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A Fictional Reality

'Was I still dreaming? Surely I must be.'

By Morgan Georgia BlanksPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Dreams. Fictional realities. Created from my own imagination, built from past memories. Newfound experiences that I would wake up remembering and puzzling over. They could be good, bad, funny. Even sadistic. I try not to remember the dark ones. Yet, they are the ones that I remember the most. The ones that leave you in a transient state of anxiety when you wake up. That feeling of dread when you can’t figure out whether it is real or not. It’s strange how our brains seem to reminisce our darkest memories as if they are the more powerful. Good conquers evil. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I still can’t decide whether what happened to me was good or bad. If anything the confusion was what overwhelmed me. It begged me to ask the question: Am I normal?

Dark clouds pressed in around me. A suffocating blanket. A concoction of humidity and murky white mist. I didn’t expect it to be so quiet. I expected to hear the wind, its howl, its whisper. Nothing. But I could feel it. My ears tickled by the threads of hair that the wind was blowing across my face. My skin felt damp, like I had just stepped out of a sauna.

I exhaled after a period of time trying to contain the air in my lungs. The struggle to breathe didn’t panic me like it should have. I felt more alive than anything, and once my eyes adjusted to the brightness, the view had me stunned. There it was beneath me, as the clouds began to part. A setting so picturesque it was undoubtedly on a postcard somewhere. I wanted to reach down and touch the tip of the mountain, feel the delicate snow melt on my fingertips. It was frustrating to be close enough to see it and yet too far away to feel it. I’d never seen a mountain in real life before. It struck me as almost artificial. Something that magnificent couldn’t possibly exist.

My eyes averted from the mountain having seen a sudden black flash run up my left arm. It took me a moment to realize that the black flash looked like ink, almost like a tattoo. But unlike an ordinary tattoo, the ink on my skin began to move, shifting and forming into different patterns on my freckled skin. A burning sensation soon followed once the ink had decided upon its preferred pattern. A shape like a leaf; its veins splayed across my forearm. I wiped at my skin, scratched at it. The ink would not come off. I shuddered.

A loud explosion caused me to crouch down and put my hands over my ears. The wisps of suffocating clouds growing thicker. Raindrops started to splatter onto my skin like blobs of paint. The droplets were silver and they began to cover me in glittery stains as though I were an alien. I looked in awe as the mountain below me began to warp and change shape. Blinking. The raindrops now weighing down heavy. Sinking. The clouds began to rush up like a hurricane. My hair attacked me, lashing across my face. Stinging. My arms reached out to grab onto anything that would stop me from falling. The clouds dissolved in my hands as soon as I touched them. My body succumbed to the gravity. I closed my eyes. Silence. Everything stopped.

My eyes opened with difficulty, sticky with sleep. I stretched and sat up, my bones clicking. The first thing I noticed was that my bed was slightly damp and my skin cold. Strange. I didn’t usually sweat at night. Frowning, I ran my hand over the bed-sheet. Definitely wet. My eyes then settled on the clock opposite me. Ticking away with one hand pointing to the four and the other showing that it was just after half past. Early. I didn’t feel tired. My left arm was tingling, a pins and needles tingle. I scratched at it before catching a glimpse of something dark on my skin. I didn’t let out a sound but inside I was screaming. I clawed at my skin as I stumbled from the bed to the mirror. Each scratch leaving my arm streaked with red lines and flaky white dry skin. It was still there. The tattoo from my dream. My legs stood frozen in a state of disbelief. Was I still dreaming? Surely I must be.

Eventually, I got back into bed, pulling the duvet up close around my neck and tucking my legs beneath me as I lay on my side. The recollection of what I had already dreamt of was fresh in my mind. The clouds. The mountain. The rain. The ink burning into my skin. Somehow I was still dreaming and I needed to wake up. If I went back to sleep in this dream I'd open my eyes in the morning and everything would be normal. Come on Kate, I willed myself.

Closing my eyes I hoped to succumb to sleep, anticipating the moment I would wake up again and revel in my bizarre imagination. The tossing and turning started minutes after my head fell into the pillow. My duvet began to remind me of the clouds. Suffocating. Pushing against me. I shoved them away and checked my arm. The black leaf was so dark, so permanent that it couldn’t be real.

As the light began to push through the gaps in my blind, sleep surpassed me.

To be continued...

fantasy
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About the Creator

Morgan Georgia Blanks

Author of 'The Desert Island', a children's book published at eleven year's old. Been writing ever since.

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