"It was all a dream!!"

Shanice shoots up out of bed, gasping for breath and covered in sweat!

"It was all a dream!" she said through a series of heavy breaths, with her hand on her throat, she stares at the wall immediately in front of her, confused and terrified.

As she tries to recalibrate to her surroundings she grabs onto the blanket in front of her and pulls it right up to her face. Staring around the room she says again under her breath... "it was all a dream..." " why did it feel so real?" She wipes the sweat from her forehead and looks at her hand almost grossed out, "why am I so sweaty?" She throws the blanket off of her and shakes off the panic thats travelling through her body, and swings her legs off of the bed. He body slowly begins to wake up in parts as she begins to realize that maybe she overreacted to a bad dream. She rolls her neck and reaches up to the ceiling as if shes trying touch the sky. Her feet slide off of the bed and fall into an awaiting pair of fuzzy slippers. As she shuffles to the bathroom her eyes catch the tv screen thats still turned on from the night before. She goes about her morning grooming routine without any pomp and circumstance, and does it just because she knows it has to get done.

Her eyes travel up to the mirror where she examines her face and looks at it as if its almost foreign, she stretches her skin out and pull at it like its playdoh, her eyes continue to travel from her forehead down to her neck, where her eyes widen in disbelief. Images begin to come back to her brain in spurts as if she's rembering parts of her dreams. She begins to examine her neck and can faintly make out what looks like fingerprints. She stares in disbelief.

"Wait what? What the fuck is that?" She stares in disbelief and pokes at the marks. Everytime she touches any of the markings she winces in pain and continues to stare in disbelief. She compares the size of her hand to size of the marks on her neck and her fingers seem to fit the size and spacing of the markings. In an almost dismissive manner she says "I really fucked myself up last night." She runs her hands through her hair, takes one final look at her self and leaves the bathroom. She plops herself back in her bed and picks up her phone, looks at the time, throws her head back onto the pillow and shuts her eyes. Immediately a flood of images come flying into her consciousness. Terrifying images, scattered and incoherent, a woman in all white with her hands and mouth covered in blood, creeps out of the shadows of her mind and begins to walk to the surface of where she can see it clearly. It keeps coming closer, she can't escape it, she tries to shake the image and think of something else but she can't, this woman is consuming her vision and keeps getting closer and more clear and as it reaches out towards her, she shoots her eyes open and jolts upwards. Frustrated she puts her hands up over her eyes, exhales heavily and shakes her head in disbelief.

Shanice gets up out of bed and paces for a few moments trying to get her thoughts together. She picks up her phone, unlocks it and begins to scroll, she opens up the multitasking tool and begins to swipe apps closed until she gets to one that looks unfamiliar. It swipes open showing a black screen, with bright red font that says "YOU LOST!"

Confused she stares at the screen and looks over at her tv. She looks back at the screen and looks back at the tv and taps the screen where the app is displayed. Nothing happens. She tries to swipe, taps different corners of the screen, stares at the screen not understanding whats happening, she tries to close the app all together and it doesn't swipe closed. Staring in disbelief, she looks back at the tv on her desk and back at her phone. She screen shares and the image on the phone is now on her tv screen. Black background and bright red font. "YOU LOST!" As she stares at the screen the font begins to fall away in pieces like dust and the text begins to reform and now says "Enter at your own risk!" Her phone begins to vibrate incessantly, she looks at the screen and the "Enter at your own risk" text is now flashing repeatedly.

She stares at the screen, baffled by whats happening. Slowly her finger makes it way towards the message on the screen. Before it makes contact, she stops and thinks about it. She looks around the room, back at the screen, back at her tv and back to the screen in her hand. She presses the message, it dissolves from the screen and as her eyes make their way to the screen in front of her a faint light appears, her eyes are fixated as a tunnel begins to expose itself. From the very depths of the tunnel an image begins to emerge and slowly makes it way to the forefront.

She can't take her eyes off of the screen as the image begins to get larger and begins to define itself. As the entire figure begins to emerge Shanice can make out the image of a woman dressed in all white. As she examines the image on the screen, she scans it from head to toe and is startled when she notices that the feet are facing in the opposite direction. Her eyes wide in shock as she continues to study the figure.

Slowly the person in the screen begins to reach out to the screen. Slowly her hand gets closer and closer to the screen. Shanice moves closer to the screen unable to understand how this is happening. She rubs her eyes to make sure what she is seeing is actually there. The hand keeps moving towards the screen, Shanice keeps moving towards the image she's staring at, the fingers begin to breach the space between the screen and Shanices throat, the image raises its head and its eyes rise to make eye contact with Shanice and as their eyes meet, a hand shoots out of the screen and grabs Shanice by the throat and all of a sudden Shanice shoots out of bed and yells out exasperated "It was all a dream!!"

Arif Ali

@aliteone

Canada

Arif Ali has not written a story.