Keep Going

I thought it would be better in California.

I thought the salty sea breeze would calm my racing mind. Or, if that didn’t work, the midnight pool parties would at least distract my brain. Or maybe if the change in environment didn’t improve my mood, the therapists in the golden state would at least be more helpful than the ones in Utah.

But it turns out the therapists here are just as useless but double the price.

No one here knows how to help me. I’m an enigma to some of the best minds in the state. I don’t have a physical disease or a visible wound. I just have nightmares.

They started when I was twelve. And I still have them now, as an adult. Every night, the exact same nightmare.

When they happen, I’m aware that I’m dreaming, but I can’t wake up. I’m trapped in that nightmarish state until the dream is completed.

You see, I have control over what happens in the dream. I must make it to the end of the dream in order to wake up. If I do not make it through, I simply do not wake up. The time I spend in the dream correlates to the time I spend sleeping in real life. One time I took an extra-long time in the dream, and when I awoke, two days had passed.

My parents were no help when I first told them. I insisted there was something wrong with me and I needed immediate help, but they waved off my concerns.

“This is just a phase. The nightmares will pass,” my father told me. But they haven’t passed yet, and I’m thirty.

The object of the dream is to reach a cement courtyard on the other side of a forest. Once I touch the cement, I wake up. Since nightmares are supposed to be terrifying, the forest I must walk through is filled with all kinds of horrors. There are poisonous snakes, giant spiders, quicksand traps, vultures who will eat you if you walk too slow, a lake with a shark in it, and an axe murderer on the hunt for blood.

Thankfully I know how the dream goes, so I prepare myself before I go to sleep. In the nightmare, I am in the same outfit and holding the same things as I am in real life. So if I go to sleep holding a hammer, I get that hammer in the dream. These days I’ve been trying to sleep with as many useful tools as possible in order to make the journey easier. However, sleeping with a flashlight and a chainsaw in hand isn’t the safest. I’ve cut myself in my sleep before, which just confirms people’s suspicions that I’m crazy. And any injury that happens in my dream happens to my body in real life. During one version of the nightmare, I got stung by a bunch of wasps. When I woke up, there were red spots all over my body.

I have to go to sleep wearing coveralls to protect myself each night.

Although the pattern of the dream always starts out the same, the rest of the nightmare is up to me. The decisions I make affect how quickly the journey is completed and if I make it out alive.

There was only one time where I thought I would actually die. I was sixteen and had been having these nightmares for four years. I was exhausted from going through them every single night. I wanted a way around them, a quick solution to solve everything. I had no one to turn to for help. I was desperate. I felt like I was going insane. So that day, before I fell asleep, I decided I wouldn’t go into the forest. I would find a way around it. There had to be a way to skip the worst part of the dream, like a cheat code in a video game. That night, I wore only my pajamas to bed and held nothing in my hands, ready to cheat the nightmare.

I woke up lying on my stomach in the mud, just like I always do. I stood up, not bothering to dust off my filthy blue and white pajamas. I could see the thick forest in front of me, while rolling hills went on for miles behind me. The sun was low in the sky, it had to be around 5 pm. The air was humid and smelled of eucalyptus. I had already decided the setting of the nightmare was somewhere in Australia. That somehow made it better to cope.

I started walking. Once at the edge of the trees, I turned left instead of going straight in. I marched along, my sock feet squishing into the wet earth. The sun dipped lower in the sky. The journey through the forest usually took the whole night. The sun was my only indication of time in this barren land. Other than the axe murderer, I had never encountered a person in my dreamland. No one like me, trying desperately to make it through the forest alive so they could wake up.

I was just thinking about the lack of human life on whatever version of Earth I was on when I noticed a figure in the distance, sitting on a log. I gasped audibly. This was my chance. This was the loophole I had been looking for. Perhaps the person up there was the key. A way to stop these nightmares from happening. Maybe they knew something I didn’t.

I raced up to the person, taking in his features as I got closer. I had to make sure he wasn’t dangerous like the axe murderer. The guy was a hairy middle-aged man wearing a leather cowboy hat and orange gumboots. He looked safe enough, at least to chat to for a few minutes.

