Oh god it’s happening again! They won’t let me sleep anymore for some reason. Every time I try to close my eyes these images keep popping into my mind. These images aren’t normal either, no, these images haunt me for long periods of time. I think that they stay imprinted into my head for so long because they deal with the same thing over and over again. Something always jumps at me when I close my eyes, causing me to wake up from my continuous attempts to fall asleep.
It’s been four months now, four months of no sleep, four months of haunting images. To think that all of this had started with one little dream, but from what I know now, one little dream is capable of doing anything.
My name is Jecht, my life always had things happening in it that could not be explained by anything. What happened throughout my life, however, is nothing compared to what was about to happen. Before it does however, I am going to tell you what happened in my life to show you how I got to be in the situation that I am in now. I am going to start at the earliest event that I can remember, it happened on the day of my fifth birthday.
It was a nice day in Garthuck, the sun was out and it was a nice enough day to go swimming in the local river. That is exactly what I was doing at the time. The river was only a ten minute walk from the house that I lived in, but I had to walk through the woods to get to it. My parents did not like the idea of me doing that, but they let me anyway, because in the small town of Garthuck, everyone knew everyone. If anything were to happen to me, someone would know about it, or at least hear about it.
I was tall for my age, the kids in the first grade were about three inches shorter than me. I was also smart, that was the reason why I was in the first grade already. After a few days in Kindergarten they immediately moved me up. I don’t know how I was smarter, no one ever taught me anything, I just knew things as I grew up. It was almost like the older I got, the more knowledge that was unlocked for me.
I didn’t even want to go to the river today but my parents insisted that I played outside today. I knew that they were getting ready for my birthday today though, they always over did everything. Birthdays were not meant to have thousands of dollars spent on them, but that is exactly what my parents did every year. My brother was a different story though, my parents did not like him much, and they did not want me to turn out like him, so they would spoil me constantly. They thought that it would help, but the truth was, I wanted to be just like my brother when I got older, and he knew that.
My brother’s name was Balter, he was almost twenty now, he had just got released from the state prison. He was only there for psychiatric help, people thought that he was crazy because he would always see things and talk to people that were not there. Everyone was afraid of him, which is the main reason why they all sent him away, they didn’t want him to ruin the lives of the people around him. I wasn’t afraid of him though, I actually believed him, I didn’t think that he was crazy, I thought that he had a gift. Little did I know then, but I was right, he did have a gift.
Balter was released because they had believed to have cured him of the sickness that he had. They subscribed him pills that he had to take every day for the rest of his life, they were supposed to suppress the images that he saw.
He told me what he was able to see one day when we were alone, before he went away. I don’t think that he realized that I actually understood what he was saying, if he did know, I think that he would not have told me so much. He said that he could see monsters roam around the ground, almost as if they have always been there. These monsters were giant, the smallest ones were probably eight foot tall. All of them had rotting flesh, smelled like rotting meat, and each had some sort of weapon infused into their skin. Their faces were one of the worst parts of them, they looked like they had dumped a form of acid on themselves causing their skin to stretch, you could see the raw areas where the nerve was exposed to the open air, the eyes bulged out and ranged from the color yellow to deep red. All of the monsters seemed to have been in many wars and battles because he could see all of the scars and wounds on them. Each day it seemed like there were more and more of them, he had no idea where they were coming from.
Besides being able to see the monsters, he had constant dreams of them. They were always trying to kill him in his sleep he said. It had gotten so bad that he had not been able to sleep at all, he was able to feel everything in his dreams, almost as if it were reality. He could smell, taste, and feel pain, just like he would while he was awake. The monsters must have caught onto this, because every time he tried to go to sleep, one of them would attack him, causing him to wake up and terrify him so much that it was hard to try to fall asleep again.
Now that he had gone to get help for it, everyone though that he was cured. He wasn’t though, he told me that he could still see everything like he used to be able to before he went, but it was even worse now. He was able to see them more frequently, and there was a lot more than what there used to be.
