I woke up with a start, sitting straight up in my bed, wide
eyed and looking around. I’m not sure what woke me up but something seemed off.
I laid back down, thinking that it was probably just a siren, a dog knocking
over a trash can or some drunk making his way home. As I cuddled under my
blankets, creating my cocoon once again, the noise happened again. It was loud
and came with a mighty crash. This time I knew it wasn’t coming from outside,
nor just part of a fading dream. I tried not to scream, knowing that if someone
was in the house, the scream would just alert them to my location.
Every horror movie now ran through my head, and the
conclusion is that majority of the time one of two things happen; a) the girl
dies because she’s too stupid to grab a weapon, or b) the girl dies because she
hides beneath the blankets, like that has ever helped anyone in the history of
the universe! I grabbed my baseball bat that I keep by my bedside for just such
an occurrence, and slipped as quietly as I could out of my bed and towards the
door. My place isn’t very big and so I put my ear against the door to see if I
could hear anything else. No other sound came my way. I decided to try and take
a peek out of the door to see what was going on,
I turned the doorknob, slowly to avoid making noise, and
nudged the door open a few inches to stick my head in the crack and peer out. I
still couldn’t see anything, in my open floor apartment. This was getting strange since I couldn’t
hear anything either. I pulled the door open quickly but smoothly to avoid the
squeaking hinges, and kept close to the wall, with my bat raised, and examined
the room beyond. Still nothing moved in the pale light coming in from the
street beyond.
I was getting a little braver, starting to think that I did
just dream the noise. I started in the bathroom, moving aside the shower
curtain, checking the hallway closet, behind the couch and the laundry room. My
room mate wasn’t home yet, since she usually worked nights so I quickly turned
on the light in her room and looked around, just to make 100% sure that there
wasn’t a burglar, murder or some other misfit poking around.
Nobody. Good. I guess. But now I was wide awake, no chance
that I was going to go back to sleep anytime soon. I shut off the lights
grabbed a glass of water and went to double check the dead bolt on the front
door and the patio door as well. After all was looked after I headed to my
room.
Just as I was about to close my bedroom door, another crash
sounded. I whirled around, looking towards the kitchen where the sound emanated
from. I was starting to panic, seeing
still nothing. I decided that instead of worrying all night long if there was
someone, or maybe something, was in
the house I would just leave. Get in my truck and call a friend on my way to
their house.
Turning into my room, leaving the glass of water on the
dresser and grabbing my keys from the floor where I dropped them earlier and my
phone from the bedside charger, I headed to the door. I quickly put my shoes on
and put my hand out to turn the deadbolt, and there was nothing there. The door
seemed to have completely disappeared. I threw on the lights and a blank wall
the same color as the rest of the place stared back at me, like there was never
a door there. There was even a picture hanging at eye level of a barn and
mountains.
I looked at the wall confused, and the panic was really
starting to set in. Well if I couldn’t go through the main door, then I’ll just
go out through the patio. Luckily I lived on the ground floor and could hurtle
over the patio railing, and get away from this creepy apartment.
As I reached for the patio door however, it turned to steel
right before my eyes. I backed away quickly, never expecting anything like this
to happen in the normal realm of planet Earth. There was still a doorknob, so
after taking a couple of deep breathes to calm my racing heart, I went towards
the now steel door.
I tried to turn the knob to no avail. It must have been
locked but I couldn’t find any lock or keyhole. My only conclusion was that it
was locked from the outside, and if it was locked from the outside, who was
trying to keep me in here?
Claustrophobia was starting to set in. I have never been
claustrophobic, even enjoying small, dark spaces when I was little to escape
the wrath of older siblings, but being trapped in you own home, that was just
too over powering not to have a sense of paralysis and hyperventilating.
I wanted out and I wanted out now! I went to all the windows
in the apartment and none of them would open. They were supposed to be fire
escapes but no matter how hard I tried to pull on the sliding windows, they
wouldn’t budge.
I reached into my hoodie pocket to get my phone and call
911. This was just getting too far out of reach of reality and I needed help. I
knew that I put my phonein my pocket when I originally was going to leave out
the main door but my cell also seemed to have disappeared on me. Well if glass
patio doors can suddenly become steel, why couldn’t a three inch piece of
hardware just up and vanish too?
Having no house phone I was out of options on contacting the
outside world for immediate help. i was getting desperate. I didn’t want to
wait in this house any longer. I grabbed the bar stool at the island and hefted
it over my head, ready to throw it as hard as I could through the front window.
I threw with all my strength, and it just bounced off. I didn’t think a window
should be that strong so I grabbed the baseball bat and swung. Again nothing
happened. Not even a crack or a chip.
I swung again and again, started to scream and yell every
time the bat swung down. I must have been at it for five minutes and after that
I was getting exhausted with the effort.
I had no more ideas. I was scared and panicking. No longer
thinking there was anyone in my house but just the feeling of being trapped was
too much. I sat on the couch with my head in my hands and started to cry, out
of terror.
This couldn’t be real. Things like this just didn’t happen
in the real world. We did not live in the twilight zone, objects couldn’t just
disappear into the ether or change materials.
Maybe this was a dream. That could happen. Dreams that feel
so real, all the emotions playing through your body and mind. That’s gotta be
it!
What do people always say? “Pinch me, I’m dreaming.” I tried
that. I pinched myself hard on the arm, and it hurt, just like it always had. I
went for something more painful and punched the wall, all the frustration of
the night coming out in a serious of blows to the wall. All I got was scrapped
knuckles that started to ache. I’ve had dreams before that I felt pain, so
there must be some other kind of test to determine if you were in a dream.
I sat back on the couch, surprised that the couch was indeed
still there and the same cloth couch that had always been there, not
mysteriously turned into a wooden bench or a cow for all I knew of this helter
skelter reality. Fingers! I remembered reading somewhere that all you had to do
was count the number of fingers you had. Dreams didn’t have consistencies like
the proper number of digits.
I brought my hands up and started to count. 1,2,3,4,5 and
then the lights of the apartment went out. I jumped back startled of the sudden
darkness. I got up and went to find the light switch. I found it, flipped it up
and down and nothing. No light.
Okay no problem, there’s a street lamp outside that I can
still see a little by. I went back to the living room window and started to
count once again. 1,2,3, and pitch black like I have never been in before,
befell on me. I couldn’t see outlines of any objects or even my hands that
should have been mere inches away from my face.
Pitch black and trapped. My heart was racing and I was
starting to have a hard time breathing. I sat back down, putting my head
between my knees, seeing others do this when someone was on the verge of fainting.
It seemed to work. My pulse slowed down and I no longer felt like I was on the
verge of a mental breakdown.
Lights started to play on the opposite wall, meaning
vehicles were going by. Then suddenly sirens sounded and the familiar red and
blue lights of emergency vehicles started flickering against the wall as well. Maybe
one of the neighbors heard all the commotion and called the police! Maybe I was
going to be saved! I was still determined to count my fingers and with all the
light shining in through the window, it should be enough to count by.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Then all the lights shifted away and were
shining a different direction. That decided it. This was a dream. No matter how
hard I tried, I wasn’t able to count my fingers. This had to be a dream.
Now the only question was how do I get out of it? Counting didn’t
seem to work, pain didn’t seem to work. There was no way I could jump off
something high enough to scare myself awake. The only thing I could think of
was to scream.
I stood in the middle of the living room, took in a deep
breath, and screamed.
