When I was a child, I had a recurring nightmare a few times a year. I was at my grandparents’ house in Cedar City for vacation. Everything was great. We were having a good time as a family. Then, all of a sudden, we got a phone call telling us there was a bomb placed somewhere in the house that would detonate in an hour. At that point, everyone got frantic because the house was pretty big and the bomb could be anywhere! We all took a part of the house and start looking as fast as we could for the bomb. The hour seemed to pass by like lightning every time in my dream. Sadly, every time I had this nightmare, the bomb was never found and someone or somebody was always left in the house when it went off. Typically, when the bomb went off and I experienced that horrible anguish that one or more of my family members was now dead, I would wake up. Luckily, since my childhood, I haven’t ever had this nightmare again.
My brother and I are sitting in a hot tub together. Steam makes clouds that float up into the blackness of the night sky as the sound of rushing water drowns out all noises from the world around us. Everything is peaceful and quiet. Then, an enormous crocodile emerges from the depths of the water and lunges toward my brother. This beast attacked with vicious intent and the water turned red...
This experience isn’t a childhood nightmare, but it was probably even worse than a nightmare. At least when you wake up from a nightmare you realize shortly thereafter that it was just a nightmare. However, what if your worst nightmare occurred while you were still awake? When I was just a little young buck, maybe seven years old or so, I had a hard time getting to sleep because I often had feelings of impending doom. I have no idea why I had these feelings but they were very, very real. I remember lying in my bed and wondering what death was going to be like. Was I going to wake up from this deep sleep I was about to embark on? My heartbeat began to rise and my hands began to perspire as thoughts raced in and around my mind. I began to feel this very dark and deep sinking feeling, as if I was falling into the never-ending black hole of death with no way to escape.
I was in a dim, dreary room. The smell of mold, rotten fruit and strange chemicals filled the air. I sat in the center of the room, atop a black cauldron. Within the cauldron was a boiling great liquid. As I looked around me I realized that, I that was surrounded by several scary creatures. A witch, a gargoyle, a werewolf, a vampire, and even a man-eating plant were all present. The witch extended a long, withered hand. She offered me an apple. As I looked at her face, which was green, wrinkled, and pretty much ugly, I could only feel terror. Her long narrow nose could only tell me one thing: she was evil! I sat in fear, I knew that I must not eat the apple, or I would die. I desired to leave, but there was nowhere to run, they had me surrounded. Just to buy myself some time I accepted the apple. Just as I did I noticed a door in the faint light. I knew that I had to get through that door. In sheer desperation I threw the apple in the witch’s face and ran threw to the door. The all tried to grab me, but due to my small size I was able to dodge them. I ran through the door, only to find I ended up in the same room! That witch must have enchanted the door! As I stood there in desperation the man eating plant came and picked me up. I resisted his grasp, but he was too strong. He took me over to the cauldron and held me over to it and held me over the boiling green liquid. They all stared as I struggled for my freedom; they smiled, knowing that their evil plan would soon be complete. I screamed…
It was a Thursday. All that day I had been playing with my toys, namely, my dinosaurs. You see, these were my favorite toys to play with. I would get lost in the fantasy of the land before time. I would pretend to be little foot, or maybe that I was myself hanging out with little foot and his motley crew. That night however, these imaginations became real to me, but in a sick and twisted way. That night I wasn’t a dinosaur, I was a 9-year old kid from Michigan, being chased by the evil twins of the friends I have grew to love. It was just that that was so scary about this whole thing… they were my friends. Yet, they seemed to be possessed by some supernatural being from the underworld, thirsting for my soul and child flesh. Not to mention they were the kind of monsters that would collect your tears when they caught you, and proceed to boil them and drip them on you. This was of course after they nearly tickled you to death with ptarodactyl feathers. But this is only what I knew was to come, for at this moment they were chasing me. This lasted for what seemed to be 16 and three quarter hours. What seemed to be a never ending chase ended with me waking up, my bed soaked in sweat, only moments after the velociraptor captured me in his rib crushing grasp. I threw my dinosaurs away the next day…
It was a reoccurring nightmare. Every time I had it I woke up scared to death. The funny thing is that when I think about it now I can’t get over how ridiculously unreal it was. It always started out the same way; I was playing outside in the front yard, it was nearing nighttime, and then, out in the street, I suddenly see a giant crocodile! Of course I’m only 6 years old and so I run as fast as I can into the house. I try to find my dad so I can tell him about it and he can get rid of it. The problem is, no one is ever home! I’m all by myself, alone in the house. So the nightmare continues as I watch from the upstairs window as the giant crocodile tries to get inside the house and come eat me. I felt helpless standing there looking out the window. What could I do? I always thought about making a run for it over to my neighbor’s house across the street, but never ended up attempting it. For some reason the crocodile was insanely fast, at least for a crocodile anyways. So there I stood, staring out the window, wondering if I’ll make it out alive, hoping that my dad would show up at any second to fight off or even kill the crocodile. Of course I never got to the end of the dream. I would always wake up as soon as the giant crocodile would break through the front door. I would wake up with tears in my eyes, so afraid, even though now when I look back on it, it doesn’t make any sense at all. From there, I would run into my parent’s room, wake up my dad and tell him about the dream. He would assure me there was no crocodile out in the street trying to break into our house and eat me. Somehow he always managed to help me calm down again, go back to my own room, and fall asleep.
I remember when I was younger, I had a dream about my father shortly after he had been in a car accident. It was about him. The dream was pretty much a reenactment of what had really happened, only much worse and with a different ending. In my dream, my father was driving to work in our Honda odyssey, and had just dropped me off at seminary. It was still dark outside - the street lights were dim and fog filled the air. When he got pretty close to his work, a semi-truck pulled out of no where and hit him hard. He hadn't seen it coming because of the cloudy fog. The van spun several times, finally spiraling into a ditch. I was watching from above (apparently not at seminary anymore) as an outsider, not as a character in the dream. Everything went completely silent. I floated over, getting closer to the van, frantically seeking to find my dad alive. The ambulance showed up, ready to rush him to the hospital, but it wasn’t going to be any good. The van had crumpled and smashed around him. It seemed to take forever to get him out of the van before they could take him in to save him. I tried yelling to them, telling them to hurry and save him. There was no blood, but I knew. I realized that I had just watched my daddy leave this life! Talk about traumatizing. That was when I woke up screaming and crying because I was so young and I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I had to go into my parents room and make sure that he was there and okay.
