“Scary Red Balloon”

When I was a child, I suffered terribly with bad dreams. At least, I was told they were dreams. The first time I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of knocking coming from my closet, I got out of bed and walked across the room. I stood quietly, staring at the closet door. The door rattled hard. I stood back and gasped with horror. "The never silence," hello," I said cautiously, grasping the handle. I slowly pulled the closet door open, but no one was there. I told my parents what happened, and they said not to worry, as it was just a bad dream. But a few nights later, I was again woken from my sleep by someone calling out my name. The whispering voice was coming from the closet. I walked over to it and tentatively opened the door. There was nothing but darkness. But in that darkness stood what looked like a figure of a clown. It seemed a long way away, and it was waving before it broke into a little tap dance. Then it stopped, and it began to run towards me. As it got closer, I could see a horrible, monstrous look upon its painted face. I screamed and panicked, slamming the closet door shut. My parents rushed into the room where I was crying, curled up in a ball on the floor. These visions continued on and off throughout my childhood. I have no idea how and why they started. I was taken to doctors and psychiatrists, where I was always assured they were just dreams. As I got older, the dreams did get less and less, and when I reached adulthood, they appeared to have stopped altogether. Until one night at university, I woke in the middle of the night, and there standing over me was the clown from my childhood, holding a red balloon. "Hello, Jack, remember me?" I closed my eyes and said over and over to myself, "It's just a dream, it's just a dream." And when I opened my eyes, the clown had gone. But when I sat up in bed the next morning, tied to the end of my bed was a red balloon.

When I was a child, I hated thunderstorms. Even today as an adult, I squirm every time I hear a clap of thunder. It all started when I was about eight years old on one rainy night, the day of my best friend's funeral, who had been hit by a car a few weeks before. I laid in bed, falling asleep, listening to the wind and rain. I could see the shadows of tree branches dancing eerily on the walls. Then I must have fallen asleep because in my dream, I heard a tapping sound at my window. I sat up with a start and looked anxiously around the darkness of my room. I got up and walked slowly over to the window and drew back the curtain. Outside, in the wind and rain, was the vision of my best friend. He asked me to open the window, but I shook my head and told him that he wasn't real. But then he started crying and pleading, "Please let me in, please let me in." I shook my head again but found myself reaching out to the handle. And as I was about to turn, a bolt of lightning lit up the face of what not, black, a rotting zombie. I gasped with horror and slowly stepped backwards away from the window. The rotting corpse's face had returned to the friendly, familiar face of my best friend. He was again pleading for me to let him in, but I couldn't. I turned and ran and hid under the bed covers, covering my ears and squeezing my eyes tightly shut. But then the covers were slowly pulled away from me. I opened my eyes, and there, standing in front of me, was my best friend, his face flickering in the light from normal to zombie. The window was wide open, and all sorts of zombie and skeleton-type figures were climbing through, heading towards me. I screamed as loud as I could. Then my parents woke me from my nightmare, but the odd thing is the window was wide open, with the storm blowing inside. And to this day, I swear I never opened it.

I was home alone; my parents had gone out for the evening. I had been playing video games for most of the night. I was beginning to feel sleepy when all of a sudden, the lights around the house began to flicker. I stood up and looked around the room. It was the same room, but it didn't feel right, and I felt strange, like one reality had changed to another. Then I noticed something move on the wall, except it wasn't on the wall; something was moving inside, pressing against the surface. I walked slowly over to the wall, and when I touched it, it felt soft and rubbery, and I felt something drip onto my face. I looked up, saw a slimy substance had formed all over the walls and ceilings. Then all of a sudden, the wall in front of me broke open, and the face of a creature unlike I had ever seen before broad its way into the room. I stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. Everywhere was covered in slime, and there were creatures breaking out of the walls all around me, screeching and roaring. Then the next thing I knew, my parents were waking me up on the sofa. I jolted with a start. I looked around the room; everything had returned to normal. I told my parents I was fine, but I was scared and confused. This same dream happened several more times throughout my childhood, and it seemed to be always when I fell asleep playing video games late at night.

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