Johnny Nys's entry for Comp #2

[Johnny_Nys]

A Dream
by Johnny Nys

I'm driving. I look in the rear view mirror to the road behind me. Way in the distance is a black hole, a toothless mouth swallowing the road, black as hell. I know it's no illusion. It's real and it's chasing me.
         I look ahead to the place I was going to; work, the store, my house ... I step out of the car and look back at the road. No black hole. Just the road, curving out of sight about a mile back.
         I walk inside and whatever building it was on the outside, it's a bar on the inside. I recognize the bar from when I was younger. I used to hang out there. But it burnt down a couple of years ago. It's back, like it was wholly transported from the past to this location and time.
         I sit on one of the stools next to a couple of locals I recognize from the old days. They don't say anything. They never did in the past.
         On the opposite wall hangs a mirror. I look at myself, wondering what I'm doing here. Then I notice the black hole again.
         I turn around to see a blank wall. No hole. There's only one table standing against the wall, one man sitting at the table. He's staring at me, probably thinking I'm staring at him. I turn away.
         When I look again in the mirror, the part of the wall with the black hole is blocked by the man. He's coming nearer. Maybe he wants another drink.
         He sits on the stool next to mine.
         Any other man wouldn't mind him. People sit next to other people all the time. In a bar, in a movie theatre, in a bus or train ... but I have the crazy notion he's up to something.
         I study him through the mirror.
         I've had this dream several times and I always recognize it when it returns. Even so, it always startles me when he speaks. His voice sounds like a scream to me, although it's merely a whisper. Immediately, the entire room grows quiet. The murmurs of other patrons fade. I see their lips move, but they generate no sound.
         He whispers my name and I almost fall from my stool. I'd never seen him before, so how could he know me?
         He says nothing for another two minutes. The silence is unbearable. I look at the other people, all of them talking, waving their hands, moving their glasses but without sound.
         All of these people are dead. They'd perished in the fire yet here they are, alive in my dreaming mind.
         I've read stories of people able to stop time, to freeze other people, to move objects around without even touching them. This man could drain the air of any sounds. It was amazing, terrifying, absurd. It feels like I'm watching TV with the sound mute. If you're quiet you can hear the electric humming of the screen. Sitting next to this man is like sitting too close to a television screen, making hairs on hands and arms stand erect, slowly being filled with static electricity, preparing me for a shock the next time I touch someone or open my car door or touch any other metallic object.
         The man turns his head and looks at me. Suddenly he points to the mirror. I follow his finger and find my own face in the mirror. Between the man and myself, the black hole has appeared again. This time, it's a little bigger.
         I should move. I can't let the hole catch up with me, because that would mean my end. I stand up and head for the door. I try to open it, but it's locked. I push, I pull, I wriggle the handle, I kick, I hit - but it won't budge. It's like the door of a vault. I turn around. No one takes any notice of me, ignoring me as though I don't exist.
         I look at the bar. The man is gone. I look at the table against the wall, but he hasn't returned there. I glance at the mirror, afraid of what I might see.
         I have reason to be afraid.
         The black dot is bigger than ever. It's not just a hole; it's pure nothingness. The world stops where the blackness begins; a cut in the fabric of reality, a tear growing larger. It has filled almost a quarter of the mirror.
         A fierce panic envelops me. I suddenly realize there's no escape. Although this black hole seems only to exist in the mirrored world and not in the real one, I have a feeling that, when it has grown large enough, it will burst through the mirror surface and swallow the real world whole.
         Then it actually happens. Just as I'd predicted. With a violent explosion, sending glass shards all over the room, the mirror gives way to the horrifying blackness. Beyond the wall is a gaping vortex, lurking menacingly, moving, squirming its way out of the brick! And still nobody moves.
         I am the only one to react to the danger. Everybody else continues his silent conversation. It's like I'm invisible or not even there. Like a dream.
         Suddenly, I realize it is a dream. Nothing but a dream. That black hole can't harm me. In a few seconds the dream will reach its innocent climax. I'll wake up and start my day, maybe not as well rested as I'd like to be, but alive.
         Realizing I'm dreaming, I turn to the door.
         It's my dream. Everything I see, hear, feel is controlled by my mind. If I want to change something, I can change it because I'm the one making all things happen. There's no external force behind it all. Just me.
         I want the door to open. I tell the door to open.
         It opens.
         I jump through as soon as the crack is large enough to let me pass. I land on my hands and feet on top of rumpled sheets in a bed with the cover pushed onto the floor.
         I'm awake. I'm in my own bedroom, in my own bed. The dream has gone, the black hole is gone. But I can't relax. I look at the clock and see I've overslept. I have an appointment in half an hour. Guess I have to skip breakfast. I get out of bed, run to the bathroom and make myself ready. I leave the house, get in my car and I drive away.
         I know exactly where I'm going, so I don't have to slow down to look for the right roads.
         When I arrive and enter the office building, I'm instantly swept back into memory to a long forgotten but very important day.
         The offices aren't where they're supposed to be. Instead I've returned to the bar. The same bar as in my dream. But I'm awake now, aren't I?
         I walk up to the mirror and glance into it. Immediately I see the black dot way in the distance, not much bigger than a fly but once again slowly growing larger.
         I turn to the wall. No one is sitting at the table. I sigh with some relief, but my tension grows. If this isn't a dream, what is it?
         I hear the door open with a creak. I turn to look.
         The old man enters. He's trying to light a cigarette but his match won't catch. He rubs it repeatedly against the side of the box. He's so concentrated, he doesn't see where he's going. I try to step out of his way too late. The man bumps into me.
         The match is ignited, but flies out of his hand when we collide. I watch it fly through the air. I see it reflected in the mirror. Two burning matches flying in formation, like a pair of burning butterflies. Then the mirrored match disappears in the black hole, while the other one, the tangible one, is still in a wide arc towards the end of the bar.
         At that same moment, the smell hits me, together with the recollection of an even more horrible nightmare. A nightmare that was no nightmare, but real life.
         I never saw the headlines in the newspapers, but I can imagine what they must've looked like. The story was simple. A bar, burned down because of a gas leak, one innocent person igniting the gas by lighting his cigarette. I was there when it happened. And now I am there again.
         A flash and a wave of heat shatter my body. I'm thrown away and I land on my hands and feet, on top of rumpled sheets, in a bed with the cover pushed off.
         I'm awake, but not really. I'm awake in an eternal nightmare, which is more horrible than how I ever imagined death to be.