The scariest movie I ever saw wasn’t meant to be scary. At least I don’t think it was--it is well known as a classic movie beloved by audiences. I don’t know why it was so scary, but boy was it. It was responsible for the worst nightmare I ever had. One night, a few days after watching ET, I woke up around midnight. As I opened my eyes, I felt like someone was in bed next to me. I rolled over to discover that I was sharing a bed with ET himself! Terrified, I jumped up and climbed down the ladder (I slept on the top bunk). I jumped to the floor and started running down the hallway. Now this ET was not like the ET from the movies. He was tall, around seven feet, and he stood upright. He ran after me, pointing a nobbly finger as he said, “ET need to pee.” It sounds weird, I know. I don’t know how my childhood brain took the iconic “ET phone home,” and converted it into a strange nightmare about an alien who really needed to use a toilet, but that’s what happened. Most of the nightmare after that was pretty typical: always running with ET always right behind me, almost touching me with that ugly, grey little finger of his. I ran around the house as much as I could, but we had a small house without many places to go, and I knew that it was inevitable that he would catch me. Finally, as I entered the living room, I realized I was trapped. ET was right behind me, blocking the only exit. So I ran to the dimly lit corner, shrinking myself into the space as much as possible. Terrified, I watched as ET approached, finger outstretched, still saying “ET need to pee.” After a dragged-out minute of ET steadily approaching, he stood right in front of me. My imagination was full of fears of what would come next, but instead of touching me, he did what he said he had said he needed to do: he pretended I was his toilet. The next thing I knew, I was again waking up in my bed. This time, there was no ET anywhere to be found. But I knew that the dream had been real, because I was surrounded by a large puddle of a strangely warm liquid.
They’re out there, in the darkness. I feel the sweat collecting on my palms like an ice water condensates on a hot summer day.
I’m all alone, my parents and siblings aren’t home. As I sit in the family room, watching tv nervously, I can feel their eyes on me. In the corner of my eye I see a silhouette flash by the sliding glass door. “Oh no,” I whisper to myself.
They’ll break in, either through a window or a door. Then it will be me against their razor sharp teeth and massive claws.
Frantically I scan the room. “I need something… Something to fight them with,” my thoughts race. What can I do? I don’t stand a chance. They’ll tear me apart in a second. Then, CRASH! The glimmer of shattered glass catches my eye off of the front room carpet. I see the shadow.
Without thinking, I jump up and rip the VCR from under the tv. I turn around and I see another shadow in the window now directly in front of me. There’s two? Now I know I will die soon. The other approaches. I have no time.
I throw the VCR through the window. They screech out their calls to each other. I scream and run into the kitchen towards the garage. The raptors follow in pursuit. I’m soon going to die. I’ll be their next meal.
The room was small, but packed with bathing-suit clad people. The low light was only made worse my the low ceiling. Never had I been so claustrophobic. I was with my family and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves in the water. I could see that one half of the room was full of water, where the ground gently sloped down in to the depths. this pool was unique. the main activity was shopping cart riding. Parents would place their kids into a shopping cart as if they were a gallon of milk and push them down the ramp. The kids would float to the top and swim back to shore, asking to be put in another cart. This all could have been fun until those two adults made everything turn for the worst. In their shopping cart they placed their child, who was about my age. Next to him they put a baby. A small child that couldn't even crawl. He began crying as his parents began pushing the two into the water. I ran in after them, swimming as fast as I could. The cart sank deeper and I was almost there. The older brother floated to the top and swam past me. By now the cart and the little child were gone underwater. I dove into the dark water and could see his eyes as he sank into the depths and disappeared. When I turned sixteen I became a lifeguard and have pulled out a number of children that walked into the deep end when there parents weren't around. Preston Coburn
Bryce Cook Eng316 He was Waiting My little sister was always more brave than I. She could do things I would never do. She could climb trees to the top, play with spiders, and squeeze into tight places where she could possibly get stuck, like under the sink, behind the piano, or under the couch. Where she really bested me at guts was the basement. The dungeon of the basement was dark and cloudy. Perhaps from all the dust down there, but more likely because of the evil spirits the lurked in the shadows. Whenever the sun was up there were slivers of light that would pierce the dust in rays, but they would never illuminate the dark parts behind the toy castle or the boxes. The worst part of the basement was where the "furnace" and "water heater" was, at least that is what my parents called it, but I knew better. They were the potion machines that He would use to create poison gas and other toxic chemicals to kill His pray. I speak of Him with such respect because I know of His reality, and I would never cross Him, even after moving out of that house so long ago. He is the phantom: very similar in appearance to the Phantom of the Opera, but not exactly a personage. He had a face of course, or probably did behind is white mask, but his being was not visible below the waist, or perhaps he didn't have any extremities beyond that point... My room, of course, was right next to the door of the basement. Because of my inclinations to cause mischief in the house I would be sent there often, closer to His grasp and corruption. I would throw my ball against the basement door again and again, until one time, the ball pushed the door open and bounced down the five steps into the arena of doom. What was I supposed to do? Just waltz right down there and retrieve my little Jazz basketball? Oh no, one does not simply walk into His domain. One needs a fearless warrior to overcome the evils lurking below. Thank you, God, for sending me my sister. I pleaded for her help, and she agreed to assist me in my time of need. She got to the basement door, opened it slowly, the jumped (both feet) down all the steps at once and did a somersault on the ground. From that moment on I turned my eyes away, fearing the worst. Fifteen eternal seconds later she returned ball in hand. "Here you go!" she said as cheerily as a daisy as I stood there with a dropped jaw. I never knew what happened that day. I imagine the Phantom came to collect her soul and any happiness she ever would experience in life, but that she turned and spat in his face. I have no doubt he could have destroyed her right then and there, but he probably allowed her to live out of respect for her courage.
