Nightmares

A cool breeze runs through colored leaves. Cars hurry past a busy sidewalk. This clean and sunny city is home to many kinds of people. All of these people, despite being different, all have one thing in common, they seem to always be happy. Now this isn’t really a bad thing, not at all, but it is quite odd when someone new moves in and they don’t seem to ever be happy. 

A pale, slender, brown haired person steps inside of a large apartment building. The look on their face suggests that they aren’t thrilled to be there. They brush off the green apron and adjust the name tag attached to it. The name tag reads, Cyrus. Cyrus begins their trek up the stairs to their apartment, hoping that they won’t get stopped by anyone. Before long someone does just that. Cyrus stops as a small blonde haired child smiles up at them. “Hi! I’m Quinn! What’s your name?” The child asks excitedly as Cyrus bends down onto the carpeted stair to be at eye level with Quinn. “I’m Cyrus. Where are your parents?” Cyrus asks Quinn as they look around the well lit stair way, finding no one else there. “They’re downstairs!” Quinn responds happily. Cyrus stands back up and nods. “Then you should get going, kid.” Quinn nods and jogs down the stairs. Cyrus continues their journey up the stairs to apartment 137. 

Three flights of stairs later, Cyrus finally makes it to a red door that reads, 137. A sigh of relief exits Cyrus as they unlocked the door. That sigh of relief may have been a little early because as Cyrus stepped in, took off their apron and switched on the light, a small crowd of people were gathered in their dining room. The people had pushed their small brown table and chair off to the side of the room, and covered the hardwood floor with gift baskets, balloons, and confetti. They had also hung a sign up that read, Welcome Home Cyrus. Cyrus was not thrilled. They dropped their apron onto a small hook by the door and crossed their arms across their chest. Their brown eyes scanned the small crowd of people and realized that they knew none of them. This wasn’t a great feeling for Cyrus, they currently had a house full of people that they didn’t know but they obviously seemed to know them. “Well, aren’t you going to say something?” someone from the crowd chirped. Cyrus shook their head and stepped out of the way of the door. “I would appreciate it if you all left me alone.” The crowd became still for a moment, but not too long after that they walked out of the door.

The crowd had left and Cyrus had moved their furniture back to where it was supposed to be, cleaned up the confetti, and put the gift baskets on the marble countertop. Cyrus had left the banner hung on the wall. Finally they had time to themself, no one was there to bother them, no one was there to talk to them, they finally had the chance to relax. Cyrus walked into the living room and sat on the sofa. They currently didn’t have a television, because money was a problem right now, so they couldn’t watch anything. Instead they took this time to reflect on their day at work. It wasn’t a great day in their opinion, they had been yelled at by a mother who didn’t get enough sugar in her coffee. It was an extremely busy day, there was only one other person working with them that day. It wasn't a great day for them. After a while of thinking about work they ended up falling asleep on the sofa. 

Screams echo through the darkness, the sound of footsteps are near. A low growl erupts in their ear and suddenly they are faced with a dark, foggy forest. The leaves from the trees were scattered all over the ground, they all seemed to be devoid of color. Cyrus darted their eyes throughout their surroundings, there were no signs of life. After they realized this they began to panic. If there's no life there's no people, if there's no people there's no way to find help if something happens to them. Cyrus didn’t know what to do, but they didn’t have much time to think about it because a very warm breath fell upon the back of their neck. Without even turning around, Cyrus bolted for a denser area of the woods, in hopes of losing whatever it was that had found them. They heard the breaking of sticks and crackling of leaves as they ran, so they knew that they were still being followed. Soon the crackling and breaking stopped, but Cyrus kept running, they didn’t want to give this creature the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately for Cyrus this creature had not only caught up with them but had found its way in front of them. Cyrus was slammed into the body of this creature, which blurred their vision almost completely. It wasn’t too long before they were picked up, by their black shirt, to face the creature. The face of this creature was made from the skull of a deer, with glowing red orbs for eyes. The body of the creature was covered in matted black fur, there were points on its chest where there were exposed ribs, the creature looked very fit for running, which explains why Cyrus couldn’t out run this thing. Before Cyrus could physically react to this creature it opened its mouth revealing a black pit. Cyrus began to kick and scream as the creature tilted its head back and fixed them above its mouth. Cyrus begged and pulled at the collar of their shirt, desperately trying anything to get out of this situation. It was no use, the creature had no reaction to their desperate attempt at freedom. The creature dropped Cyrus into its mouth as they screamed one last time.

A jolt and Cyrus was awake and in perfectly good condition. Nothing had happened to them. Although their neck was extremely sore. This confused Cyrus, so they went into their bathroom to examine what it could have been. As they pushed the door open and the mirror came into their view they saw an enormous red line across their neck. Shocked, Cyrus continued looking for things on their body that might have appeared from the dream. All they found were abnormally large teeth marks on their stomach...from their last nightmare.