Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Nebulous: A Six Sentence Story

The dream came every night, without fail, and some nights, she would wake up suddenly from it and remember almost every detail, while other nights, the dream was nebulous, and the more she tried to remember what happened, the more it was like trying to catch smoke in her hands.

There were nights when she would try to wish the dream away, but it came anyway, dancing into her sleep, frightening her with its realism, and she would wake up, trembling, her throat dry from trying to call out as she dreamt, and she would lie still until the shapes of the night became the ordinary things in her room, and she knew she was safe.

The worst nights were when the dream was not realistic at all but was just shadows and fog  that swirled about until she was able to pull herself out of their grasp, and she would scramble from her bed and pace the floor until she could convince herself that it was just a dream.

She had begun fearing the night, because she knew the dream would come, and then she began fearing the day, because she felt as though the dream were watching her somehow.

Her skin grew sallow, her eyes hollow, her hair dry and unkempt, and her very being got smaller and smaller as the dream grew larger and larger, until one night, she quit fighting. Instead of trying to push the dream away, she rose to meet it, the dream taking her thin hand and pulling her upwards until she was nothing more than a wisp of mist, and then she was gone.


Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge's Blog for Six Sentence Stories with the prompt "nebulous."


13 comments:

  1. Oooh. Sad story...good story! I enjoyed the building of tension, ever hoping for a "good" ending.
    Cautionary fairytale for the bad kids? (just kidding 😆)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hah! Thanks, sis! I have several recurring dreams; I just hope I don't end up the same way!

      Delete
  2. Good demonic description of a dream that watches someone during the day. I hope things turned out better than it seems they did for her.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The mind going piece by piece, the dreams (hallucinations?), the fear, taking away all that is real, is such a sad way to depart. Excellent SSS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Pat! I used to have a recurring event in my dreams that started over 20 years ago (I still have it happen occasionally, but not as often as it used to) and in the dream I can't breathe for various reasons, but most often because I'm under water. I would wake up from them terrified and would have to pace the room until my heart calmed down. I was convinced each time that I was losing my mind!

      Delete
  4. Very powerful, and on so many levels.
    You leave the reader to decide if meeting the dream was a positive or negative.
    Nicely, and quite vividly crafted!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Truly terrifying, Dyanne - especially that line: "and then she began fearing the day, because she felt as though the dream were watching her somehow." I actually shivered when I read that.
    Dreams can be so troublesome sometimes, when all we need is a good night's sleep. Your protaganist had it really really bad!!
    Great Six!
    - Ford, Atomic Mage

    ReplyDelete
  6. This certainly is the stuff of nightmares, Dyanne. I really liked the way you built up the tension sentence by sentence until finally, the climax and *pow* she's gone. Well-written!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very well done and tremendously sad. Good job.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Scary and sad and it's why i pray against dreams.

    ReplyDelete