My bedroom was downstairs, in an unfinished basement. I wanted to have an upstairs bedroom, more than anything, but they were reserved for the two oldest siblings - and I was the youngest of six...
The basement was dark and cold, concrete exterior walls and unfinished room partitions. The light jumping out of the wood-burning stove was often the only visible light downstairs and would dance on the walls like a candle. The light wasn’t the scary part; no, the light was safety. What haunted me as a child was where the light didn’t go: the laundry room.
I knew that as soon as I turned off the lights to come upstairs that a million skeletons would come out of the dark corners and grab me as I ran as fast as I could up those stairs! My mother always commented what a fast boy I was, running up those stairs… Little did she know that I was escaping death.
The skeletons never caught me on my way up the stairs, I was simply too fast and always closed my eyes. If there hadn’t been a handrail for me to grab onto I might have fallen, and surely been dragged back down.
To get even with me, the skeletons would hide snakes underneath my bed so that as soon as I stepped out in the morning they would nip my ankles. To counter this of course – I jumped out of bed each morning. I had to do it quickly, and unexpectedly, to make it out safely. Don’t pull the covers off too early – they’ll know I’m coming and be ready for me.
I still think about those skeletons every time I climb the stairs out of my parent’s basement… And I have to fight the urge to rush upstairs. There are no skeletons in the basement.
The sight of their own blood can bring most people to pass out with fear. When I was little I always got nose bleeds at the most random times quite frequently. Some of them were pretty bad. They would bleed out of both nostrils for one to two hours. I was terrified by it. Sometimes all I needed was a little bump or nudge, and it would just start. My nightmare was that one-day I would get a nose bleed and the blood would never stop pouring out of me. Eventually I would bleed to death. The worst is sometimes I would go to bed and in the dark of the night I would wake up with some warm, pungent but strangely familar smelling liquid dripping down my cheek. There would be some crusty dried particles on my face. It would just be gushing down my face and neck, and I would be all alone in the dark and had to get up and find my way to the bathroom leaving a trail of blood lingering behind me. I had to stop it and would forcefully shove some tissue up my nose. Immediately the tissue would be completely saturated dyed red, and I would pull it out and repeat it over and over. No one would come to my rescue, and I was alone slowly bleeding to death. Then slowly I would pass out and slump to the floor with a pool of blood drying beside me.
Worst childhood (and adulthood) Nightmare Childhood nightmares weren’t a huge issue for me growing up. But there is one real nightmare that haunts me during the day. The fear of drowning terrified me as a child…and it still does. I only took a few swim lessons as a child, so not being a strong swimmer definitely contributes to my fear. I used to be so scared to drive over bridges that were over water, because I knew that it would collapse as soon as our car was in the middle of the bridge, and we would go catapulting to our drowning deaths in the deep depths below. Would a seatbelt save me then? Oh no, it would then be a hindrance. To wear or not to wear the seatbelt? As long as we never went over any bridges, I was happy and content to wear my seatbelt. But my hand always hovered over the release button on the seatbelt any time we were near a river or body of water. Anytime we would go on a boat, I would cinch up my life jacket so tight that I could barely breathe. Tubing was and is still utterly terrifying. In fact, just a few years ago, I was tubing with my aunt and uncle (side note: My uncle is getting old…and a little senile….) and my uncle was driving the boat insanely fast while I was on the tube. Anytime I hit a wave, there would be four feet of air between the tube and me, and then another four feet of air between the tube and the water. I literally held on for dear life. On one particular jump, I got thrown off and into the water. I vividly remember being under the water and just panicking thinking that I had lost my lifejacket and would not return to the surface to see the light of day again. I would fall helplessly deeper and deeper beneath the surface. No more air for my desperate lungs. Only water…water…more water. I would look up and see the light getting farther and farther away, and a new light would appear. Needless to say I lived, and I have not been tubing since. Water still terrifies me. Call me irrational, but I will not leave this world through drowning! -Lexi
Darkness surrounded me as I began to walk further and further into the house. It seem as if the light from the full moon slowly creped out of sight behind the clouds, making the house seem even darker. I thought I hear a sound coming from down the hallway. It was a familiar sound. It sounded like… my mom? Why is my mom in this house? What is she doing here? Better yet, what am I doing here? How did I get here? I don’t recognize this place at all. Then suddenly, my mom’s voice went silent. I couldn’t hear it any more. “Mom! Where are you!” No response. Just silence. I called her name again, even louder this time. “Mom! Come on! Where are you!” Still all I heard was silence. Once I reached the end of the hallway, I noticed something crawling along side the wall. I was too dark to make out what it really was. So I got closer. By that time I noticed what it was, the whole entire wall began moving. Spiders! Hundreds, maybe even thousands of spiders! All of them started crawling out from everywhere you can think of. They started falling from the ceiling and landing on my shoulders and face. I began to shake violently like a wet dog to get them off. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed like more and more of them started to reappear and attack me. I wanted to yell but I was afraid that they some would crawl or land in my mouth. Then all of a sudden I felt them start to bit me all over. That’s when I woke up flinging my arms and I realized that it was all just a bad dream. -Morgan
Silence. Damp moss beneath my feet. I can even feel the moisture seeping between my toes, the dirt staining my toenails. I’m unfamiliar with this forest. I strain my neck to search the skies, but there are only wisps of comforting blue through the threatening pines. Tall, jagged trees surround me with needles as sharp tacks. The bark dares me to touch it--growling a rough, blackish-brown dare. And there is still silence. No golden dust flakes floating through sun rays. No lively crickets hopping. No butterflies, symmetrical and calm. Only the jagged, intimidating trees towering over me and the wet, soggy moss plotting beneath me.
