has just begun to crawl up the bed.
I’m frozen, until the phrase “This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness” plays across my brain, and not in my voice. I don’t know what it’s from, but I believe it, and shut the door behind me, shutting out all the light. Shutting in all the darkness.
A switch in my head flips, and I no longer piece together the nightmare man from bits of shadow as he crosses light. He’s a dark pressure in my head.
I charge.
He looks at me, surprise emanating from that black pit face. Before, he would have slipped through my grasp like something drenched in oil. Now, fully clad in shadow myself, I’m able to grab him around the middle and snatch him from the bed. The core of him writhes in my arms, and I know I can’t hold him long.
This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness.
Logan’s whimpers grow louder. Shannon says, “What’s going on? Jessie?”
I have to get this thing out of here.
This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness.
The nightmare man has portals into this world. Portals I open for him. The darkest places.
I run for where I know the closet to be. My enemy twists in my grip, rakes icy claws through my flesh, but I don’t stop. I glance off the closet opening, but continue at full tilt. I expect a crash. It feels more like hitting water, resistance, a shock, a gasp and then I’m through and the world has gone quiet.
If Logan whimpers, if Shannon says my name again, they do it in another world. I’m in the shadow world.
The nightmare man has stopped struggling, hangs limp in my arms. I drop him at my feet.
“Wake up.”
He doesn’t move.
“Wake up!”
He moves, stands. Anxiety smashes at me, makes me gasp for breath, hold my arms out to catch myself though I’m not falling.
It’s not the nightmare man that’s scared me. For a long few moments, I don’t know what has. Something has tripped an instinctual alarm. Then I know what it is. I shouted, and no echo came back to me. My subconscious waited for one, calculating the size of this dark space as it went, a sphere of nothing expanding at the speed of sound for one second, two, three…forever.
Then what’s outside the boundary of the lights?
Infinite darkness. My sense of perspective goes crazy. I see myself and the nightmare man alone from one mile up, two miles up, three…forever.
And it’s worse. It’s really only me. He is of this place. His delineation goes soft. He begins to melt into the shadow surrounding him.
This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness. But we’re not done yet.
“No.” My awareness of him draws his lines sharply again. I feel the cold blast of his gaze as whatever passes for his consciousness returns to what passes for his body.
“You made me. You make me. I do what you make me to do,” he says in his child’s voice. The voice of the child me.
“And what is that?”
“I punish the ones who kill dreams.”
“Then punish me.”
“I have, for years. I am still. But you opened the door. You let me out.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“And yet…” He gestures, and I see what I didn’t see before. The outline of the door that stands between the shadow world and the real world.
“No one can kill another person’s dreams. Dreams can survive anything. They’re stronger than the outside world. The only way a dream can die is if the dreamer stops dreaming it.”
He stares at me, unspeaking. Maybe I got too abstract. I distill my words. “Logan didn’t kill my dreams. Shannon didn’t either. I killed my dreams.”
And with the saying of the words, a black hole opens in my chest and sucks my heart in, because the words are true. I am not bargaining with the nightmare man. I am revealing myself to myself.
“You didn’t believe that when you made me.”
“I was only a little boy when I made you.”
“No. You made me tonight. You make me every night.”
He’s right. Some logical part of me had to acknowledge that what Leslie
I’m frozen, until the phrase “This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness” plays across my brain, and not in my voice. I don’t know what it’s from, but I believe it, and shut the door behind me, shutting out all the light. Shutting in all the darkness.
A switch in my head flips, and I no longer piece together the nightmare man from bits of shadow as he crosses light. He’s a dark pressure in my head.
I charge.
He looks at me, surprise emanating from that black pit face. Before, he would have slipped through my grasp like something drenched in oil. Now, fully clad in shadow myself, I’m able to grab him around the middle and snatch him from the bed. The core of him writhes in my arms, and I know I can’t hold him long.
This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness.
Logan’s whimpers grow louder. Shannon says, “What’s going on? Jessie?”
I have to get this thing out of here.
This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness.
The nightmare man has portals into this world. Portals I open for him. The darkest places.
I run for where I know the closet to be. My enemy twists in my grip, rakes icy claws through my flesh, but I don’t stop. I glance off the closet opening, but continue at full tilt. I expect a crash. It feels more like hitting water, resistance, a shock, a gasp and then I’m through and the world has gone quiet.
If Logan whimpers, if Shannon says my name again, they do it in another world. I’m in the shadow world.
The nightmare man has stopped struggling, hangs limp in my arms. I drop him at my feet.
“Wake up.”
He doesn’t move.
“Wake up!”
He moves, stands. Anxiety smashes at me, makes me gasp for breath, hold my arms out to catch myself though I’m not falling.
It’s not the nightmare man that’s scared me. For a long few moments, I don’t know what has. Something has tripped an instinctual alarm. Then I know what it is. I shouted, and no echo came back to me. My subconscious waited for one, calculating the size of this dark space as it went, a sphere of nothing expanding at the speed of sound for one second, two, three…forever.
Then what’s outside the boundary of the lights?
Infinite darkness. My sense of perspective goes crazy. I see myself and the nightmare man alone from one mile up, two miles up, three…forever.
And it’s worse. It’s really only me. He is of this place. His delineation goes soft. He begins to melt into the shadow surrounding him.
This shadow can only be extinguished by darkness. But we’re not done yet.
“No.” My awareness of him draws his lines sharply again. I feel the cold blast of his gaze as whatever passes for his consciousness returns to what passes for his body.
“You made me. You make me. I do what you make me to do,” he says in his child’s voice. The voice of the child me.
“And what is that?”
“I punish the ones who kill dreams.”
“Then punish me.”
“I have, for years. I am still. But you opened the door. You let me out.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“And yet…” He gestures, and I see what I didn’t see before. The outline of the door that stands between the shadow world and the real world.
“No one can kill another person’s dreams. Dreams can survive anything. They’re stronger than the outside world. The only way a dream can die is if the dreamer stops dreaming it.”
He stares at me, unspeaking. Maybe I got too abstract. I distill my words. “Logan didn’t kill my dreams. Shannon didn’t either. I killed my dreams.”
And with the saying of the words, a black hole opens in my chest and sucks my heart in, because the words are true. I am not bargaining with the nightmare man. I am revealing myself to myself.
“You didn’t believe that when you made me.”
“I was only a little boy when I made you.”
“No. You made me tonight. You make me every night.”
He’s right. Some logical part of me had to acknowledge that what Leslie
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