Challenge 46: Dream

242. Describe a recurring dream.

I’m cycling far, far into the darkness from a monster with metal legs, twice the size of me. This dream, a nightmare, haunted my sleep almost every other night of my childhood. I despised going to sleep, just because I thought I would see that monster again. I knew this monster, she was a big built second grader with short hair clipped to the sides, wore high boots with metal supports as she had trouble walking, and would scream at anyone in the younger grades if she didn’t get what she wanted. I was in first grade then and was dead scared of her.

This dream of mine started off in the school playground where I was playing with a group of friends in the sandpit under the warm sun. After building a sandcastle, I walked over the bicycle stand and rode around the school campus. It was at that moment after taking a round that everything around me disappeared, my friends, the school building, and the sound of laughter. After a few minutes of riding on, I heard a faint stomping sound and saw something like a black hole in front of me. A chill ran down my spine as the stomps grew louder and louder and my curiosity made me turn around. It was that girl in second grade, running after me to get the bicycle I was riding. She ran towards me, screaming and shouting in a language foreign to me, but I could make out that everything she said was in a negative context. Her face was in rage and I could literally see the steam coming out of her ears and fire burning in her eyes. I pressed hard on the brakes but the cycle did not stop. I had two choices, fall and get hurt being left with nothing in the middle of nowhere or ride on into the darkness and escape the monster’s wrath. Obviously I chose the second one. I did not like the thought of getting hurt at all, no matter how small the cut maybe, I was not going to consider that option. So, there I was, a first grader, riding in to the darkness filled with fear and anxiety, as a second grade monster chased me.

I haven’t had this dream for quite some time now, and thinking about it today, it doesn’t sound scary at all. This is exactly what I thought the last time I dreamt it, and that was in grade ten. Yet, every time I am actually dreaming it, I am filled with terror.