Dread fills the air. I am not alone. It starts as a ruffle on the moss. Something is behind me and waking. Moving-Thing sounds heavy, and the moss weakly attempts to support it. Moving-Thing sounds big, as the trees struggle to stay out of it’s way. Moving-Thing is territorial; his beady, ferociously yellow eyes meeting mine own quivering brown eyes. He rocks his shoulder hard into a nearby tree, straining to get a running stance without losing sight of me. He screeches hatred and heaves again at the tree. A painful snap depicts his success. My world is surreal. I shrink at the towering monster, squared shoulders with me. One final intimidating yell explodes from the chest of the beast, and I’m slammed back into reality. Run, run, run! I dash off as quick as I can through the soggy moss. But the beast is an experienced predator. I slip, strike a tree, my blood staining the bark, and Moving-Thing’s breath is hot and humid and vengeful.
I had the same dream multiple times in the same way. Each time it was all so familiar and I knew what was coming next. My brothers and I would be alone, without our parents, in a small log cabin. It wasn't completely rustic because I remember there being two or three couches in the room we were in.
Like clockwork, we would hear the bone chilling sound of indian war cries outside our house as fierce-looking horses and plains ponies came to a halt outside our weak shelter. Their hooves would turn up the dust and make everything mysterious and gloomy around us.
The moment they arrived we all knew we had to fight. But how could we? The strange (and all too familiar) feeling of sluggishness would suddenly grip our bodies and we would be left, helpless, in another world of slow motion. Fleeing at the speed of snails was then our only option.
As I try to run away, I trip and stumble so awkwardly and feel anger at how stupid I am for falling at such an inopportune moment. That's when I first realize that I don't know for sure who is around me. I don't see specific faces but instead I just feel dread. Indians with bright, blurry war paint on their dark faces pour through the broken door and swirl around me as I try to hide behind the all-to-obvious couches in the main room.
"Why couldn't I hide somewhere else?," I think to myself with great difficulty. "Why?" With warriors jumping over my only barrier, I wake up in a fit of terror without knowing my ending. -Kenny Barlow-
In my town, people often trained dogs to protect their house. I was always scared of my neighbors ‘ dogs because they look like they are here to get you. One day I was playing happily in a park with my friends when suddenly, I heard baking. It was one of my neighbors’ dogs. I got scared and started to run away. For a certain reason the dog choose to run after me. I ran all the way home and the dog was still behind me. When I came inside of the house I forgot to close the door. Therefore, the dog came in my house and started baking again at me. I was stocked in the kitchen and I did not have anywhere to go. I was petrified! Then my mother came to save the day. Since then I hated my neighbors’ dog.
As a child I was officially haunted by “night terrors” as a child, leaving me screaming at the top of the stairs for hours on end while my parents sat fatigued at the top step to ensure I wouldn’t fall. There was no hope of waking me. Once the dreams had finished their course I would awake calmly and walk back to my bedroom, confused at my mother’s presence. I don’t remember all that haunted me during those years, between the ages of five and seven, but I do remember a few horrors. One of which, still strange to me, is a dream which I had at least five times. Spare me the psychological diagnoses please. The dream always began in the setting of a large, vacant wasteland. Heaps of trash were piled up in the distance, mountain silhouettes against the reddish glow of the setting sun. The stink of rotting leftovers and decomposing washing machines filled the air. As I looked around, in search of familiarity, I saw only a single building at least a dozen stories high planted in the middle of the lot. In each dream my feet propelled me, unaware, towards the building. I felt that any attempt to think would be a disastrous interruption to the extreme silence that surrounded me. My feet, blind as they are, stepped right into a puddle of greyish mud. Suddenly the mud began to rise all around me, flooding the wasteland with liquid filth. I attempted to run, but only that dreamy attempt we know all too well in which we struggle so hard to get our legs to move, but sleep has somehow disconnected our brain from our body. My body ignorantly continued in calm while my mind raced through the inevitable possibility of death by sewage. The filth reached my chest as I entered through the door of the building, swaying loosely on a single hinge with the flow of the rising mud. I found nothing but a lone stairwell, and thought nothing but to move upward. The stairs seemed infinite as the mud pursued me upward. I reached the top to find nothing but an empty room, filled only with windows. I looked out the windows, expecting to see the level of waste rising at the same level it was at my feet, but found that the outside remained dark and dreary, but void of any rising sewage. The wasteland was clear, but now I was trapped within the top story of a flooding building. The filth reached my neck and threatened to fill my throat with the stink that filled my lungs. Hey mom, what are you doing at the top of the stairs? You should sleep in your bed. Well, good night…
Roughly 17 years ago in the city of Colorado Springs, there lived a stuffed animal named Chuckee, - not the Chucky from Child’s Play, but the Chuckee from Chuck E Cheese. However, this Chuckee was probably just as terrifying as that cinematic devil because he was real and living. Well, at least to me he was. Every night I would lay awake in bed, staring at his shadow created by my night lite, just waiting for him to make his move. His maniacal eyes would just stare right back at me, waiting for me to fall asleep. This tortuous game was an ongoing battle the day I won that stupid thing with the tickets I collected. Every night I could see its smile get bigger, and more evil, as I drifted to sleep. I could see the shadow moving closer to me to engulf me in darkness. One night I panicked and eventually broke eye contact as I slipped under my covers. The moment I did so, I regretted it. Now he could be anywhere waiting to attack. But I couldn’t leave my safe haven, not now. It was the only thing protecting me from that possessed thing. All I could do was stay hidden and think that if I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take. As I lay under my covers, I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew it was morning. I had never been so relieved in my life because I had survived the night! But that relief quickly ended as I looked in the corner of the room. He was gone! I noticed a large lump at the bottom of my sheets right next to my legs. I lifted the covers and saw that evil smile staring back at me. For the last time I jumped out of bed as I screamed for help (The last time because I threw that dumb thing away).
When I was a child, I had a recurring nightmare a few times a year. I was at my grandparents’ house in Cedar City for vacation. Everything was great. We were having a good time as a family. Then, all of a sudden, we got a phone call telling us there was a bomb placed somewhere in the house that would detonate in an hour. At that point, everyone got frantic because the house was pretty big and the bomb could be anywhere! We all took a part of the house and start looking as fast as we could for the bomb. The hour seemed to pass by like lightning every time in my dream. Sadly, every time I had this nightmare, the bomb was never found and someone or somebody was always left in the house when it went off. Typically, when the bomb went off and I experienced that horrible anguish that one or more of my family members was now dead, I would wake up. Luckily, since my childhood, I haven’t ever had this nightmare again.
