The Last Glimpse of Reality

The wind whistled eerily through the creaking branches of the maple trees and I pulled my cardigan on a little closer. Just three more miles. Three miles left to go, and I would be safely home. I couldn't figure out why I had decided to take a walk that chilly autumn evening. I just knew that I needed a break.

A break from all that was real, all that my life was uncomfortably marred by.

When I finally reached the door to my house, I quickly stepped inside and locked it. I had barely begun to get my heart rate back to normal when it suddenly increased again against my will. I would now have to face the inevitable. Taking a deep breath, I decided to return to the security of my bedroom.

That night was a cold one. Cold, dark, and dreadfully quiet. Too quiet. It had not yet reached the low temperature where the crickets would disappear, at at once I knew that something was wrong. In a dream-like state, I pushed aside the covers on my bed, determined to solve the stillness of the night.

It all started with a tune. I had closed my eyes for a split second, and suddenly, a strange tune met my ears. Startled, I opened my eyes to see that I was seated at a piano. My fingers couldn't move, but I was playing a song.

I rose from the piano with my hands stretched out in front of me, ready to continue playing. Without warning, they fell down at my sides. It was as if I had lost all control over my body, yet I was able to accomplish tasks.

I glanced at my surroundings. All around me I could see nothing except for a fine mist, so I kept on searching out my bearings.

Then I saw it. Ahead of me was a white light emitting from a doorway. The open blue door had an intricate brass knocker attached to it. Not understanding why, I ran to the doorway and stepped inside.

The door disappeared, as did the mist. I was alone in a room that seemed to etch itself across a vast space of nothingness. Curiously enough, the white light was dim when I looked at it, but was blinding when my gaze fell off of it.

From somewhere a door slammed. I heard footsteps make their way over slowly, stealthily, toward me. Terrified, I reached to pull my cardigan closer, then realized that I was not wearing it. I searched around frantically, but could not find it.

Preparing myself for whatever ill event was about to take place, I stopped breathing. My heart rate seemed in sync with the foot-steps. My fingers started to shake with fear, despite my incessant urging with them to stop.

Then a voice spoke, causing an unwanted chill crawl up my neck and squeeze me around the neck. I was being strangled, I was sure, but I could not get the hands of death off of me.

"I'm sorry," the voice said, "but you're going to have to go." My eyes perceived no one else's presence, yet I heard plainly what the person was saying.

"Go?" I asked, without moving my lips. It was strange, to say the least; however, I was becoming more accustomed to these weird behaviors.

Suddenly, a figure emerged from nowhere. I could only see the side of his head. Everything below that was shrouded in darkness. I stood in the bright dimness of the room, ever watching, ever waiting.

Then he turned his head to meet my eyes. I could tell in an instant that he had extraordinarily indecisive features. His eyes were neither brown, nor blue, nor green, but looked a mixture of all three. His hair was a combination of black, brown, silver, and oddly enough, green. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I shouldn't have been surprised if it was green. Also, one of his eyebrows was raised dubiously; the other was evidently arched in a disapproving frown.

I couldn't even begin to comprehend what was happening to me. Was I paranoid? Or was all of this a dream? But every last aspect of it seemed so familiar. I remembered the piano, the mist, the door, the light-even the man. They were all real, each from a separate moment in time.

I tried to connect the puzzling pieces together, but my efforts were futile. And then to add onto-even to surpass-all of these confusing matters, a chorus of shrill laughter rang out. I whirled all around, disoriented. It sounded like the laughter of children.

I listened intently to the laughter. At first, that was all I was able to hear, but as I closed my eyes tightly and opened my ears up even further, I could recognize that it was a bunch of jumbled-up words, though still indistinguishable.

All of a sudden, everything was quiet again. I opened my eyes, bewildered and knowing that I would never be able to solve this mysterious evening with them closed.

Now the man had vanished from my sight, as well as the white light that had formerly been my companion, though I was unsure as to whether I still wanted it or not. Now, in front of me, there stood a little girl about eight years old with brown hair that curled about her face, large, miserable eyes, and a broken heart.

"Mommy," she sobbed, "I didn't win. I didn't win!"

I then watched as a woman with blond hair and a patched dress appeared on a bed made of hay and dirt before me. She patted the hay next to her. The child crawled over up and nestled against the woman. "It's all right," the mother said in a weak voice, and burst into a coughing fit.

A boy of around six years of age appeared, angrily glaring at the girl, and then the entire scene disappeared.

"Do you recognize this?" a voice asked from directly behind me. I whirled around and faced the man.

"Why?" I demanded. "Why did you show me this?" I had finally come to an understanding that I was the little girl, the man was the little boy, and the woman was our mother.

"To remind you of what once was there and shall never be there again," the man replied. He shot me another angry glare. "It was you! You caused the death of our mother!"

I realized with horror what my brother was saying. The piano tune was a song I had played, hoping to win enough money to help my family and save my mother. The mist was similar to what the weather was like the day she had died. The door was the door to a home where I had been welcomed, yet my brother had been shut out of.

And the lights were to make me delusional. This was all a nasty trick of my brother. I had no idea what was about to happen, and I had lost all hope of getting free again.

Another thought appeared in the back of my mind. With all of the strength that I could muster, I stared the man straight in the eyes. "You said I was going to go," I reminded him. "But my question is go where?"

He grinned mischievously, and even his sinister smile was lopsided. "To a place where you shall never escape," he answered coolly.

I never felt a hand push me, but suddenly I was falling through an empty expanse that never ended. All time was lost to me, and I wasn't sure what was happening.

Is this a dream or not?