The Day That Haunts My Dreams

There is this nightmare that I haven't had in years but still remember so clearly. I enter this house, it looks so familiar, but I don't recognize it. To my left is the kitchen, I take a quick peek because I hear something, in the center of the kitchen on the floor is an egg bouncing up and down but it's not breaking.

I back away from the kitchen and enter the hallway, I feel this dark presence over my body. I stand paralyzed in fear, I couldn't run back to the door, the only way to go is down the hall. At the end of the hall is a room with the door opened. In the room is a long mirror. In the mirror is a black shadow like figure with glowing red eyes. Just looking at it terrifies me to my core.

I force myself awake and as I open my eyes I feel the warmth of my tears sliding down my face. I was crying but no one noticed. No one knew of the nightmare I had struggled to escape.

Years passed with me having that exact same nightmare. I didn't tell anyone about it, too scared to even think about it. Then one day my older sister comes to me and tells me about a nightmare she had, it was my nightmare. I was young so I didn't think anything of it until a couple more years later my younger brother explained the nightmare in every detail. That's when I began asking questions. I asked my mom and so the story began.

I come from a Hispanic household. My family believed in a sickness called Mal de Ojo; it means The Evil Eye. It is when someone wishes ill intent on a person. With a baby, it's different, if you love on a baby and do not mark an invisible cross on the infant's forehead, they can get sick. This sickness looks like a normal sickness but it's not, doctors can't do anything about it.

There is this ritual where a healer passes over an egg around the baby and then cracks it into a glass of water. If the baby has Ojo, the egg will web, you put the infants belonging next to the water and pray over the baby. The thing is that praying alone is never allowed. It's best to have two or more.

When I was an infant I had gotten sick, and my grandmother knew that it wasn't just a common sickness. I had gotten Ojo. My grandmother was a healer so she knew what to do but she wasn't there at the time. It was only my mom and my aunt. My mom had to make sure my older sister and brother were okay and told my aunt not to pray by herself but she didn't listen.

My aunt prayed over me and was possessed by something evil. My mom went into the room and my aunt was not there it was something dark and once again evil. My mom proceeded to try and get me away from my aunt's arms but she wasn't letting go.

She told my mom, "He wants the baby."

The made my mom pull me from my aunt's grasp and she ran out of the room, grabbed my brother and sister, and left the house. My mom took us to my cousin's house down the road. She, my grandmother, and another one of my aunts headed back to my aunt. They had to get her to the church where she was blessed by the priest. When my aunt woke up, she didn't remember what had happened.

After hearing that, it made me realize that the nightmare I had for years was a part of my past and something I would never forget.