ReplyDeleteTanner
My brother and I are sitting in a hot tub together. Steam makes clouds that float up into the blackness of the night sky as the sound of rushing water drowns out all noises from the world around us. Everything is peaceful and quiet. Then, an enormous crocodile emerges from the depths of the water and lunges toward my brother. This beast attacked with vicious intent and the water turned red...
ReplyDelete-Nicole Krantz
This experience isn’t a childhood nightmare, but it was probably even worse than a nightmare. At least when you wake up from a nightmare you realize shortly thereafter that it was just a nightmare. However, what if your worst nightmare occurred while you were still awake? When I was just a little young buck, maybe seven years old or so, I had a hard time getting to sleep because I often had feelings of impending doom. I have no idea why I had these feelings but they were very, very real. I remember lying in my bed and wondering what death was going to be like. Was I going to wake up from this deep sleep I was about to embark on? My heartbeat began to rise and my hands began to perspire as thoughts raced in and around my mind. I began to feel this very dark and deep sinking feeling, as if I was falling into the never-ending black hole of death with no way to escape.
ReplyDeleteI was in a dim, dreary room. The smell of mold, rotten fruit and strange chemicals filled the air. I sat in the center of the room, atop a black cauldron. Within the cauldron was a boiling great liquid. As I looked around me I realized that, I that was surrounded by several scary creatures. A witch, a gargoyle, a werewolf, a vampire, and even a man-eating plant were all present. The witch extended a long, withered hand. She offered me an apple. As I looked at her face, which was green, wrinkled, and pretty much ugly, I could only feel terror. Her long narrow nose could only tell me one thing: she was evil! I sat in fear, I knew that I must not eat the apple, or I would die. I desired to leave, but there was nowhere to run, they had me surrounded. Just to buy myself some time I accepted the apple. Just as I did I noticed a door in the faint light. I knew that I had to get through that door. In sheer desperation I threw the apple in the witch’s face and ran threw to the door. The all tried to grab me, but due to my small size I was able to dodge them. I ran through the door, only to find I ended up in the same room! That witch must have enchanted the door! As I stood there in desperation the man eating plant came and picked me up. I resisted his grasp, but he was too strong. He took me over to the cauldron and held me over to it and held me over the boiling green liquid. They all stared as I struggled for my freedom; they smiled, knowing that their evil plan would soon be complete. I screamed…
ReplyDeleteStephen Kitto
It was a Thursday. All that day I had been playing with my toys, namely, my dinosaurs. You see, these were my favorite toys to play with. I would get lost in the fantasy of the land before time. I would pretend to be little foot, or maybe that I was myself hanging out with little foot and his motley crew. That night however, these imaginations became real to me, but in a sick and twisted way. That night I wasn’t a dinosaur, I was a 9-year old kid from Michigan, being chased by the evil twins of the friends I have grew to love. It was just that that was so scary about this whole thing… they were my friends. Yet, they seemed to be possessed by some supernatural being from the underworld, thirsting for my soul and child flesh. Not to mention they were the kind of monsters that would collect your tears when they caught you, and proceed to boil them and drip them on you. This was of course after they nearly tickled you to death with ptarodactyl feathers. But this is only what I knew was to come, for at this moment they were chasing me. This lasted for what seemed to be 16 and three quarter hours. What seemed to be a never ending chase ended with me waking up, my bed soaked in sweat, only moments after the velociraptor captured me in his rib crushing grasp. I threw my dinosaurs away the next day…
ReplyDelete-Jared
My Worst Childhood Nightmare
ReplyDeleteIt was a reoccurring nightmare. Every time I had it I woke up scared to death. The funny thing is that when I think about it now I can’t get over how ridiculously unreal it was. It always started out the same way; I was playing outside in the front yard, it was nearing nighttime, and then, out in the street, I suddenly see a giant crocodile! Of course I’m only 6 years old and so I run as fast as I can into the house. I try to find my dad so I can tell him about it and he can get rid of it. The problem is, no one is ever home! I’m all by myself, alone in the house. So the nightmare continues as I watch from the upstairs window as the giant crocodile tries to get inside the house and come eat me. I felt helpless standing there looking out the window. What could I do? I always thought about making a run for it over to my neighbor’s house across the street, but never ended up attempting it. For some reason the crocodile was insanely fast, at least for a crocodile anyways. So there I stood, staring out the window, wondering if I’ll make it out alive, hoping that my dad would show up at any second to fight off or even kill the crocodile. Of course I never got to the end of the dream. I would always wake up as soon as the giant crocodile would break through the front door. I would wake up with tears in my eyes, so afraid, even though now when I look back on it, it doesn’t make any sense at all. From there, I would run into my parent’s room, wake up my dad and tell him about the dream. He would assure me there was no crocodile out in the street trying to break into our house and eat me. Somehow he always managed to help me calm down again, go back to my own room, and fall asleep.
I remember when I was younger, I had a dream about my father shortly after he had been in a car accident. It was about him. The dream was pretty much a reenactment of what had really happened, only much worse and with a different ending. In my dream, my father was driving to work in our Honda odyssey, and had just dropped me off at seminary. It was still dark outside - the street lights were dim and fog filled the air. When he got pretty close to his work, a semi-truck pulled out of no where and hit him hard. He hadn't seen it coming because of the cloudy fog. The van spun several times, finally spiraling into a ditch. I was watching from above (apparently not at seminary anymore) as an outsider, not as a character in the dream. Everything went completely silent. I floated over, getting closer to the van, frantically seeking to find my dad alive. The ambulance showed up, ready to rush him to the hospital, but it wasn’t going to be any good. The van had crumpled and smashed around him. It seemed to take forever to get him out of the van before they could take him in to save him. I tried yelling to them, telling them to hurry and save him. There was no blood, but I knew. I realized that I had just watched my daddy leave this life! Talk about traumatizing. That was when I woke up screaming and crying because I was so young and I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I had to go into my parents room and make sure that he was there and okay.
