It Won't Be Long

The darkness around me grew thick and the eyes of the watcher I could feel on the back of my neck. I wanted to run, as fast as I can. I didn't care where. As long as I was far away from here. But my knees were shaking so badly that my legs refused to move. I felt like I was going to be sick.

    The wind wailed at me, speaking words of foreign understanding that passed through me. In that wind I heared little voices of the dead, screaming and crying, telling me to run. It was good advice, but I didn't take it. How stupid of me.

    " Hello?" I called out, my voice choked and shrill. But nothing answered. I'm not sure I wanted anything to anyway. The darkness crept closer, whispering to me with a mocking tone. My mind thought up images of the soon deadly future, of how I would end. My heart wouldn't listen.

    " Help!"

    I jumped, almost screaming myself. That voice... It had been so small, so child-like, but filled with so much pain and desperation. But I didn't know if this was a real child, determined to get help for something that was happening to it, or if this was a trap set up by my watcher to lure me out. If I left it, I would be a boy responcible for the end of another being. If I went, I could be finished. 

    Maybe it was a moment of stupidity. Or maybe it was a moment of courage. But I ran as fast as I could towards the voice, for once my legs doing what I wanted them to do. I could feel the watcher following closely behind.

    " Help me! Please! Someone!"

    There was something oddly demonic about those cries. But still I ran. Maybe this was supposed to be how it ended. That was why I carried on.

    I spun around the corner of a tall dark building, entering the mouth of a long, shadow-filled alley. In a door way half way was a cloaked figure and in its hands were chains that he swung around. As I stopped, it turned towards me and on its lips grew a menacing smile.

    " As if you really cared," he hissed. Suddenly, he vanished into thin air, gone, leaving the chain in the door way. I ran to it and picked it up, flinching as the ice cold of the metal stung my bare fingers.

    I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Had the child gone? What was I going to do? What was this chain? What was that thing? Where was this place? I didn't know what to do.

    Slowly, I began to walk along the alley, aware of everything around me. This time, I didn't flinch as I heard the footsteps quietly padding behind me, growing closer. 

    Around me, the scene started to change. The buildings shrunk and grew bark and branches. Leaves fell on my head and burnt my skin as they flared into fire. My shoes were gone and I walked along a floor made of flamed. Behind me, the footsteps continued.

    It went on for hours. The scene stayed the same as if the film was stuck and kept replaying. By now, my feet were black with ash from the red and burnt badly, but I carried on. I refused to fall prey to whatever walked behind me. I wanted out of this dream. This nightmare. As long as it wasn't reality. As long as I knew that my happiness lay beyond this. 

   As if the film had been hit and made to carry on, everything started to change. Along either side of me, lights from torches ran through the trees, and the growls and killer barks of demon dogs cut through the silence. That was when I began to run.

   " Get him!"

  Chased, I fleed as fast as I could, small tears beginning to leak out of my eyes. Closer and closer they came, and closer and closer came my end. That time, I did scream, and screamed as loud as I could.

   The dogs shot through the trees, their red eyes boring into me as they bared their sharp white teeth, so close to my neck. I screamed again. I couldn't help it. It scared the hell out of me. I forgot about the reality outside and this became so real to me. If I stopped here, I was done for. 

   I stopped. The five huge dogs cirlced me and the watcher strode magnificently to me. 

   " You need to get this into your head," he breathed into the air. " Don't get lost in the fake reality that you created. Get out of this, alive."

In my bed, I bolted up, sweat dripping from my pours. The air was hot and smelt of fear and my quilt lay crumpled on the floor from the thrashing around. I quickly switched on my light by my bed and held my head in my hands, ready to cry. But no tears came out. They must have tried up from the fire of the nightmare.

    At least now I was safe. At least now I wasn't trapped in a circle of demon dogs.

   There came a shuffle from the corner of the room. I looked up and saw the cloaked figure from my dream, leaning against the wall, still with the menacing smile playing on his lips.