Stories in Seven Sentences (I)

THE DREAMER

Your bare feet hardly make a sound as they carry your increasingly wakeful body from the failed sanctuary of your home. Blood pumps hard through every vein as you struggle to maintain the frenetic pace of escape, but every fibre of your being aches for you to keep running. Every step brings a half-remembered thought of dread, of pain, of horror, of fear – the wrenching knot of your gut taunting you as you turn corner after corner. The darkness of the pre-dawn urges you on, whilst the unnatural silence dares you to continue into the black, for surely even oblivion is better than that hideous alternative? But each tiring step also denies you of evidence, your ears strain to hear any sound in the gloom, the unfamiliar surroundings work the inner recesses of your imagination hard, but there is also doubt here. For as you slow, you realise that this must be just another night terror, a by-product of a grossly over-active imagination, and as you turn yourself homeward you chastise your indulgence of one too many horror stories. But it is real… and it is too late.

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