The Keeper of Dreams

Sarah couldn’t call her nights. Every time she gave it a thought, it was the priority crawl to the same, but notions, gentle image. It was with her for months now – too many months – but it was a frame, but away from her reach was its core. All of the nights began in nearly the same way. It was autumn, and she stood on the edge of an old forest. Trees were tall and impressive, with them casting a procession that was majestic in its tranquillity. It was cloudy later in her vision. She couldn’t see past five meters ahead. The only thing that was certain was gentle rustling of the wind somewhere far from her, through the branches of a tree. The trail was thin, barely a line in the darkness, but she knew – she was drawn to it. It was still, but it was cold. As she walked, the trail became colder, and the darkness around became denser. The branches became closer to her, snapping and creaking in the wind, but there was nothing more than the noise of wind in the branches. They were over the path, so close she saw their branches she shivered. The cold did not take her that way – it was the dread. She knew. She knew it was soon. And yet she could not stop it. It was a clearing, just old, dry grass. That was aplled with old stones. So old, they forgot how to new be. And the figure. Dark, it was. Who knew how she saw its eyes from under the hood and darkness – but it was red. Red streaks of such a shade in the darkness stemming from the figure’s eyes. Gaping, horribly as if taking far more than possible. Taking far more than possible. And she was afraid. And every night the dream continued past her dream’s end – and she remained there.

And then the figure would raise a hand, and from the darkness behind it, whispers would rise. They were voices, twisted and cruel, and they repeated the exact same thing: “You are not enough. You will never be enough.” The words cut into her ears, down through the healed layers of who she was, and they carved themselves a new person. She cried, forced her eyes to squint through the ice-cold tears, and woke up as they were pounding on her chest, trying to escape her heart. This only happened at night. During the day, Sarah was everything but. She was an architect; her colleagues adored her for precision, her clients – for being innovative. But that dream was ultimately too much. She could not brush off the figure. She could not forget its shadow. She had troubles with remembering where she was; the forest always sucked her back into itself, and the figure stood there. She was constantly irritated, snapping at those who cared about her over the smallest things; already exhausted, she winced at the nights to come. The therapist told her it was just a dream; her imagination got ahead of her, especially with the additional stress from work. But it was too real. Too… conclusive. It was as if someone – or something – was trying to tell her something. So Sarah decided to listen to anything or anyone that might have the answer. She spent months researching; old forests, ancient legends, and beliefs – she read old folk tales and myths, and then she found it.

Sarah’s bad dream, no, that didn’t feel like a bad dream. That was a bad dream. There. Sarah was confident that it was the response to her anguish: the clue. She could rarely whisper the New Moon question – couldn’t recognize how strong she wanted to be. And this night, in every space, opposite everything in herself and every scream of her being, Sarah whispered.

-Who are you? -What do you want me for?- What do you take from me? But this awakening was the most disheartening of all because it didn’t end the panelling; Sarah did. Secretly, she whispered shortly, stealing a breath and sneaked deviations towards the person.

"I’m sufficient. You won’t crush. I promise."!

It was statute just for a while, just shortly, and then, he melted. The cloudy form merged a girl, her identical eyes, unmistakably her own. She recognized the shape as herself. She observes a child with her son looks to be 7 and grinned. She frames him smile then persuaded. For seconds, Sarah experiences a silent feeling of closing and harmony. Waking up was wiser; the terrifying bad dream wasn’t to be played with; it opens what wants to be restored, lived, becoming. She began getting light on himself. She knew there was a time when she was enough. This was her life-changing moment. It was the bad dream that never comes again. Sarah left to fantasize about the forest, but the forest gazed peculiar. She reimagined it, detached the woman, freed her from this terror, and permitted her to survive. She was her bedside fright and her fantasy captain and released.