ReplyDeleteHaha, it wasn't seminary, I was much too young for that. It must have been achievement days or some other church thing for little girls.
DeleteThe scariest movie I ever saw wasn’t meant to be scary. At least I don’t think it was--it is well known as a classic movie beloved by audiences. I don’t know why it was so scary, but boy was it. It was responsible for the worst nightmare I ever had.
ReplyDeleteOne night, a few days after watching ET, I woke up around midnight. As I opened my eyes, I felt like someone was in bed next to me. I rolled over to discover that I was sharing a bed with ET himself! Terrified, I jumped up and climbed down the ladder (I slept on the top bunk). I jumped to the floor and started running down the hallway.
Now this ET was not like the ET from the movies. He was tall, around seven feet, and he stood upright. He ran after me, pointing a nobbly finger as he said, “ET need to pee.”
It sounds weird, I know. I don’t know how my childhood brain took the iconic “ET phone home,” and converted it into a strange nightmare about an alien who really needed to use a toilet, but that’s what happened.
Most of the nightmare after that was pretty typical: always running with ET always right behind me, almost touching me with that ugly, grey little finger of his. I ran around the house as much as I could, but we had a small house without many places to go, and I knew that it was inevitable that he would catch me.
Finally, as I entered the living room, I realized I was trapped. ET was right behind me, blocking the only exit. So I ran to the dimly lit corner, shrinking myself into the space as much as possible. Terrified, I watched as ET approached, finger outstretched, still saying “ET need to pee.”
After a dragged-out minute of ET steadily approaching, he stood right in front of me. My imagination was full of fears of what would come next, but instead of touching me, he did what he said he had said he needed to do: he pretended I was his toilet.
The next thing I knew, I was again waking up in my bed. This time, there was no ET anywhere to be found. But I knew that the dream had been real, because I was surrounded by a large puddle of a strangely warm liquid.
- Dallin Rowley
They’re out there, in the darkness. I feel the sweat collecting on my palms like an ice water condensates on a hot summer day.
ReplyDeleteI’m all alone, my parents and siblings aren’t home. As I sit in the family room, watching tv nervously, I can feel their eyes on me. In the corner of my eye I see a silhouette flash by the sliding glass door. “Oh no,” I whisper to myself.
They’ll break in, either through a window or a door. Then it will be me against their razor sharp teeth and massive claws.
Frantically I scan the room. “I need something… Something to fight them with,” my thoughts race. What can I do? I don’t stand a chance. They’ll tear me apart in a second. Then, CRASH! The glimmer of shattered glass catches my eye off of the front room carpet. I see the shadow.
Without thinking, I jump up and rip the VCR from under the tv. I turn around and I see another shadow in the window now directly in front of me. There’s two? Now I know I will die soon. The other approaches. I have no time.
I throw the VCR through the window. They screech out their calls to each other. I scream and run into the kitchen towards the garage. The raptors follow in pursuit. I’m soon going to die. I’ll be their next meal.
Then I wake up, drenched in cold sweat.
-Kevin Wagner
The room was small, but packed with bathing-suit clad people. The low light was only made worse my the low ceiling. Never had I been so claustrophobic. I was with my family and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves in the water. I could see that one half of the room was full of water, where the ground gently sloped down in to the depths. this pool was unique. the main activity was shopping cart riding. Parents would place their kids into a shopping cart as if they were a gallon of milk and push them down the ramp. The kids would float to the top and swim back to shore, asking to be put in another cart. This all could have been fun until those two adults made everything turn for the worst. In their shopping cart they placed their child, who was about my age. Next to him they put a baby. A small child that couldn't even crawl. He began crying as his parents began pushing the two into the water. I ran in after them, swimming as fast as I could. The cart sank deeper and I was almost there. The older brother floated to the top and swam past me. By now the cart and the little child were gone underwater. I dove into the dark water and could see his eyes as he sank into the depths and disappeared.
ReplyDeleteWhen I turned sixteen I became a lifeguard and have pulled out a number of children that walked into the deep end when there parents weren't around.
Preston Coburn
Bryce Cook
ReplyDeleteEng316
He was Waiting
My little sister was always more brave than I. She could do things I would never do. She could climb trees to the top, play with spiders, and squeeze into tight places where she could possibly get stuck, like under the sink, behind the piano, or under the couch. Where she really bested me at guts was the basement.
The dungeon of the basement was dark and cloudy. Perhaps from all the dust down there, but more likely because of the evil spirits the lurked in the shadows. Whenever the sun was up there were slivers of light that would pierce the dust in rays, but they would never illuminate the dark parts behind the toy castle or the boxes. The worst part of the basement was where the "furnace" and "water heater" was, at least that is what my parents called it, but I knew better. They were the potion machines that He would use to create poison gas and other toxic chemicals to kill His pray. I speak of Him with such respect because I know of His reality, and I would never cross Him, even after moving out of that house so long ago.
He is the phantom: very similar in appearance to the Phantom of the Opera, but not exactly a personage. He had a face of course, or probably did behind is white mask, but his being was not visible below the waist, or perhaps he didn't have any extremities beyond that point...
My room, of course, was right next to the door of the basement. Because of my inclinations to cause mischief in the house I would be sent there often, closer to His grasp and corruption. I would throw my ball against the basement door again and again, until one time, the ball pushed the door open and bounced down the five steps into the arena of doom. What was I supposed to do? Just waltz right down there and retrieve my little Jazz basketball? Oh no, one does not simply walk into His domain. One needs a fearless warrior to overcome the evils lurking below. Thank you, God, for sending me my sister.
I pleaded for her help, and she agreed to assist me in my time of need. She got to the basement door, opened it slowly, the jumped (both feet) down all the steps at once and did a somersault on the ground. From that moment on I turned my eyes away, fearing the worst. Fifteen eternal seconds later she returned ball in hand. "Here you go!" she said as cheerily as a daisy as I stood there with a dropped jaw.
