Tell Me, Instead

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. They are wrong. Nightmares are the true window. The eyes are but a dim reflection. To know one's true soul, know their nightmares.

I am intimately acquainted with mine.

It didn't come every night. Not at first. Just two to three nights a week. It always started the same, this nightmare. I am walking in a beautiful, wild wood that holds the promise of excitement and adventure in every direction. The sun filters through the trees, dancing along the trail as if playing a game of tag, like impish sprites, always just out of reach.

Carefree and happy as a child, I, too, dance down the trail. But always, at the edges of my vision, glimpses of shadows flit in and out. Lurking, advancing, withdrawing if I look directly at where they had been.

Only shadows. Only shadows.

After a few years, the nightmare came more frequently and began to change. Just a bit. At the end. But it changed, grew darker. The sun no longer played over the leaves and the shadows no longer withdrew. My steps grew heavy with some unknown dread, but still, I walked the trail. I woke from those nights feeling slightly uneasy. No undue concern, of course. After all, it was just a nightmare and, by its very definition, should cause at least some discomfort.

The nightmare began changing more quickly over a period of nights, however. I found myself, during my waking hours, trying to determine where it would take me next. At first, it was a delicious sort of thrill. The suspense and mystery played games in my head. I could hardly wait for the night to come to see what would happen next.

The wood became dense and the trail disappeared entirely. I could no longer see far ahead and had to fight and thrash my way through brambles, leaving smears of blood on the wickedly sharp thorns. I was fairly certain I saw old, flaking blood, not mine, on other bushes. And then, finally, I break free. Back into the sun. Ahead lay a broad, bright path. On one side, the footpath is lined with bushes, heavily laden with berries. A merry stream trips and sings its way along the other side. But to my left, almost hidden by the dense underbrush of the wood, is the mouth of a cave. Dark, mysterious, unknown...I can feel the creeping chill even from here. And every single night, I choose the cave. Scorning the bright path ahead, I am drawn to the black maw of darkness.

Every morning, I wake and ask myself why I again chose the cave. Why not flip the script? Why not choose the light? The nightmare comes every night now. I know what will happen. Some nights, before sleep claims me, I lie awake and picture that sunny pathway, full of beauty and bounty. I focus so hard on that picture that I give myself a headache. If all I see in my mind's eye is that bright trail, surely tonight I will choose to take it.

I never do. I always choose the cave. Was I always, before time began, destined to choose the darkness? Was it written permanently into my story? Did I ever really have a choice?

I enter the cave and it is just as dark and damp as the chill felt outside had promised. I am able to stand at first, and there are breaks in the rock that allow sunlight to filter through. Enough light to make out my steps and the strange, discarded detritus littering the floor of the cave. A book, rotten with age and damp, over here. A necklace there. A bag with writing utensils strewn about and broken reading glasses on top. The deeper I go, however, the lower I have to stoop. Just a slight bend, at first. The breaks in the rock are spread further apart, as well, and I have to squint to see the items still about. Like the light, they, too, are growing darker. The tiny, fragile bones of mice tossed about, charred animal skins here and there. Even the skeletal remains of a dog. Its teeth still bared in a furious snarl, its empty eye sockets track my progress down what has become a tunnel.

My every waking moment is now filled with dread. I do not know what else I will find in this cave, but I know it cannot be good. An ending, maybe? Or, perhaps, even worse, a new beginning of horror? I will myself to wake from this nightmare, but I must go on. It has full control.

I'm crawling now. The space so small and cramped that my body begins to fold in on itself. There is barely any light, just what can seep through random gaps. No...not gaps. Tiny, scraped out holes. I can just barely make out scratch marks and dried blood beside the slivers of light and air. I stumble to a halt as my searching hands find a round, rough object. Fumbling, I manage to grasp hold of it and bring it to the light. A human skull. The same staring, empty eyes as the dog, but its mouth is frozen in a twisted expression of fear and horror. Terrified, I throw it away from me onto the floor of the cave. The smashing, splintering crack joins the sound of my own scream, reverberating up and down the tunnel. Desperately, I begin to scramble out the way I had come, but there is no going back. The tunnel has sealed itself off. I try to go forward, but after a few awkward, shuffling crawls, I slam my head against rock. Smooth, seamless rock. I am sealed within this cave...this tomb. I lunge for the clawed out sliver of light, scratching and tearing at the rock. My hands are slick with blood and I can taste the iron tang of it where I bit through my lip in panic.

Just before the light dims entirely, like a dark shroud being pulled over a window, I glimpse people all in white bustling about; a bright, sterile room; bars on windows and locks on cages. Arms bound tightly to my sides, I realize my own mind is my nightmare.

The eyes only gaze outward, so do not tell me, as you sit in your easy self-righteousness, that the eyes are the window to the soul. Tell me, instead, of your nightmares.