The Dream
A crashing sound suddenly made Rick Sanders, jolt up from his sleep. The dial of the clock said it was twenty minutes to midnight. Strange, Sanders thought, to have something falling off at this hour. Either, or his servant Hector has again kept something carelessly. Whatever, Sanders got up from his bed, dressed in his nightclothes, to check what had caused the sound.
Rick Sanders worked at the American Music Institute at the town of St. Charles. Recently, he has been studying about the works of Bach and Vivaldi. Two days later, he had to show his project to Mrs. Chatter. He needed to have this sleep. Lot of strain has gone by in the recent past.
Holding a torch to light the way, Sanders felt that the air was quite cold. Also, did his hall room looked so.... long? Sanders went on walking. The sound must have come from the study. He was still walking, when he saw..... a child?
Clutching the torch in his hand, Sanders looked that there was a boy- no, not one, two- and they were standing right there, in front of the study- his study- smiling. They had amber eyes, and their ages were roughly, eight to nine, approximately. But, what was the thing that was smudged on their shirts.... was that....?
Sanders gasped with horror.
Blood! Yes, the blood was trickling down their necks, and Sanders saw that someone had slashed their.....
Sanders saw with terror, the children were walking towards him. Sanders’ torch fell to the ground as he started to run. By now all his surroundings had changed, this was not his house. Sanders kept running, when suddenly, he tripped over an object, which made him tumble over, and fall face-to-face with the floor, and with that, he fell unconscious.
* * * * *
When Sanders woke up, he saw that he was in a dark room, and the air was somewhat dusty and cold. Sanders was scared to death by now. But where were those children? Where even in the whole universe was this place?
Sanders stood up, and began to observe the room. He found a table, facing towards him at one corner.
He saw some tiny figures, arranged in rows, but all covered with the dust of a few days. Sanders found some Egyptian figures, like the four gods and Tutankhamen, and the rest were animals, of god-knows-what ecosystems. Sanders didn’t know why, but the figures looked a bit real, and were it his own imagination, that the table....
Yes. To Sanders’ horror, he saw that he table was moving to a side, and the hot breath now rising from the table was the respiration of those figures. But, what was the silvery thing peeking from the corner? Was it......
An axe! And it was held by, a blood-coated hand!! The hand was lying near the axe, and grabbing it, it slowly rose in the air, aiming towards...
“Help! There is a murderer in here!” Sanders screamed with terror. And ran towards the broken door he had seen while observing. This time, he found himself in a graveyard, it looked Victorian-timed, but Sanders wasn’t paying attention. He was running at top speed, hoping for someone...
Sanders ran towards one of the rusted, old coffins. There seated was a man, dressed in a black overcoat. Sanders went towards him, with the hand still following him. Reaching there, he said, gasping for air, “Sir, please help me! Help me!”
The man asked, without turning his head, “what’s the danger, young man?”
“There is a phantom hand hunting me! Oh, and it has an axe! A bloody axe! Please help me!” Sanders replied, gasping for air again.
The man now turned towards him,and removed his overcoat, to which Sanders screamed, terrorized. The man had spots of white beard on his face, and the eyes were bloodshot. But, the worst of all was that his hand was cut,
and blood was gushing out, staining his entire shirt!
“That might be my hand. HA HA HA HA!!!” He gave a laugh, which sounded like Satan himself.
But Sanders wasn’t listening.
He had already fainted out.........
* * * * *
Sanders woke up with a jolt.
Thomas was calling him.
He took a quick glance at his surroundings. Everything was normal. Thank God!
As he was helping himself, he learnt the actual facts of his horrific dream from Thomas. Turns out, that this estate was brought by a Paul Hanks to build a graveyard, for the Civil War’s warriors, in 1861. Ten years later, on the 23rd of August, 1871, Paul suddenly killed two of his, slitting their necks open. Realizing at what he had done, he cried aloud for some time. It is said that some locals have seen him cutting his hand with an axe, and left himself to die. He was found the next morning, lying in a pool of blood. His children were never to be seen again. Aghast at what he had done, his wife committed suicide.....
Sanders now realized that all the events last night, was a horrific dream. But he was still quite unsafe about this fact. Had he went from one dream to another, or was it all.....
Suddenly, Sanders’ eyes went towards his garden, where he saw a familiar person. He saw a man, sprawled out on the ground, with a hand cut by an axe, and staring at him, smiling, was Paul Hanks.
Sanders closed his eyes.
It will be over, he muttered. After ten seconds, when he opened his eyes, there was no one to be seen. But there was one final surprise left for him. The dial of the clock showed, 8 AM, 24th August, 1971.
* * * * * * *
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”-Edgar Allan Poe.
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