I never knew what happened that day. I imagine the Phantom came to collect her soul and any happiness she ever would experience in life, but that she turned and spat in his face. I have no doubt he could have destroyed her right then and there, but he probably allowed her to live out of respect for her courage.
Skeletons in the basement
ReplyDeleteThis dream was real.
My bedroom was downstairs, in an unfinished basement. I wanted to have an upstairs bedroom, more than anything, but they were reserved for the two oldest siblings - and I was the youngest of six...
The basement was dark and cold, concrete exterior walls and unfinished room partitions. The light jumping out of the wood-burning stove was often the only visible light downstairs and would dance on the walls like a candle. The light wasn’t the scary part; no, the light was safety. What haunted me as a child was where the light didn’t go: the laundry room.
I knew that as soon as I turned off the lights to come upstairs that a million skeletons would come out of the dark corners and grab me as I ran as fast as I could up those stairs! My mother always commented what a fast boy I was, running up those stairs… Little did she know that I was escaping death.
The skeletons never caught me on my way up the stairs, I was simply too fast and always closed my eyes. If there hadn’t been a handrail for me to grab onto I might have fallen, and surely been dragged back down.
To get even with me, the skeletons would hide snakes underneath my bed so that as soon as I stepped out in the morning they would nip my ankles. To counter this of course – I jumped out of bed each morning. I had to do it quickly, and unexpectedly, to make it out safely. Don’t pull the covers off too early – they’ll know I’m coming and be ready for me.
I still think about those skeletons every time I climb the stairs out of my parent’s basement… And I have to fight the urge to rush upstairs. There are no skeletons in the basement.
The sight of their own blood can bring most people to pass out with fear. When I was little I always got nose bleeds at the most random times quite frequently. Some of them were pretty bad. They would bleed out of both nostrils for one to two hours. I was terrified by it. Sometimes all I needed was a little bump or nudge, and it would just start. My nightmare was that one-day I would get a nose bleed and the blood would never stop pouring out of me. Eventually I would bleed to death. The worst is sometimes I would go to bed and in the dark of the night I would wake up with some warm, pungent but strangely familar smelling liquid dripping down my cheek. There would be some crusty dried particles on my face. It would just be gushing down my face and neck, and I would be all alone in the dark and had to get up and find my way to the bathroom leaving a trail of blood lingering behind me. I had to stop it and would forcefully shove some tissue up my nose. Immediately the tissue would be completely saturated dyed red, and I would pull it out and repeat it over and over. No one would come to my rescue, and I was alone slowly bleeding to death. Then slowly I would pass out and slump to the floor with a pool of blood drying beside me.
ReplyDeleteDan Nielson
Worst childhood (and adulthood) Nightmare
ReplyDeleteChildhood nightmares weren’t a huge issue for me growing up. But there is one real nightmare that haunts me during the day. The fear of drowning terrified me as a child…and it still does. I only took a few swim lessons as a child, so not being a strong swimmer definitely contributes to my fear. I used to be so scared to drive over bridges that were over water, because I knew that it would collapse as soon as our car was in the middle of the bridge, and we would go catapulting to our drowning deaths in the deep depths below. Would a seatbelt save me then? Oh no, it would then be a hindrance. To wear or not to wear the seatbelt? As long as we never went over any bridges, I was happy and content to wear my seatbelt. But my hand always hovered over the release button on the seatbelt any time we were near a river or body of water. Anytime we would go on a boat, I would cinch up my life jacket so tight that I could barely breathe. Tubing was and is still utterly terrifying. In fact, just a few years ago, I was tubing with my aunt and uncle (side note: My uncle is getting old…and a little senile….) and my uncle was driving the boat insanely fast while I was on the tube. Anytime I hit a wave, there would be four feet of air between the tube and me, and then another four feet of air between the tube and the water. I literally held on for dear life. On one particular jump, I got thrown off and into the water. I vividly remember being under the water and just panicking thinking that I had lost my lifejacket and would not return to the surface to see the light of day again. I would fall helplessly deeper and deeper beneath the surface. No more air for my desperate lungs. Only water…water…more water. I would look up and see the light getting farther and farther away, and a new light would appear. Needless to say I lived, and I have not been tubing since. Water still terrifies me. Call me irrational, but I will not leave this world through drowning!
-Lexi
Darkness surrounded me as I began to walk further and further into the house. It seem as if the light from the full moon slowly creped out of sight behind the clouds, making the house seem even darker. I thought I hear a sound coming from down the hallway. It was a familiar sound. It sounded like… my mom? Why is my mom in this house? What is she doing here? Better yet, what am I doing here? How did I get here? I don’t recognize this place at all. Then suddenly, my mom’s voice went silent. I couldn’t hear it any more.
ReplyDelete“Mom! Where are you!” No response. Just silence.
I called her name again, even louder this time.
“Mom! Come on! Where are you!” Still all I heard was silence.
Once I reached the end of the hallway, I noticed something crawling along side the wall. I was too dark to make out what it really was. So I got closer. By that time I noticed what it was, the whole entire wall began moving. Spiders! Hundreds, maybe even thousands of spiders! All of them started crawling out from everywhere you can think of. They started falling from the ceiling and landing on my shoulders and face. I began to shake violently like a wet dog to get them off. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed like more and more of them started to reappear and attack me. I wanted to yell but I was afraid that they some would crawl or land in my mouth. Then all of a sudden I felt them start to bit me all over.
That’s when I woke up flinging my arms and I realized that it was all just a bad dream.
-Morgan
Silence. Damp moss beneath my feet. I can even feel the moisture seeping between my toes, the dirt staining my toenails. I’m unfamiliar with this forest. I strain my neck to search the skies, but there are only wisps of comforting blue through the threatening pines. Tall, jagged trees surround me with needles as sharp tacks. The bark dares me to touch it--growling a rough, blackish-brown dare. And there is still silence. No golden dust flakes floating through sun rays. No lively crickets hopping. No butterflies, symmetrical and calm. Only the jagged, intimidating trees towering over me and the wet, soggy moss plotting beneath me.
