Not Enough Terror

Last night’s dream was a buffet of terror. I had the usual emotional assaults. Abject terror. Smothering terror. “Worms eating me alive from the inside out” terror. “Naked in front of my classmates while I piss myself” terror. (Okay, that one was more humor than terror.)

I know some folk that I have pissed off in the past had promised to witchfuck me with terror. Of those that promised me insanity, there are one or two that could actually manage to call forth some things without completely destroying themselves in the process. So now, when I start to have nightmares, instead of dismissing them and dispersing them at once, I watch how they unfold. It’s free entertainment.

Someone poured serious effort into terrorism. But rolled a 2 for effectiveness. From the beginning, I knew what was supposed to happen to me, and I kept waiting for the screaming to start. I soon wished the ordeal would be over.

I wasn’t terrorized. I was bored as fuck.

I dismissed the mists that separated me from the source of this particular madness. Only to see nothing before me. To my human senses, I was alone. I chuckled. Well, at least it got that right. “Hey. Is this your first terrorism? You have the heft of something substantial, but the tactics of ‘My First Griefing’.” I called out to the apparent darkness. Visually, there was no response. But I felt an emotion that I knew did not come from myself. Irritation.

“Someone in the back office either hates you, or loves you, to make me your assignment. Since I’m completely bored, I’ll be nice.” More irritation. “You have to terrorize me, right? Make me piss my britches and scream for my mommy. At the very least, cause me to jerk awake in a cold sweat, doubting my sanity and my juju abilities. Yes or no?” I felt a very begrudged sense of agreement.

“Okay, I’m going to help you. Here’s how to deal with someone as half-crazed as me.” A vicious roar swallowed me up. Oh, it doesn’t like that idea. “I sense you are just a little bit pissed. But senses only go so far. I’ve already broken a few walls between you and me, might as well finish it and talk to me. Why the fuck not?”

The darkness coalesced into a palpable mist. I thought about turning the tables and fucking with it, but realized I was already pushing its buttons just by standing here. “It’s not your job.” A heavy, wet voice smattered at me. I was hoping for something spooky, but it sounded like a mid-level manager stuck in some backwater grave assignment. “It’s my job. You can’t do my job. I’m supposed to terrorize you. If you help me, I’ll be breaking my agreement.”

I let the words turn over in my head, looking for loopholes. “Wait. You mean to tell me, terrorizing people in their sleep is a union job?”

“Yea. Something like that. But without all the embezzling. Look. You’re just a human. It’s usually not this hard. But you seem to have been through a little more than most, so I’ll just have to put all of me into this. But you’re still just a human. I’m going to finish the assignment, and without any help from my prey.”

“Dude, come on. Freddy Kreuger was able to scare me more than this. Hell, that character is a big reason why I turned to lucid dreaming in the first place! I understand having pride in your job and all, but a lot of effort was spent to bring a Terror of your class to me. A lot. Once you start throwing that kind of currency around, you make sure it was spent well. This space between us is a little too open, you know. Nothing is sealed. Easy to eavesdrop on, eh? I’ll bet you’re being watched. I’m trying to help you out here.”

Another deafening roar. “NO! I’m going to tell YOU what to do! And you, human, are going to wish I had devoured your mind at the beginning! I have no need for my prey to assist me. I will make sure you don’t even have the capability to whimper after I’m done with you!”

Oh hell. It’s going to be a long, boring night. I shrug and chuckle. “Alright. Let’s see it. Terrorize me.”

The darkness covers me completely. As fast as it blinds me, it retreats into a dark spot by my front door. I’m in my house. The door has been kicked in. I stare at it for a moment and realize the visual flaw, but say nothing. Okay, I’ll take the bait. “Hey! I’m home!” A gurgle from the back bedrooms. A blood trail in the hallway. I come around the corner to see my family piled up on each other. Blood dripping from fresh wounds. The gurgle was the dying gasp of my daughter, who had been eviscerated and was holding her intestines.

“Well, Terror. You score points for blood and gore. But too many tells revealed it was still a dream. You didn’t even get the door right. Sorry. Not terrorized. Next!”

I turn to walk away from the scene, but my legs collapse underneath me. A sharp pain accompanies them. As I turn over, I find myself on the floor of a hospital room. I seem to have fallen out of bed. My legs are entangled in a bloody sheet. As I pull off the sheet, I see gangrene has set in both legs, and some sort of necrotizing bacterial infection is steadily working its way up my thighs.

I stare at it for a moment, then burst into laughter! I reach into the pus streaked mass of exposed tissue and pull it away from the bone. My soft tissue has been inverted. Skin was laying next to the bone, and ligaments were exposed to the air. Pulling away the tissue did hurt, but in a mixed up manner that only confirmed I was still dreaming.

