My Worst Nightmare
“Have I ever told you what my worst
nightmare is?” I looked at Jason, smiling. His blue eyes stared intensely at me,
as if he wanted to concentrate on what I had to say. I waited for him to smile,
knowing that this didn’t have to be that serious. I had always enjoyed his
smile and the slow way it spread across his lips. He shook his head now as that
smile appeared. This was date number three. I didn’t know if this topic was too
deep for number three, but it has been on my mind lately and I wanted to tell
someone. Jason was the perfect someone. He raised one of his eyebrows at me,
waiting for me to go on.
“Well… “ I hesitated, realizing how silly
this was going to sound to him. “… well…” The words came out all in a rush. “I
have always been terrified that someone I don’t know is living in my house.
That one day, I will be in the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I will
see the shower curtain move and then a face will appear behind me. Or I will
step down from my bed and a hand will grab my leg… or I will come home and all
my stuff will be moved around, and I will just know that someone was there…” I
trailed off, not knowing what else to say. Jason’s slow smile came back on.
“That would be pretty scary.” I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or
not, and I decided to assume that he was not. “Yeah… it would be… um anyways!
How about we head to the movie now?” I wanted to get past that awkward moment
and just move on to the next thing. He grabbed my hand and we got up from the
bench in front of the theatre. “Yeah… I’ve been dying to see ‘Captain America’…
let’s go!”
The
next day I couldn’t stop thinking about Jason; he had kissed me good night again and said that he would call me
soon. I knew things were going well between us and I couldn’t wait to see where
things went. I got home after work in a daze, wondering when he would call me
and when I would get to see him again. I was so lost in my Jason thoughts, that
it took me a few minutes to notice that my coffee table had moved. I stared at
it, thinking that maybe I had moved it the night before. But no, I was with
Jason the night before. Maybe in the morning? I thought hard, but couldn’t
remember ever moving it or what reason I would have for moving it. I then realized
that the bowl I had set on it that morning was missing. “That’s odd…” I walked
to the kitchen and saw the bowl lying in the sink. “I don’t remember doing that
at all…” I shrugged it off, thinking it was just me being ditzy again and
didn’t think anything of it. Besides, Jason had just texted me so it was on to
more important things!
Two
days later, I came home from a day with friends and noticed things were moved
around again. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I saw a jacket I had
thrown on the couch had been hung up. I also noticed my laptop wasn’t where it
was supposed to be; I always left it in my room so that I could check my email
before bed, but there it was on the coffee table. “Am I going crazy?” I
wondered out loud. I walked to the bathroom, and once there noticed that things
in the bathroom had been moved around as well. The tissue box was in the wrong
spot and for some reason I found my brush in the medicine cabinet. “There is no
way I am this lost in thought about Jason.” I told myself in the mirror. “Maybe
I am… he is pretty wonderful…” I stared at myself, wondering what was
happening, and then noticed the shower curtain moving in the mirror. I turned
quickly around, but didn’t see any shadows in the shower. I looked intently at the
shower, waiting for it to move again, terrified that it would, but nothing
happened. I turned back around and walked rapidly out of the bathroom. “It was
nothing…” I told myself, repeating it like a mantra all night. I slept with all
the lights on that night.
Before
I could wake to the sound of my alarm the next morning, I was jerked awake at
four in the morning by a sound from the living room. I sat up, and noticed
right away that all the lights had been turned off and my bedroom door had been
shut. I stared at that door, waiting for it to open and a serial killer to come
in. I was too scared to get out of bed, one hundred percent sure that as soon
as I put my foot down, it would be grabbed and I would be yanked under. I lay
in my bed afraid to move or make a sound, knowing if I did then the killer
outside would know I was up. Finally, after a good twenty minutes of nothing
moving, myself included, I inched my foot over the edge of the bed. If someone
were under the bed, they would see that and grab it. I waited another five
minutes, my heart pounding so loud I was sure the neighbor could hear it.
Nothing happened. I tentatively put my foot down and left it there, waiting for
the grab. I felt something brush my leg and I yelped, yanking my foot back. Cautiously,
I looked over the edge, ready to punch the killer in the face, but instead saw
a spider walking calmly by. I glared at the spider, knowing that it had done
that on purpose, but I was too scared to put my foot down again to kill it.
Another
twenty minutes went by with me not moving, waiting for something to happen. The
darkness pressed in on me, as if taunting me, telling me to trust it, that
nothing could possibly happen. And yet, I had gone to bed with the lights on,
so I knew the darkness was lying to me. My urgent need to pee was the only
thing that made me give in to the darkness. Slowly opening the bedroom door, I
peered out waiting to see someone in the living room. “Maybe it was all a
dream…” I took small, timid steps to the bathroom, hiding in the dark as best
as I could, still afraid to make noise just in case. I made it to the bathroom
without incident, pausing to look in the mirror to take deep breaths and calm
myself down. “It was only a dream…” My new mantra. As I was chanting, I noticed
the shower curtain moving again. I continued my chant, remembering how it was
nothing the last time. The curtain kept moving. My voice become high pitched as
the rings made gliding noises against the metal as the curtain was slowly
pushed aside. I continued to stare in the mirror, “It’s just a dream… it’s just
a dream…” my voice getting higher and higher as a figure came in to focus
behind me.
“No… it’s your worst nightmare…” The last
thing I remembered before I fainted was the slow smile spreading across Jason’s
lips as he came towards me.
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