Here's the beginning of what I wrote, and then I'll go into my dream:
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Lock the door. Don’t lock the door. Lock it. No, don’t. Click. Click. Click. Stop it. I said stop it. Lock the door. Don’t lock the door. Okay, no, it’s fine. I’m fine. Lock the door!
He moved away from the door or more correctly speaking, spasmed away, only to turn back and unlock the door once more.
Click. Click. Click.
He rubbed his palms together and his beady eyes darted surreptitiously around, seeing nothing but the blank wall before him anyhow, but overcome with the need to look. Look around. Don’t lock the door. Walk away.
Click.
He finally twitched away from the door, rubbing his sweaty palms together once more. He kicked at one of the many empty potato chip bags that littered the floor. Some of them had been artfully placed on top of the lampshades or stapled to the walls in his dingy little flat. In fact, there were hundreds of them and more ants than he could count. He didn’t notice.
Count. Onetwothreefourfivesixseven. Seven is unlucky. Why did I stop there, stopping is for losers, that’s what mum always said. Mum always said, got her in the head. No, no, no don’t say things like that. Don’t say things like that. Don’t say things like that. You’ve been a good boy, she would say. She would say to me. She would. She would!
He barked out what some might consider a laugh. He rubbed his sweaty hands together. He looked around with his beady little eyes. He waited.
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The dream:
I knew my sister had been killed, and had the inkling suspicion that it was done so brutally. Me and mama were driving away in the old pickup truck, drivin' as fast as we could down a deserted stretch of road out in the country. The pickup truck was real old, ya see, and being only a 14 year old boy, I sat in the back right behind mama as she drove down the dusty road. Flakes of mud coated the underbelly of the truck and rust and many years in the bright sunshine had made the color fade to a dusky sort of pinkish red.
We were fleeing. Anywhere, just not home. Not when my sis' was gone. Not when she had been taken like that. She was only 8 you know? Pretty angel blond hair. Last I recall she was wearin' her pretty sundress that she always wore on Sundays when we went to church. But she was gone now and mama and me, well, we were gettin' outta here, weren't we?
And after I was lulled into a near sleep by the repetitive countryside outside my window, I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a motorcycle grumbling behind us. I watched as a man rode up beside us. He wore no helmet and his manic smile told me all I needed to know about who he was. His arm was wrapped around a big water jug, but my mind broke and all I saw was him holdin' my sis'... draped under his arm, pretty blond hair flying in the wind. She was flappin' like one of her rag-dolls and I knew she was dead. Dead, dead, dead.
The man laughed a cruel and loud laugh and I screamed as loud as I could. I screamed until I thought my head would burst and my eyes would shoot outta my head and I ripped at my hair and I just... screamed. I screamed in sheer panic. I screamed the way the prey animal would scream if it had a notion to, when it was being stalked. Mama heard my scream and without thinking whipped the wheel hard to the left and the biker was suddenly gone and we were careening around on the old dusty road and my head was whipping back and forth and I was still screaming. Never got a chance to stop, ya know? And then we flipped the truck, just once, and it was more traumatic than it was dangerous because we flipped right back the way we should be and we sat in a cloud of dust that was billowing up into the sky from under the tires. I had stopped screaming at least.
Me and mama got out of the truck on shaky legs. I got out first and I saw sis' in the road. She was standin' there, not sayin' anything at all. Just lookin' around in her crisp white summer dress and her pretty blond hair. I don't know if she was an angel or a ghost or what, but I tell ya she was standin' there for a bit. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing at all. Mama made a sound as she got out of the truck and I turned my head for only a fraction of a second, but sis' was gone. Mama came up and tucked a few strands of her brown hair behind her ear and asked me if I was alright. I wondered where the man on the cycle was.
And as if the Devil himself heard my thoughts, there he was, walkin' toward us over a hill in the road. He was more menacing than anything I could imagine and I felt myself stiffen in terror. Another man walked behind him, and another behind that. The three of them were coming upon us, but all me and mama did was stand. I wish I could say that it was with our heads held high; proud... but we smelled of fear and simply froze in our spots, mouths open like fish. The men surrounded us and grinned with toothy smiles.
The next thing I knew we were in a warehouse or a barn or somethin'. I must have just blacked out, because I don't know how I got there. Mama was standin' to my left and the three men were walking steadily towards us, takin' their time and all. One had a club in his hand and I don't know about the one in the back. The man in the front kept throwin' big rocks towards us that littered the ground of the warehouse. Where were we?
As they advanced the man in front talked bad about us. He said nasty, taunting things and I knew he was just herding us into a corner. We were dead men walking. I missed my sis' and I started to cry. Mama tried to soothe me, but I knew they were empty words. She was just as scared as me and was being just as easily herded to the far wall. They wanted us to run, I'm sure of it. Run and make their chase worth the fun of it all. I wondered if sis' ran, if she cried. She was only 8.
And I was farther back than mama when he hit her with one of those rocks and she cried out. The man in the back turned on some sprinklers or somethin' because it started raining from the sky. I hope it wasn't just my imagination. We were soaked when I turned and ran. There was a big door that was closing slowly, rollin' down from the ceiling (like a garage door), and I ran towards it as fast as I could. Mama yelled for me to run, but just as fast as I reached the door and dove beneath it, the leader man was on me, ripping at my clothes. I somehow squirmed away and another, outside door was closing. I don't know how I got away, it was all in s l o w m o t i o n but at the same time in the blink of an eye. I squeezed through the bottom right before it closed and the man was forced to let me go. I found that I couldn't cry no more, and I took off runnin'.
I ran until I couldn't see straight and my feet bled. I ran until I couldn't no more. I ran while my mama surely died back with the bad men. I left her. I just left her. I had no one. I ran further.
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And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never go to bed wondering how someone could go insane. If you didn't get the idea, I saw this dream from the man in the story I wrote about's point of view when he was a little kid. This is the beginning of his insanity.
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