“This is great! Full on sensory interaction! Outstanding! But you got the skin layers mixed up. The outer most layer of skin is dead cells, not nerve endings. And there is no epidermis laying next to bone, unless there was a traumatic piercing injury and skin grew into the wound. But I have none of those. Sorry. Try again.”

I kicked my legs and made them whole. Standing up on sound feet, I left the hospital room wondering how complete was the illusion. I made my way to the cafeteria, where there were many trays of buffet style offerings just waiting to be eaten. Nah, too easy. Lemme guess, something in the food, right?

I picked up a tempting chocolate cupcake and licked my lips in anticipation. My tongue stopped, but the sensation of something moving in my mouth, didn’t. The sensation grew and solidified with a taste of sharp bitterness. I took an empty napkin and spat into it.

Plump maggots, some broken in two by my teeth, squirmed on the napkin. I felt more squirming, and spat out more maggots. A tooth felt loose. I wiggled it with my tongue until it fell free and spat that out as well. Black and hollow, there were maggots inside the roots of the tooth.

“Wow.” My voice was muffled from the maggots crawling out of my other teeth. “I have to admit, Terror, this is top-notch.” More spitting. “I probably shouldn’t write about this scene when I wake up. You’re going to have some collateral damage. But.” I reach for a cup of algae filled water, and invoke Laguz over it. The water turned sparkling clear. I sip a bit and swish it around, spitting the rest of the maggots on the ground. I drink the rest of the cup, feeling my mouth, and teeth, restored as I do so.

“But, I can tell no one has told you of my past history. I’ve eaten maggots before. Found them in a pack of yoghurt while deployed on an assignment in the military. It was eat the yoghurt, or don’t eat for the day. The sweetness of the yoghurt offset the bitterness quite well. Sorry, Terror. I’m not terrorized. Next!”

I laugh and reach for the chocolate cupcake. Only to close my hand around my coffee cup. Oh, I’m in my room, sitting at the computer desk. Did I wake up? I look closely, but don’t see any tells that reveal I’m still dreaming. Well, shit. I can’t tell. Well, since the dream is still fresh, lemme type up a few notes. Hit the power button, and start hearing an ominous clicking from the system. click-click-click-click Oh shit. The hard drive died. Fuck!

Good thing I have my backups. All I’ve lost is a few days of non-work. I reach for the backup discs, only to find them melted. Melted? Wait-a-minute… I pick up a particular object, that should behave in one particular way, if I was awake. It behaves differently. In fact, it behaves how the rest of the world would expect it to behave if they didn’t know it as intimately as I do. Yes, Keri has a Dream Totem. And this one, is still spinning.

I start laughing in relief and humor. “You got me going there for a moment, Terror! That was good. But you overdid it with the melted discs. Anything that’s going to melt those discs would have caught the surrounding wood hutch on fire. Details, Terror, DETAILS!”

I stand up from the table, and the room disappears from around me. I’m back in the indescribable darkness, surrounded by the invisible Terror. “Look, man, I know you’re trying, but you’re just not following through here. You’re falling back on clichés and that’s just not going to work on me. I’ve gone through too many of them myself, eh?”

I can feel it trying to intimidate me into silence, but I have a point to make. “Maybe your superiors sent you to me as a training exercise, eh? Maybe you’ve been dealing with some pretty shallow people and needed a wake-up call to how complex humans can be. I’m trying to help you here. Jumping around from subject to subject just helps me remember that I’m dreaming. At any moment, I can become fully lucid and turn the tables. I’m sure you have seen enough of me to understand, were I to do so, you will be the one devoured. But, as a former union member myself, I understand the pride of a job well done. I’ll give you a hint. If you want to terrorize me, pick one subject and follow it through!”

I sit down on the cold surface below me. “Now, I’m going to let you try, one more time. You’ve seen what catches my eye, what I ignore. You’ve peered into my life enough to mimic my room. So, you should have enough props to create a masterpiece! To the stage with you! Your patrons are watching! Engage yourself, with gusto! Like you really mean it! Come on, motherfucker, terrorize me! And… ACTION!”

Something dense barrels into me, knocking me backward. I fell prone on the cold surface, but found myself unable to get up. I try to kick my legs, but they don’t move either. I try to jerk, to sneeze, to stretch, to fart, but none of my desired movements happen. I am paralyzed.

My neck itches, terribly. Right along the scar from where she slit my throat that night. No. I survived that night. She can’t hurt me again. A light shines over my eye. “Dammit, Nurse. You have to keep these tapes changed. The patient’s skin is oily, and the tapes degrade over the day.” I feel something ripped harshly from my eyelid. It hurts, and I try to say something. But my body doesn’t move. I make no sound.

“I was going to clean the tape off, Doctor. So it won’t hurt her.” I can hear the nurse in the background. She sounds shocked at the doctor’s rudeness.

