I’ve been having this dream. A room, a very confined one, made of gray stone. The only light shines through a small barred window towards the top of the wall to my left. I’m sitting in a corner, across from me is a boy, about my age, who seems to have rusted chains around his slim wrists. Blood is everywhere, and it is completely silent. The only thing I hear in my scattered breaths.
The boy begins to struggle, trying to break the cuffs. He shakes and grunts, before giving up. He makes another attempt a few minutes after. He tries to speak. Nothing comes out. He stands up and steps into the light emitting from the window. I finally get to see him. I definitely wish i didn’t.
He had cuts and bruises all over his round face, and his evergreen eyes that were lightly hidden by shaggy, dirty blond hair, showed no expression. His teeth are bared, blood dripping from his cracked lips. His sweater’s sleeves are rolled to his elbows, showing the same fate as his face. His jacket was soaked in what I can only assume was dried blood, like it happened some time ago. It was dirty, and what was even stranger was that it had a large black ‘X’ on the front. It stood out to me. Even though the rest of the hoodie was drenched in crimson, the symbol was hardly touched by it. He tried to talk again, breaking my attention from the jacket.
Nothing came out.
He lifted his scrawny arms, and exposed the chains to me. Did he want me to break him out?
I noticed blood falling from the inside of his arm. I tried to slide over to get a better look at the wound. He had bitten himself, and it made out a word.
“Closer”.
I sluggishly slid toward him, not looking away from his soulless eyes. He bent down and put his finger to the bites in his arm. He rammed his finger into his skin, and pulled it out, the bony limb covered in his blood. He began swaying his finger on the ground.
I looked to see what he was making. He was trying to say something. After some time, he lifted his finger, and began to lick the excess blood off. He pat the ground and backed away. I slid closer to read his message.
“How did you get the keys?” It read.
I looked up at him. He pointed to his right wrist, showing a little lock on the cuff. Once he saw I understood, he pointed to the darkness. He mouthed the word “door”
I looked in my pocket, and sure enough, a key chain with two keys attached were there. But how? Why?
The chains clinked together as he stood and limped towards me. He stuck his arms out again. I didn’t know what to trust. This boy, or my common sense. Usually people are locked up for a reason.
I rose and slowly shifted in his direction. I jingled the keys, nodded, and tossed them to him. He flinched and clumsily picked the two keys up off the cold ground. He unlocked himself from this puny prison, and fell to his knees. He began whimpering. Then crying. Then sobbing. I walked to him, and put my hand out. He looked up. His expression was terrifying. I don’t really know how to put it, but he looked afraid, but like he could kill me at any moment. I backed up. We hadn’t even said a word to each other, and I had saved his life, while he threatened mine.
He stood up, still drowning in tears. His pity quickly fades into psychotic laughing. He ran to the door, unlocked it, and ran.
I blacked out after a few seconds.
I awoke to the sound of a squishy, dripping sound, followed by that same laughter I heard before.
I turn to see that boy again, except he isn’t alone. He has two other boys, about the same age as him, their entrails scattered throughout the room. One of them seemed to have been struck in the chest, his arms and legs ripped from various spots. The other was in the hands of the young man, his head bashed in completely, blood running from what was left of his eyes and mouth. His stomach was cut open, and his intestines and his heart were in the boy’s hands, being crushed and torn apart. I tried to scream, but before i could get it out, the he looked up at me with his dead eyes. His iris was shrunken down to a much smaller size, and his eyebrow was twitching uncontrollably. I calmed myself as much as possible, because i didn’t want to suffer the same fate as those boys.
“Why?” I managed to stutter. He didn’t respond. He stretched his arm to the left and grabbed one of the mangled limbs from the dead man. An arm. He held it out and gestured for me to take it. I winced. He giggled and tossed it to me. I scrambled to get away from the hunk of flesh. I glanced back to him. He looked pissed. I grasped the lone arm lightly and began to pull at the skin. It was soft and warm, and tan. A familiar comfort came when i held it in my hand. I looked over at the dead boy. It was my childhood best friend, Jesse. I turned my attention to the other skull, beaten to a pulp. It was to damaged for me to tell who it was.
He killed two innocent people and played with them like dolls.
I began to tear up. My eyes met the boy’s once again. He looked so sweet, and happy. He gave me an innocent grin, and i saw his eyes emit a shine.
“Please…” I whispered.
He approached me.
He dug his finger into his bitten flesh and began to write again.
“I found them like this in an alleyway. I just needed the food.”
I began to feel a little sympathy for the kid. He leaned in toward me. He pushed his body to mine and gave me a hug. I saw my friend’s dead body, and was almost forced to eat and arm. I needed this.
It was warm for a moment, and i felt relieved. He started to pull me tighter. I felt a burning sensation on my chest and stomach. It was like hot oil. He let me go, and began to laugh again. I looked down at my abdominal area. There was an ‘X’ carved into my skin, burning every part of flesh it covered.
I looked back to him for the last time. He was welding a kitchen knife. He proceeds to stab me in the neck, my blood splattering onto his cheek. The last thing I see is his dead eyes before waking up.
I’m trembling, crying, and my neck is numb. I try to watch a show or browse the internet before going back to sleep.
I’m fine with a nightmare or two every now and again, but the same dream every night for two straight months isn’t good. Every night, it’s someone new, and some nights, i manage to get out alive. But i can’t keep doing this. I see him everywhere. I’ve gone to therapy, and they told me not to call him “the boy”. I chose to call him X, and he is my personal hell. He follows me, talks to me, and even tried to get me to kill myself. And yet I can’t get rid of him.
You can never get rid of yourself.
