what I would now choose for a party – I've outgrown pinatas and musical chairs a long time ago. There are faces of people who I’ve since moved on from. They change each night, but also feel the same. Sometimes, it's my mum that greets me. Others, it's people from school or family members I rarely see, Once, it was Santa Claus.

Last night, it was the face of my childhood best friend Amanda that greeted me at the door. That’s how it always starts, with me opening the door for the last guest to arrive. I knew her face was Amanda’s, but I spoke to her as if she was a distant family member I’ve only ever seen in pictures. I felt her cold hands on my bare arms as she pulled me in for a loose hug, then air kissed me on the cheek, leaving a stale stench of old cigarettes lingering in the air.

I took a small breath through my nose and turned away, letting Not-Amanda past into the narrow corridor of the mismatched house we were standing in.

Dreams are strange that way. The house reminded me of the Tardis from Doctor Who. It looked like a disfigured version of my grandmother’s old bungalow – one story, severely overgrown with thorns and flowers climbing over the roof, and windows that are missing all of the glass.

The door was different on the outside too – it was blue and chipped, hanging from one rusty hinge. Inside, however, it was almost the opposite. Pale orange, finished with gold. A stained-glass window of a cat stood in the centre, moving in the flickering sunlight. The sun had long since sunk below the horizon line when outside the house, too; but inside, it's always lit like evening is slowly approaching.

The corridor I stood in wound through the house, curving like a snake from the front door to the garden at the back. The wonky checkerboard wallpaper started peeling away from the walls as I walked past, my mind spinning from the hallucinatory effect. I could feel grass under my feet, through the heavy boots I looked down to see myself wearing. They looked exactly like the work boots my dad used to wear at construction sites, but they were huge on my tiny kid-sized feet.

I followed Not-Amanda to the garden behind the house, past a grand winding staircase and an old grandfather clock with animal shapes instead of numbers around the edge. The little hand was pointing to a silhouette of a sheep, which was in place of the 3, and the big hand was pointing straight up at a horse. This was the same time each time – 3 o’clock on the dot. A cuckoo bird jumped out of the small door above the clock face the moment I stepped before it. It was faded black, dripping a strange green liquid from its frozen beak. The blank eyes followed me until I stepped through the door.

Not-Amanda spoke with the voice of a middle-aged woman, not a pre-teen, as she welcomed me to my own birthday party. She thrust a badly-wrapped parcel into my hand, which immediately started wriggling in the torn brown paper. I crouched down to put it on the floor and watched as an animal emerged and scurried across the patio. It had eight legs, like a spider, but was fluffy like a cat. It had long ears that flew out behind it and had the breathy sound like a dog running to catch a squirrel.

I leaped back, away from the creature, and almost collapsed into a man stood far to close. His hands caught me and steadied me to my feet. His mouth was open in a wide smile, too wide; rows and rows of teeth as sharp as daggers glistened out of his Joker-wide smile. Something flickered behind his eyes – not metaphorically, no – something moved behind his pupils. I only caught a glimpse before it disappeared, but it sent a chill through my bones. I leaned away from the man, and recognised this face as the sleazy manager I worked for when I was sixteen. He was rude and had no sense of personal space, but at least he had normal teeth. Not this version of him.

I excused myself and walked away, still feeling the print of his palm on my back.

The party was in full swing. A bouncy house stood tall between two large identical trees on the grass. I recognised those trees from the field outside my primary school; they were cut down after a branch fell and landed on a student during morning recess. It was something I hadn’t thought about for years – the girl ended up in hospital for a week recovering from it and had problems with her lungs for years after that accident. It was awful.

The trees both had those branches still attached, and as the children jumped up and down on the bouncy house beside it, the branches started to shake. I tried to rush over there, to say something, but my shoes were suddenly sucked into the wooden planks as if they were quicksand. I fell deeper into the ground, my knees disappearing in a matter of seconds. I shrieked and twisted my body around, clawing at the floor. Hands reached out to pull me up, laughing as if it was a silly mishap. I struggled to catch my breath once I was free, and realised the boots hadn’t followed me out. My frilly white socks were torn and dirty, splotches of red decorating them as if a child had designed them.

I laughed it off, shrugged and carried on to the trees. When I looked up, the dangling branches were no longer dangling from the tree, and were lying haphazardly on the now deflating bouncy house. Three children were lying beneath them, still as statues and oozing blood. The other children continued to leap around, screaming with delight when they were tossed like rag dolls around the collapsing structure.

A rise of singing came from the house, and I turned from the tragic sight to see everyone else standing, staring straight at me. Unblinking, smiling the same creepy smile as the man from before. A woman at the front of the crowd was holding a cake resembling a picnic basket, with several candles already burned halfway down placed around the edge.

They took three synchronised steps towards me and were singing a distorted version of ‘Happy Birthday’ through their wide toothy smiles. I stood and grinned at the cake, waiting for the song to end. The candles continued to burn down, dripping wax between the woven wicker of the basket.

The children from the bouncy house joined the group, adding their own high-pitched voices to the cacophony. As I leaned close to blow out the remaining candles, I felt a cold shiver slither across my back, starting from the handprint on my dress. A terrible sense of dread washed over me like a wave, but before I could move away from the cake, his hand came back, and pushed me forward.

The basket cake opened, and I fell inside, through the darkness. Laughs and shrieks of the party goers quietened as I tumbled through, feeling like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole. The spider creature ran past me, grazing my leg with its sharp claws, and I was knocked into the edge of the never-ending tunnel.

I shot up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. I felt my heart beating too fast in my chest, and took several deep breaths to steady myself.

It's always the same dream, for as long as I could remember. I've not been able to get used to it, though. The house, the people, the cold feeling that runs me over - I can't get used to it.

I tried to lie down and close my eyes, but I couldn't help myself. I rolled over and looked at the alarm clock glowing red on my beside table.

3.00am.

Again.