Dreamscares

“Toss it here!”

Cleo jumped up with every ounce of vigor she had and landed on a large patch of grass, which, although normally described as being plush and soft to land on, was quite scratchy and bumpy. She got up and brushed herself off, inspecting the beginnings of a small bruise on her elbow.

“I think that’s enough fun for me. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

Cleo picked the ball up off the ground and threw it to her friend who was halfway in their car already.

“I’ll call you later!”

Cleo wandered around the open baseball diamond a little while longer, admiring the sunset illuminating the small town set before her. After much deliberation, she entered the woods that bordered the outfield. It was getting dark, so she picked up her pace so as to not be stuck in the wilderness after the sun completely disappeared for the night. 

OOOOUF

She tripped over a fallen oak tree and landed amongst some wild fungi. She had been carrying a small bag that she flung as she tumbled. Reaching for it, she discovered a small book lying under some of the leaves and bramble. She swiped it up, along with the bag, and scurried home as the streetlights flicked on in a wave of security lighting. 

When she got home, she threw her bag on the empty chair by the front door and slumped onto the couch for a little light reading from this new book. She carefully wiped dirt and moss off the bare cover and turned to a random page in the middle. The page illuminated slightly and then settled back to its original state. 

Weird.

She thumbed back to the beginning and read the first few lines.

For those who dream, be careful what you wish for.

It started out like a fairytale, ornately describing the scene of a forest during sunrise. Sprinklings of light danced along the ground beneath a canopy of tall redwood trees, morning dew glittered in the rising sun atop a hill where two rabbits lazily feasted on some plants near an old wishing well. The wind picked up and sky grew dark, thunder swelled in the distance. Suddenly, a light erupted from the well.

Cleo’s head began to dip and the sensation jolted her awake.

“I’m way more tired than I realized.” And off to bed she went.

She dozed off quickly, entering into a dream replaying the afternoon she’d had. Lunch with her friend and a friendly game of catch at the baseball diamond. After her friend left, Cleo began her journey through the woods. They seemed to be much darker now than they had been while she was awake. She stumbled, as she had earlier, but this time she nearly smashed her face on the side of a well. She grabbed onto the stone wall and hoisted herself up to look inside. It was deep. She couldn’t see the bottom, and it was pitch black. An eeriness settled in her stomach making her want to leave but not being able to rip her eyes from the scene. A small voice began to speak, but she couldn’t make out what it said. Something made her want to reach into the abyss, but she resisted the urge. Then a low throng of whispers started climbing the walls of the well, crescendoing in volume and in pitch until she awoke from her slumber. 

She hadn’t picked up the found book again since that night, but every night for the next week, the same dream played out in the same sequence. She wondered what would happen if she made a wish into the well. She settled on finding out. 

Sure enough, the following evening, the same dream occurred. This time, when she leaned over the well, she whispered her wish into the darkness.

I wish I had a million dollars.

A simple request for a dream wishing well. Again, the voices flourished and filled her ears with mysterious incantations until she awoke the next morning, feeling surprisingly refreshed. She saw the forest book sitting on her nightstand and decided to read a little bit more. 

The book continued after the light emerged from the well, explaining how the forest fared after the episode. The light burned out as quickly as it appeared blanketing the forest in a heavy darkness. Animals scattered, crows cawed loud overhead, protesting the turn of events. A low mist hovered over the forest floor, twisting around every tree trunk, intertwining itself between small plants and fallen branches. Out of the shadows emerged a creature. Its limbs were long and wispy, its body broad at the top near its arms and tapering down toward its legs. Its eyes glowed green and were affixed to the middle of the broad shoulder-like upper torso. It was the color of the sky on a moonless night. So black that it didn’t seem real. No features could be distinguished apart from the glowing eyes, making it look like emptiness lumbering forward. Strings of goop dripped from its body as it took each step. It looked as if it was speaking, and yet, it made no sound. A feeling of dread engulfed Cleo as she slammed the book closed, and threw it back onto the nightstand. 

“That’s enough for today.”

She grabbed the mail on her way out the door, and one envelope in particular caught her eye. It looked official. She tore it open, and to her surprise, it was from some out-of-state lawyer who claimed that Cleo was a beneficiary to some great aunt, and that she should contact them as quickly as possible.

When she hung up the phone, she sat in silence for a minute. Suddenly, the excitement overwhelmed her and she screamed so loud that everyone in the office turned to stare.

“What??!” Asked her friend, slightly panicking.

“I just inherited a million dollars from one of my relatives!”

After work, Cleo ran home as fast as her legs could take her. She took a couple sleeping pills and drifted off to that same dream. This time, she wished for a lighter workload, so she could start taking more time off. Lo and behold, the following morning she arrived at work to a new hire, there to assist her. She suddenly found she had loads more free time to do things she wanted to do and wasn’t stuck at work endlessly answering emails and phone calls.

Every night she asked for something else. Some things were little - extra time in the morning, the last pop tart to not actually be the last pop tart. Some things were big - a new car, a new laptop computer. And every night her dream became shorter and shorter. She had less time to get to the well and make a wish before waking up. To remedy this, she started taking more sleeping pills. Slowly the dreams began to last longer again. Some mornings she’d wake up hours late for work. 

On her last night, she was going to wish for a companion, someone who would love her because of her successes and fortunes, and who would love her in spite of all of her faults and failures. She’d grown a tolerance over the last few weeks, so she elected to pour half the bottle of sleeping pills into the palm of her hand and shoveled them into her mouth, guzzling water as fast as she could. She opened the book that still sat on her nightstand, to the page that featured the slimy, black forest creature. Her head dipped a few times while she read about what it whispered into the night. 

If you dream, be careful what you wish for.

As she slumped over on the bed, a black hand with long, wispy fingers wrapped itself around her, pulling her into its hollow chest as she fell backward into a well, whispers welcoming her into the abyss.