ReplyDeleteDread fills the air. I am not alone. It starts as a ruffle on the moss. Something is behind me and waking. Moving-Thing sounds heavy, and the moss weakly attempts to support it. Moving-Thing sounds big, as the trees struggle to stay out of it’s way. Moving-Thing is territorial; his beady, ferociously yellow eyes meeting mine own quivering brown eyes. He rocks his shoulder hard into a nearby tree, straining to get a running stance without losing sight of me. He screeches hatred and heaves again at the tree. A painful snap depicts his success. My world is surreal. I shrink at the towering monster, squared shoulders with me. One final intimidating yell explodes from the chest of the beast, and I’m slammed back into reality. Run, run, run! I dash off as quick as I can through the soggy moss. But the beast is an experienced predator. I slip, strike a tree, my blood staining the bark, and Moving-Thing’s breath is hot and humid and vengeful.
I had the same dream multiple times in the same way. Each time it was all so familiar and I knew what was coming next. My brothers and I would be alone, without our parents, in a small log cabin. It wasn't completely rustic because I remember there being two or three couches in the room we were in.
ReplyDeleteLike clockwork, we would hear the bone chilling sound of indian war cries outside our house as fierce-looking horses and plains ponies came to a halt outside our weak shelter. Their hooves would turn up the dust and make everything mysterious and gloomy around us.
The moment they arrived we all knew we had to fight. But how could we? The strange (and all too familiar) feeling of sluggishness would suddenly grip our bodies and we would be left, helpless, in another world of slow motion. Fleeing at the speed of snails was then our only option.
As I try to run away, I trip and stumble so awkwardly and feel anger at how stupid I am for falling at such an inopportune moment. That's when I first realize that I don't know for sure who is around me. I don't see specific faces but instead I just feel dread. Indians with bright, blurry war paint on their dark faces pour through the broken door and swirl around me as I try to hide behind the all-to-obvious couches in the main room.
"Why couldn't I hide somewhere else?," I think to myself with great difficulty. "Why?" With warriors jumping over my only barrier, I wake up in a fit of terror without knowing my ending. -Kenny Barlow-
In my town, people often trained dogs to protect their house. I was always scared of my neighbors ‘ dogs because they look like they are here to get you.
ReplyDeleteOne day I was playing happily in a park with my friends when suddenly, I heard baking. It was one of my neighbors’ dogs. I got scared and started to run away. For a certain reason the dog choose to run after me. I ran all the way home and the dog was still behind me. When I came inside of the house I forgot to close the door. Therefore, the dog came in my house and started baking again at me. I was stocked in the kitchen and I did not have anywhere to go. I was petrified! Then my mother came to save the day. Since then I hated my neighbors’ dog.
As a child I was officially haunted by “night terrors” as a child, leaving me screaming at the top of the stairs for hours on end while my parents sat fatigued at the top step to ensure I wouldn’t fall. There was no hope of waking me. Once the dreams had finished their course I would awake calmly and walk back to my bedroom, confused at my mother’s presence. I don’t remember all that haunted me during those years, between the ages of five and seven, but I do remember a few horrors. One of which, still strange to me, is a dream which I had at least five times. Spare me the psychological diagnoses please.
ReplyDeleteThe dream always began in the setting of a large, vacant wasteland. Heaps of trash were piled up in the distance, mountain silhouettes against the reddish glow of the setting sun. The stink of rotting leftovers and decomposing washing machines filled the air. As I looked around, in search of familiarity, I saw only a single building at least a dozen stories high planted in the middle of the lot. In each dream my feet propelled me, unaware, towards the building. I felt that any attempt to think would be a disastrous interruption to the extreme silence that surrounded me. My feet, blind as they are, stepped right into a puddle of greyish mud. Suddenly the mud began to rise all around me, flooding the wasteland with liquid filth. I attempted to run, but only that dreamy attempt we know all too well in which we struggle so hard to get our legs to move, but sleep has somehow disconnected our brain from our body. My body ignorantly continued in calm while my mind raced through the inevitable possibility of death by sewage. The filth reached my chest as I entered through the door of the building, swaying loosely on a single hinge with the flow of the rising mud. I found nothing but a lone stairwell, and thought nothing but to move upward. The stairs seemed infinite as the mud pursued me upward. I reached the top to find nothing but an empty room, filled only with windows. I looked out the windows, expecting to see the level of waste rising at the same level it was at my feet, but found that the outside remained dark and dreary, but void of any rising sewage. The wasteland was clear, but now I was trapped within the top story of a flooding building. The filth reached my neck and threatened to fill my throat with the stink that filled my lungs. Hey mom, what are you doing at the top of the stairs? You should sleep in your bed. Well, good night…
-Matt
Roughly 17 years ago in the city of Colorado Springs, there lived a stuffed animal named Chuckee, - not the Chucky from Child’s Play, but the Chuckee from Chuck E Cheese. However, this Chuckee was probably just as terrifying as that cinematic devil because he was real and living. Well, at least to me he was. Every night I would lay awake in bed, staring at his shadow created by my night lite, just waiting for him to make his move. His maniacal eyes would just stare right back at me, waiting for me to fall asleep. This tortuous game was an ongoing battle the day I won that stupid thing with the tickets I collected. Every night I could see its smile get bigger, and more evil, as I drifted to sleep. I could see the shadow moving closer to me to engulf me in darkness. One night I panicked and eventually broke eye contact as I slipped under my covers. The moment I did so, I regretted it. Now he could be anywhere waiting to attack. But I couldn’t leave my safe haven, not now. It was the only thing protecting me from that possessed thing. All I could do was stay hidden and think that if I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take. As I lay under my covers, I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew it was morning. I had never been so relieved in my life because I had survived the night! But that relief quickly ended as I looked in the corner of the room. He was gone! I noticed a large lump at the bottom of my sheets right next to my legs. I lifted the covers and saw that evil smile staring back at me. For the last time I jumped out of bed as I screamed for help (The last time because I threw that dumb thing away).
ReplyDelete-Andrew Black