Pants are for Snickers

I’m running through a building. I run down one hallway, then another and another, looking for an exit, but the building keeps shifting around me. One room leads to another but they are all the same and there is no escape. I hear a phone ringing from far away. The noise is getting closer, getting louder, until it is coming from everywhere.

I wake up. I am in bed. It was a dream. My heart is still beating fast as I reach over to the night table and pick up the phone. 

“Maya?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time.”

I am out of bed and on my way to the door before I hang up. I am walking quickly toward the elevator. I need to walk faster, there is no time, but I am having trouble coordinating my legs. The hallway is getting longer and longer. I can barely see the elevator. I hear the ding announcing that the doors are about to open and I try to run but it feels like I’m moving through molasses. The ding of the doors keeps repeating, filling the impossibly long hallway. I am almost there, and then-

I wake up in bed again. The sound was the phone. It is still ringing on the nightstand. I blink hard, trying to shake off the lingering sense of unreality. I look around my bedroom. Everything looks normal. The phone is still ringing. I pick it up.

“Maya?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time.”

I’m out the door again, walking normally down the hallway. I am still feeling rattled by the dream. I tell myself it is because I have been worried about this moment. I have been mentally rehearsing it during the day, so of course it has infiltrated my dreams. Nothing to worry about.

I am almost at the elevator when I hear the ding. The doors open and Mr. Shelly, my sixth grade math teacher is there in the car. He crosses his arms and gives me a stern look. I don’t want to get in the car because I didn’t do my homework and I don’t want to get in trouble. He opens his mouth and says, RIINNNGGGG!

I wake up again, sweating this time, tangled in the bed sheets. I can feel the indents of my teeth on the insides of my cheeks. The phone is ringing on the nightstand but this time I don’t pick it up. I look around the room and my eyes settle on the plant on the windowsill. I take a mental picture of it and then look away and count to five before looking back. It is still there. 

The phone is still ringing but I need to be sure that this is not another dream. I get out of bed and take a step. No molasses. I attempt a jumping jack. It is easier than I remember. I walk to the bathroom, noting that my legs are totally coordinated. I am finally starting to relax. I open the bathroom door and Claire is in there, doing her makeup. She smiles at me when I come in. I try to smile back but all of my teeth fall out and clatter to the floor. Claire’s face contorts into a scream, but the sound that comes out is RIINNNNGGGG!

I wake up in bed again. The phone is still ringing on the nightstand, but I cannot pick it up. I cannot move at all, except for my eyes. I am overwhelmed with dread even before I see it. There is a dark figure in the corner of my bedroom, moving slowly towards me. I am terrified. The figure is getting closer and closer. It is going to kill me. This is how I am going to die. It is on top of me now, pressing down on my chest, choking me, squeezing the breath out of me. In my mind, I am screaming, flailing, fighting for my life, but my body will not move an inch. The pressure on my chest is so intense that I am sure my ribs are breaking. The figure’s face is so close to mine that I can smell it’s breath. It smells sweet and rancid, like death. It’s mouth stretches into a malicious grin. It pushes down hard and I can feel my ribs cracking, but the sound they make is strange. It sounds like RRIINNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!

I jolt upright in the bed clutching my chest. My heart is pounding. The figure is gone, but the memory of it is so vivid that I swear I can still smell its breath. My hands are shaking as I move them up and down my rib cage, checking for injuries. I want to run into my parents’ bedroom and dive under the covers where the monsters can’t get me, but I am an adult and my parents are across the country now, not asleep in the next room. 

The phone is still ringing on the nightstand. I am about to pick it up when I am seized with a strange sense of déjà vu, but like a dim star, the feeling disappears as soon as I focus on it. I take a shaky breath and answer the phone.

“Maya?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time.”

I throw off the covers and take off running towards the elevator. The hallway is full of people and I am getting frustrated as I push my way through the crowd. I finally make it to the elevator and sigh with relief as the doors close behind me. There is an old man in the car who turns to me and says, “It’s ok. Pants are for snickers.” I wonder if he is insane but then I realize I am naked from the waist down. I try to pull my shirt lower to cover myself and the old man laughs and says, “you’d better hurry’” and he’s right because my plane is taking of and I am still in the security line and Mr. Shelly is there wagging a finger at me and Claire is there holding out a handful of bloody teeth and a young girl is screaming and screaming, and it sounds like RRIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!

And I wake up in bed. 

And the phone is ringing on the nightstand.