“Hello there,” I said as I approached him. I knew I didn’t look my best, wearing mud-stained pajamas and wet socks.

“Well, hello!” the man said cheerily. “I’m Jack. Jack Of All Trades is my full title of course. What’s your name, boy?”

“Benjamin,” I replied, watching his movements carefully. He didn’t appear to have a weapon, but his odd name made me mistrust him. Who named their kid Jack Of All Trades?

“You come around these parts often? You don’t look like you’re from here.” Jack gestured to my pajamas, grinning. I realized he had an Australian accent. I was right about the setting of my dream.

“I’m not really from here, but I pass through every night. I usually go through the forest, but today I decided to go around.”

“Around the Ongoing Forest? That’s impossible! The trees go on forever. There’s no way around or under it. They only way is through.” Jack smiled, shaking his head. “What brings you here anyway? The forest is dangerous.”

“I know. I’ve been through it thousands of times. There’s a murderer in there who always tries to kill me. Poisonous snakes and spiders too. It’s horrible every time. I’m looking for a way around it. I need to get to the courtyard on the other side of the forest, but I don’t want to walk through it tonight. I don’t want to suffer anymore. Please. There has to be another way,” I begged.

“Well, my friend, I just so happen to have a little bit of scuff-dust from that old woman I traded with. It’s not much, but it might get you across.” Jack started riffling through a small brown satchel on his belt.

“Scuff-dust?” I had grown used to strange terms and magical items in my nightmares. Anything was possible in dreamland.

“Yup.” Jack grabbed a fistful of something and held his hand out for me to see. In it was pale blue dust, as fine as sand. “Rub this on the bottom of your feet, and you’ll be able to jump over the forest.”

“Jump over the forest?” I questioned, curious. Sometimes I actually enjoyed parts of my dreams. I got to perform extraordinary feats that were impossible in real life.

“I can see you’re intrigued. You want to give my dust a try?” Jack raised one of his bushy eyebrows.

Jack’s magic dust would help me skip having to walk through the forest completely. I had to take it. I grabbed the powder from Jack, some of the crystals falling to the grass below. “What do you want in return?” I asked, staring at the scuff-dust in my hand. I knew everything in this land came with a price, usually a heavy one.

“Your smile of course.” Jack grinned, his teeth impossibly straight, his lips peeled back so far I could see his healthy gums.

“My smile?” I took a step back. Maybe he meant my teeth. Or maybe he just wanted a picture of me. Maybe he was lonely. I could relate to that.

“You’ve taken my dust, so I will take your smile.” Jack reached forward with a grin, but I stumbled backwards even further. The merry man was almost too happy. It was starting to scare me.

“Look, I don’t know what you mean. How can you take a smile?”

“Like this.” Jack curled his fingers and yanked his hand back towards his own chest. Suddenly my face was pulled forward. I tried to back away but my face, my lips, my teeth were being drawn towards Jack. He closed his fist slowly, and agonizing pain spread through my cheeks. Cold filled my body. Then Jack bent over, his face writhed in pain. I felt his grip on my own face weaken. I pulled away ever so slightly, but I could tell something was wrong. My face was numb. I felt empty.

Jack straightened up and beamed more happily than ever before, his smile even wider than just seconds ago. “Thanks for that. Now go on. Jump over the forest. I hope it works.” He stood up and dusted himself off, then promptly walked away.

What the heck? I thought to myself. The exchange with Jack had been so weird I felt like laughing. Yet I couldn’t. I tried to stretch my lips into a grin, but my face refused to form the shape. I was stuck in a permanent frown. I tried to think of something funny, like my grandfather with his underpants on top of his trousers, but I couldn’t smile. Jack had done exactly what he said he would do. He had taken my smile.

I was confused and upset, but Jack was long gone, and the sun had almost disappeared beneath the horizon. I had to get moving. If I had truly lost my smile, then I hoped I had gotten something out of it.

The blue scuff-dust still sat in my hand. I wasted no time rubbing it on the bottom of my feet. The powder stuck to my wet socks. I wiggled my toes, but I didn’t feel any different.