“Hurt the patient? Nurse, the patient can’t feel anything. It has been brain-dead for the past 30 years. But light does cause some stimulation in the brain and that will be picked up by the electrodes. For the upcoming clinical trial, we need a complete sensory shutdown.” He slaps me across the face, hard. I want to cry out, but I can’t move. I can only listen.

“Doctor! This is abuse! The patient is a female! It’s degrading to treat her…”

The doctor cuts off the nurse, sharply. “IT! The genital organs were removed many years ago, and the vagina sown closed. This is not a person, Nurse. This is a test subject. The human this… thing… was, died after her throat was cut by her molester.” No. I’m alive. I lived. I survived. I have a life! This is not real! He pulls the cloth off my chest, revealing my nakedness under it. He leans over my open eye, just enough for me to see him and the leer on his face. “I can see why this one. Pretty.”

“You’re new here, Nurse. So I’ll overlook your sentiment. If it’s any consolation, many of the drugs that have been tested on it induces psychosis in the high levels that used. If there is any sentience left in there, it’s been hallucinating for the past 30 years. I wonder what the dead dream of? Living, maybe?” NOOOOOOO! I’M ALIVEEEEEEEEE! “No matter. A new set of trials will begin shortly. Now, tape this eyelid down.”

“Yes, Doctor.” I try to move my eye, to change the lens focus, to do something to let the nurse know I’m aware and locked in my own skull. But I can’t move. She whispers, “I’m sorry. But this will be over soon. You’re not expected to survive the next set of trials.”

Some time passes and I feel a hand on my breast. “Doctor? Is the patient ready?” A sudden sound of movement above me, a disgruntled muttering. “Yes, it is ready. Do you have the first series of doses?” I hear a tray being wheeled in, with the tinkering of many small pieces of glass. My arm is pinched between two cold fingers, then pinched with the rough insertion of a burning needle.

My senses swirl into an overloading maelstrom that quickly fades to utter darkness.

I hear myself gasping on a hard surface. I twitch from the sound and move my arm. Sitting up, I realize all of me can move. My mouth is dry. But my face is brightened by the experience I have just endured. “Wow. Really, fucking wow, dude.” I get a sense of accomplishment. “But, I’m still not terrorized.” I’m surrounded by a sense of disbelief.

“I mean, really, that was hella good. But I knew I was dreaming when the ‘scar’ started itching. Wrong spot.” Did I just hear a noncorporeal being facepalm itself? “I could have ended it then, but I wanted to see how far you would take it. And you did very well for yourself. That was quite the fucked up scenario, but… Sorry… Not terrorized. For one thing, I did consider that scenario a few years after my daughter was born. And rejected it.”

What the hell, I’m feeling bad for this thing? “Here’s a tip about terror. It’s not the physical components that make it so insidious. Terror is all about the mind. All about the ‘What if’. Terror starts with ‘Would’, and keep it going with ‘Could’. Terror considers all the ways something could go wrong, and ignore all the facts that say otherwise.”

I actually had the creature’s attention. Instead of mocking me, it was listening to every word. “Terror is waiting by the phone hoping she would call. Terror is the sound of sirens in the distance and wondering which direction your folks took. Terror is looking back and wondering if what you done is enough. Terror is listening to him pacing back and forth, ranting and raving, and fearing if this is the point where he breaks and starts beating you.”

I found myself explaining without concern. I wondered if I really wasn’t teaching myself. “Terror isn’t about anything concrete, not about actions being committed, not about rational examination. Terror is abstract, indistinct, and emotional. In case you haven’t noticed, Oh Unnameable Terror, that’s my normal state of mind. So, while I’m glad to see you’ve made a lot of progress with that last scenario, you still didn’t terrorize me. I’m sorry. You just can’t scare me on that deep level.” I almost wished there was a physical component, that I could reach a hand out and pat in comfort.

A sudden wave of bitter grief surrounded me. It was crying. Like a baby. It was resonating the sentiment of “Fuck everything about this.”, and just cried at it’s ineffectiveness.

I didn’t interrupt it. I just sat in the abject darkness, and let it work through itself. I kinda felt bad for the thing. I mean, its job is to debone people with fear. An impressive undertaking considering all the ways humans mentally trick themselves into not dealing with fear. I no longer thought it a novice in its field, after all, the last phantasm was very damn good. But after all the interaction I’ve had with various ministries of shadows, surely my name was on some “Do Not Fuck With” list, somewhere. Right? Listening to the sobs of the Terror, guess not.

The sobbing slowly subsided and gently ceased. I addressed the Terror, trying to at least end the night with some fun. “Hey, Terror! Wanna do the maggot thing again? That tickled!” I was answered with another choking sob. It declined without words, and wished me a good night. Quietly and peacefully, it left me alone, in the utter darkness of the depths of my mind.

~~~

I woke up with the biggest “What the fuck was that all about?” look on my face, ever.