Balter stayed at the house so that he could help them set up for the party, my parents or anyone else had no idea that he could still see all of the things still, I was the only one that knew, and he was going to keep it that way.
About two hours went by since I left the house, so I decided to head back, I was getting bored anyway. No one was at the river for some reason, usually it is crowded with people. All of the sudden I got a weird feeling in my gut, almost as if something important was about to happen, it began to make me feel nervous. I began to walk back to the house, but as I was walking back, the feeling I was getting kept on worsening.
I just ignored it and kept on walking back. Once I got to the woods however, everything went silent. I could no longer hear the animals, the insects, the wind, or even my own thoughts, it was almost as if time had stopped. I decided to run home at that instant, but after a couple of minutes, I fell. I don’t even know how I fell, there was nothing around to trip over, no rocks, no branches, nothing at all. I picked myself up to see where I was, there was a small clearing ahead of me, the clearing was not there on my way through earlier.
I walked through the clearing to see if I could recognize where I was. Once I got to the clearings center, I noticed a skull. The skull looked like it had belonged to a bull, but there were no bulls in Garthuck. I took a closer look at it and noticed that it had horns, but also a human looking bone structure. I picked it up and as soon as I did, the surrounding sounds came back and I could hear my own thoughts again. I just took it as a weird coincidence and walked the rest of the way home, taking the skull with me.
After what seemed like an hour I made it back home. I walked up to the front door, but as soon as I did, that feeling that I had earlier came back to me, only this time I felt light headed. I quickly opened the door and ran in. My mother ran up to me to say happy birthday, but as soon as she saw the skull in my hand she suddenly stopped in her tracks and began to scold me for bringing it into the house.
However I could not understand a word she was saying to me, my head was spinning and my sight was beginning to fade into a blackness, I then fell to the floor. The last thing I could remember was my mother shouting at me and then my brother and father running in to see what was going on. Everything after that is a complete blank to me now. I can’t remember my fifth birthday or the six years after, because that incident landed me into a coma, a coma of nightmares, no good dreams, or even a break, it was constant nightmares.
I woke up in a hospital bed with machines all around me. I was scarred, not because I din’t know where I was, but because I could remember every dream that I had. In those dreams it was like reality, I could feel everything that was happening to me, all the pain, the taste, the smell, everything. I knew how my brother felt now.
At the time I didn’t think anything of it, just that it scared me. Now here I was laying on a hospital bed only remember my mother shouting. I remember looking at my body and realizing that I had grown, a lot, at leat a foot.
I tried to get up, but my body wouldn’t let me. All of my muscles were almost completely useless right now, I must have been laying on that bed for a long time. I rolled over, or at least tried to, but the wires and IV needle wouldn’t allow me to. So I ripped them off of me and rolled the rest of the way over. There on the table were get well soon cards and gifts left by my friends and family. Amongst all of the gifts was a button to call in the nurse. I reached out and grabbed it and pushed the button, I wanted to know what was going on.
Minutes passed and no one answered the call, so I pushed it again. I waited longer this time and still nothing. I used all of my strength to sit up and look around the room I was in, it didn’t seem like anyone had been in it for a while. The beds next to me were unmade and the IV stands next to them were empty, even mine was empty. Then I saw something run outside in the hallway.
I was curious to see what was going on, so I took my leg and swung it over the bed to the ground. It seemed that I was gaining my strength back somehow, which was weird because I knew that it took months to gain control of your body after a coma. I took my other leg and placed it on the floor also, this time it wasn’t as difficult.
now came the tricky part, getting my legs to support my body and walk, or so I thought. I was easily able to stand up. I remember thinking to myself that maybe the doctors had figured out how to sustain muscle mass for coma patients. Whatever it was I didn’t really much care, I just wanted to find out what was going on outside. I started to walk towards the entry way when suddenly from behind me there were loud crashing noises. I looked back to see that all of the gifts had been knocked off of the table and onto the floor. I looked around the room and saw nothing that could have caused all of it.