Taking a breath, I bent my knees, then jumped straight up. The powder on my feet lifted me high into the air, far above the treetops. I levitated in the air, staring at the scene below me. I could see the end of the forest ahead of me. It didn’t look too far from my viewpoint. I leaned forward and started to fly forward. The scuff-dust was working.

As I sped forward, I looked down. I saw the lake, a shiny silver fin sticking out of the water. I had encountered the weird mechanical shark in the lake before, and it hadn’t been fun. I spotted some vultures circling in the air lower than me. I was glad to avoid them tonight. My plan had worked. There was a loophole in the nightmare after all. I wanted to smile at my achievement, but I couldn’t.

I spotted a flash of red fabric in the forest below. The axe murderer’s jacket. I didn’t have to face him either.

Just as I was reaching the edge of the forest, I felt myself drop ever so slightly. My feet jittered, and I dropped some more. The powder was running out. I leaned forward harder, wanting to clear the trees before I fell completely.

I wasn’t fast enough. Or maybe Jack hadn’t given me enough dust on purpose. I dropped straight down, into the sharp tree branches of the Ongoing Forest. I screamed as I fell, alerting the axe murderer to my exact location.

I think I must have been unconscious for about ten minutes. When I came to, my entire body hurt. It was a miracle I had even survived the fall. Every body part had been sliced by the tree leaves, and I definitely had a concussion. There was pain everywhere. I fingered my nose, and my hand came away with blood.

I tried to stand but fell over. I knew the snakes, vultures, wasps, spiders, and murderer were all out to get me. But I didn’t feel any urgency to keep moving. All I wanted to do was lie there forever. I was too tired of these nightmares, in too much pain, both physical and mental.

Suddenly, I heard a booming voice echo across the land.

“KEEP GOING,” the voice screamed, yet the thundering sound was soothing.

The words broke me from my stupor. I didn’t care who was talking. I just clung to their comforting words. They were right. I had to keep going. My whole body ached, tears traced my dusty face, sobs rattled my brain, but I inched forward, crawling on my stomach. The end of the forest couldn’t be far. I didn’t stop crawling. I wouldn’t die. I couldn’t let that happen. I heard the rustling of bushes behind me. The axe murderer was on my trail.

My elbows and knees dug into the wet ground as I slithered forward. The rustling got louder behind me. I heard the strangled cries of vultures above me.

I broke through the trees. The cement was right in front of me. I heard a manic laugh behind me. The axe murderer. He was right there. I heard the swoosh of a large weapon falling towards my back. I could’ve given up in the moment, let all the pain end. I could have been free of the torture forever. But instead, I kept going. I slapped a hand on top of the cement.

I instantly jerked awake, free from the nightmare, at least for the night. I was lying in my bed, sweat and blood soaking my pajamas. The injuries from my fall were real. The pain was real. But at least I had gotten through it. I had made it through the forest by the skin of my teeth.

Speaking of teeth, I tried to smile as I lay in bed, but the expression wouldn’t appear on my face. What Jack had taken was permanent. It was impossible for me to smile.

I thought I could cheat the dream and wake up feeling better than ever before. But my trade with Jack had only made things worse.

It was the mysterious booming voice that had saved my life. The person had told me to keep going, so I had. They pulled me out of a dark situation, with just two kind words.

The nightmares still come. So far, I have survived every single one, but there have been other close calls. I have never tried to cheat again. I never looked for Jack after that night. I always go straight through the forest, taking the most direct path. I always prepare myself with weapons and thick clothing. I have also never smiled since that night.

Although the dreams are frightening, the true nightmare is knowing I have to go through that forest every single night for who knows how long. The only thing that helps me get through the agony is that voice. I repeat that person’s words in my head as I trek through that forest each night. Keep going. Even when I feel alone and desperate, something inside me pushes me forward. I might suffer like this forever. I might not. I don’t know. But I know there is someone out there, a random person in that dreamland, who cares. They encouraged me to move forward.

I thought moving to California would help me feel better, if not end the nightmares completely. I thought a new therapist would be able to ease my burden. Nothing has worked so far, but I have hope. I will keep going, no matter what I go through. I will keep looking for new specialists, new distractions, new places.

Maybe it’ll be better in New York.