The End

P.S. I had to cut about 600 words from the original story to get it under the 1,500 word maximum.

[Ed]

Hi Johnny I'll look forward to reading this later on.  Right now I'd better jump in the shower and get to work though.

[Troglodyte]

Hi Johnny. You've done well to trim 600 words from your original, and still retain a decent short story. A nice idea/concept revealed gradually through each successive visit to the bar.

For me though, it was let down by the large number of sentences and paragraphs that started with "I". Yes it's difficult writing in the first person not to do this, but if you could rewrite this with less "I"s as starting points for sentences/paragraphs, then I think you would have a much better story on your hands.

[Walker]

Cool story Johnny, welcome to the site. 

[Geoff_N]

Hello Johnny.

Dark recursive stories have always fascinated me, and you haven't let me down here. Recursive and iterative in one! I echo Trogledyte's comments on the I starts. But your show not tell oozes through well.

Geoff, who is not looking in another mirror for days

[SallyQ]

Good story Johnny, and all the more creepy because of the eternal substance of the 'dream'. I'm always very interested in the ability to change dreams, having suffered a few nightmares myself, so the fact he can't change this one is extra scary!

Sally

[Ed]

Hmmm good stuff, Johnny.   I liked the way you compounded the dream images into a continuous nightmare.  As others have suggested, I think it would be good to take a look at all those 'I's.  Nevertheless, a very good story.

BTW, this story put me in mind of 'Black', by Grinreaper, in our Tales section - http://www.cafedoom.com/black.html it's well worth the read

[JoyceCarter]

Good impression of nightmare - the helplessness to change anything, although aware of the possibility of lucid dreaming.  Thanks for the read.