I turned back around and decided to ignore what had just happened. I walked into the hallway and saw that no one was around. There were papers and documents littering the hall. The entire time I was walking I was in fear, something didn’t feel right. Every room that I passed was completely empty, some of the walls were even falling apart, like the place had been abandoned for a long time. I kept on walking until I got to the main office. As soon as I had got there, it instantly got cold, I could see my breath and even feel the icy sting from every breath I took.
It was still, nothing moved, and nothing made a sound, it was just like the experience that happened in the woods. Then suddenly the room began to radiate a deep red color, then almost as instantly as that happened, a loud cracking noise split through the room, almost as if lightning had struck five feet away from me.
Before I could even begin to turn to see what had made the noise, I got a strong scent of odor so foul I instantly began to gag. It smelled of rotting meat mixed with the infected smell of puss. While I was gagging, whatever was behind me spoke, and it sounded like it was hissing the words.
“What’s wrong Jecht? Can’t you stand it?”
It was laughing as it said this.
I turned around and saw one of the most horrific things that I would see in my life. Standing behind me was an eight and a half foot tall monster. It had no visible features in its face, mostly because it looked like its skin was falling off piece by piece. Its torso was littered with hundreds of scars and wounds. Most of the wounds looked badly infected and some of them looked recent. Its arms were the worst part though, from the shoulders down to his wrists it looked as if he had replaced pieces of his arm with whatever it saw useful. There were strands of barbed wire wrapped around his arm in different places, most likely to hold in the pieces of flesh that were about to fall off, he had patches of different skin in a lot of different areas, almost as if it were too impatient to let the skin grow back itself. Then he had no hands, instead he had thick wires connecting from his wrists to these massive circular cannons that were infused into its skin.
I understood now why the room smelt so bad, the monster was rotting. It was just staring at me, grinning. I didn’t know what to do at that point, my body wouldn’t let me move. Then the monster spoke again.
“You are destined to meet the same fate as your brother, he’s dead now you know? We killed him and we are coming for you next. Anyone with his and your gift is a threat to us, and we can’t take the chance of having anyone getting in our way, we have come too far to fail at this now.”
As soon as he was through saying this the room exploded in fire. Everything caught fire, even me. The pain was extreme, I could feel the fire burn down to my nerves. I was experiencing what my brother had experienced all throughout his life. It felt like I was going to die, the pain was way too real. The monster was laughing at me, it had accomplished its goal way to easily. Then the monster began to scream, the fire began to stop, I was no longer on fire anymore.
“What the hell is going on!” the monster screamed
“What should have happened to you a long time ago Gantos.”
It was my brother, he came from out of nowhere to stop the monster.
“How is this even possible! I watched you die, I had the privilege of taking your life myself!”
Balter calmly responded, “You may have killed me, but like you, I can still wander the dream world. All it took was some training to do this, luckily I was training long before you had the chance to kill me.”
“Then I shall simply kill you here, it is not like you yourself can stop me!” The monster laughed as it said this.
“I may not be able to stop you, but I can hold you back for a while until I can explain things to my brother.”
With that said Balter took his arms and held them out, waves began to radiate from his fingers. The waves bounced off of the wall across the room and back to the other side, creating a new transparent wall.
The monster saw the wall and then laughed. It sat down and waited patiently for Balter to finish what he was going to do. Balter walked over to me smiling.
“Jecht, this is going to be the last time I am going to see you,” there was a sadness in his tone.
“I know that you barely got the chance to know me through your life, but I got to know you, I got the chance to see you grown up also, you will come to understand that later on, but for now you have to focus on what to do. Don’t worry everything will be fine, as long as you listen to me.”
“But why can’t I see you again Balter? Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me see you before and now you’re telling me I can’t? That’s not fair! I always wanted to be like you you know,” I began to stumble on my words, I was on the verge of tears.
