has no idea what the thing is trying to say. She doesn’t want to know what it’s trying to say. Dawn attempts to turn her head to the side, but her neck won’t move. Skinny fingers, barely covered in skin, draw closer to her.
A scream builds up in her lungs then radiates through her skull, but it never leaves her mouth. She screams and screams soundlessly as the fingers draw closer. No one can hear her. There is no one here to hear her.
This is only a dream.
Here, there is only her and her reflection. The reflection yells Dawn’s name. Its voice sounds distorted, like cat claws scraping down a chalk board mixed with the sound of raindrops hitting a tin roof.
Dawn wishes she could cover her ears up to keep the sound from shattering her eardrums. She can’t. The only thing she can do is pray this ends soon, pray she wakes up before the fear consumes her. The reflection continues reaching for her. Its cold wet fingertips touch Dawn’s lips.
Upon contact Dawn’s whole body turns cold. The sensation begins at her mouth then travels over her face down her neck and shoulders, reaching all the way to her toes. It’s transforming her, making her a copy of what it appears to be.
Her once bouncy hair is now dripping wet. The droplets fall into her eyes, turning her vision red, the color of blood. This is the part of the dream Dawn hates. This is the part where she realizes the reflection is no longer its own entity.
She can no longer refer to the image opposite of her as IT . It’s not an apparition as her psychiatrists likes to call it. It’s not her imagination running wild, as her mom likes to say. It’s not an effect of watching too many scary movies as her dad is known for blaming it on.
With her hair blood-soaked and her body quaking from sobs she’s unable to release, Dawn realizes that the reflection is her, the real her. This is how she truly looks. This is who she really is. This is the Dawn the world is supposed to see.
Her psychiatrist and her parents are wrong. She isn’t a normal girl. She isn’t beautiful on the inside and the out. She’s a monster. She’s the thing nightmares are made of. She’s an abomination. And when she finally accepts the truth, she wakes up.
Once awake, the events that occurred in dreamland began to fade. After a few moments she begins to feel like maybe she’d made it all up. Perhaps she hadn’t dreamt it at all. Each day she pretends the other her doesn’t exist.
She pretends it’s her imagination, a ghost possibly. Unfortunately, every night the dream returns to remind her who she really is. But she doesn’t need the dreams to remind her. She sees the real her whenever she catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror.
Chapter Two
~ Unnoticed ~
There was only ten minutes of school left.
Dawn Montgomery sat at her desk with her legs crossed at the ankles and her back ramrod straight. She stared at the back of Mrs. Pellagra’s head while the teacher pointed to a country on the map. Today’s lesson was about World War II.
None of her class members seemed interested. Most of the kids were playing games on their phones or texting each other. With the teacher not looking, a few students had even laid their heads on their desks and fallen asleep.
Unlike the rest of the class, Dawn was paying close attention to every move Mrs. Pellagra made. History was her favorite subject and Mrs. Pellagra her favorite teacher. She liked it when Mrs. Pellagra called on her to answer a question.
Dawn studied hard to make sure she always got the questions right. She’d seen the look the teacher gave those students who didn’t answer correctly. No way did she want her favorite teacher to look at her with that type of disappointment in her eyes.
Looks of disappointment were something Dawn was used to. She got those looks every time her dad came home. Her father, Roy Montgomery, drove trucks for a living which meant he was only home every other weekend.
Whenever he came
A scream builds up in her lungs then radiates through her skull, but it never leaves her mouth. She screams and screams soundlessly as the fingers draw closer. No one can hear her. There is no one here to hear her.
This is only a dream.
Here, there is only her and her reflection. The reflection yells Dawn’s name. Its voice sounds distorted, like cat claws scraping down a chalk board mixed with the sound of raindrops hitting a tin roof.
Dawn wishes she could cover her ears up to keep the sound from shattering her eardrums. She can’t. The only thing she can do is pray this ends soon, pray she wakes up before the fear consumes her. The reflection continues reaching for her. Its cold wet fingertips touch Dawn’s lips.
Upon contact Dawn’s whole body turns cold. The sensation begins at her mouth then travels over her face down her neck and shoulders, reaching all the way to her toes. It’s transforming her, making her a copy of what it appears to be.
Her once bouncy hair is now dripping wet. The droplets fall into her eyes, turning her vision red, the color of blood. This is the part of the dream Dawn hates. This is the part where she realizes the reflection is no longer its own entity.
She can no longer refer to the image opposite of her as IT . It’s not an apparition as her psychiatrists likes to call it. It’s not her imagination running wild, as her mom likes to say. It’s not an effect of watching too many scary movies as her dad is known for blaming it on.
With her hair blood-soaked and her body quaking from sobs she’s unable to release, Dawn realizes that the reflection is her, the real her. This is how she truly looks. This is who she really is. This is the Dawn the world is supposed to see.
Her psychiatrist and her parents are wrong. She isn’t a normal girl. She isn’t beautiful on the inside and the out. She’s a monster. She’s the thing nightmares are made of. She’s an abomination. And when she finally accepts the truth, she wakes up.
Once awake, the events that occurred in dreamland began to fade. After a few moments she begins to feel like maybe she’d made it all up. Perhaps she hadn’t dreamt it at all. Each day she pretends the other her doesn’t exist.
She pretends it’s her imagination, a ghost possibly. Unfortunately, every night the dream returns to remind her who she really is. But she doesn’t need the dreams to remind her. She sees the real her whenever she catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror.
Chapter Two
~ Unnoticed ~
There was only ten minutes of school left.
Dawn Montgomery sat at her desk with her legs crossed at the ankles and her back ramrod straight. She stared at the back of Mrs. Pellagra’s head while the teacher pointed to a country on the map. Today’s lesson was about World War II.
None of her class members seemed interested. Most of the kids were playing games on their phones or texting each other. With the teacher not looking, a few students had even laid their heads on their desks and fallen asleep.
Unlike the rest of the class, Dawn was paying close attention to every move Mrs. Pellagra made. History was her favorite subject and Mrs. Pellagra her favorite teacher. She liked it when Mrs. Pellagra called on her to answer a question.
Dawn studied hard to make sure she always got the questions right. She’d seen the look the teacher gave those students who didn’t answer correctly. No way did she want her favorite teacher to look at her with that type of disappointment in her eyes.
Looks of disappointment were something Dawn was used to. She got those looks every time her dad came home. Her father, Roy Montgomery, drove trucks for a living which meant he was only home every other weekend.
Whenever he came
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