“There is an important reason why I can’t see you anymore, you will find that out soon, and when you do, don’t be discouraged, just keep doing what I am about to tell you to do.” Balter was now rushing through his words, he was in a hurry because the monster began to grow impatient.
“When you get back to the real world you are going to have something special join you. This person is very important and you are going to have to listen to everything it says, Okay?”
“Okay I will, but what is it?”
“It’s a special guardian, he will help save you one day.”
After that was said, the monster stood up in outrage.
“No! you can’t do that!” the monster began to pound on the invisible barrier.
“Jecht, I am going to send you back to the real world now, when I do, do not look back.”
As soon as he was finished, he took his hands and placed them on my head, I then got a floating sensation, and then there was a noise behind me, like a balloon being blown up. There was a portal that had just opened.
I began to walk towards it knowing that I would never see my brother again. I looked back, forgetting that he told me not to, and saw the monster break through the barrier. The monster grabbed my brother and ripped him apart with ease, then it started laughing.
“Don’t worry, I will get you one of these days, and when I do, you will not be killed as quickly as your brother.”
I woke up in a hospital bed, like the one in the dream that I just had, but this time I was surrounded by doctors and nurses. I had just woken up from my six year coma. I couldn’t help but keep thinking about the dream that I just had, it seemed so real, and the pain of everything, I still remember it. I heard one of the doctors telling the nurse to notify my parents, that same doctor then came up to me with a light and asked me to follow it with my eyes, I did so and the doctor shut it off. The doctor then asked me to try and sit up, I tried, and like my dream, it was easily done for some reason. The doctor did not look too surprised though. It was then he told me that I have been in a coma for six years with absolutely no muscle loss, and I am the first to do so in many years.
I looked around the room, there were other patients in there as well. This time I was sure that I wasn’t dreaming. The doctor told me to lay back down so that they could run some tests on me to see if I was able to go back into the world without any problems. I was laying in bed for about an hour when my parents showed up. They were very happy to see me, my mother was crying and my father was holding onto my arm the entire time we were waiting for the test results to come back.
I noticed that Balter was not there, I asked my mother where he was, and immediately she began to cry again. My father then told me that he was gone, and that he was never going to come back again. This hurt a lot, but I already had the feeling that he was gone already because of my dream. I wanted to know how he died though, but I wasn’t going to ask my parents that, I thought that they had enough grief to deal with. I decided to just let it go and ask if my tests were back yet.
Finally after sitting on that bed for hours they let me go, the doctors said that I did not need to go through physical therapy. None of my muscles deteriated during the coma, in fact I grew muscle instead. The doctors still had no idea how that was possible though, but the tests shown that nothing was wrong so they did not worry about it.
A lot of things had changed during the six years I was gone. Garthuck was now a city instead of a small town, there were a lot of restaurants and bars, there was even a sky scraper in the middle of the city. Apparently it was owned by the new mayor, he was said to be very rich and powerful. We had to drive for at least an hour to reach the house, mostly because the traffic in the new city was horrible.
The house was almost exactly the same as it was before, there were a few new things out front though. We now had a swimming pool, which looked like it had not been used at all, and there was a trampoline, which also looked brand new. My parents must have bought them recently knowing that I would come out of my coma soon.
When we got inside I asked my mom about them.
“Well actually dear, they were your gifts for your fifth birthday, we set them up the day you went to the hospital and kept them up ever since.”
I thought that was pretty weird but then I realized that it probably gave them hope of me coming back if they kept them up.
Then my mother told me something that I didn’t know, “The doctors actually told us yesterday that you had died, they were about to take you out of the room when you woke up.”
That shocked me, but then I remembered being burned alive and feeling the pain like it was real. I must have actually died in real life from the pain that I had felt in my dream, but somehow I was still alive in my mind, my brother must have saved me from fully dying. Then I remembered him telling me about that special guardian. I was curious to find that out, but had no way in knowing how.
