The Eye (Maybe a first chapter... Maybe not. Either way, some Halloween fun!)

Ever since moving here, I have been having strange dreams. Some are terrifying, and some are just odd, but all of them are extremely vivid. The ones that are truly scary are merely me running. I feel frightened, and I have trouble breathing, as if I’ve been running for a very long time. I’m in some sort of hallway, or maze. Or both. It’s very dim, but I never seem to be in any danger of falling. The feel of the dream implies some other danger, though.

The months of strange, almost tangible dreams were bad enough, but then I began to see and hear things that other people didn’t. It started with food. One morning, exactly a week ago, I cracked an egg in a skillet. Unfortunately, it was a human eye that oozed from the shell. I blinked, and screamed, and even rushed from the room… but when I returned it was just a burning eye I saw. Heart beating wildly, I turned off the burner and returned an hour later. The charred eye seemed to stare up at me, with no lashes or lids to give it a voice. Gagging, I scraped it into the garbage and tried again. This egg was just an egg, so I ate it and went to sleep.

My dream that day was so much worse than just running endlessly through a hallway. I was running, but cackling and crazed shrieks told me that they were very near. Every time I turned a corner or leapt through a door, my heart seemed to jump up into my throat, because you must slow down to do those things, and they were SO close.

I awoke panting that night, alone in the dark. It was mostly dark, anyway. The only light was the green digital display of my alarm clock reading 11:57 PM. I sat straight up in panic, for work started at 11:20 PM. I calmed when I realized that it was my weekend(Tuesday and Wednesday), and stretched. However, that was when I heard the crying.

It sounded like a distant young woman, or child. I knew I had to investigate. Hell, I knew I was going to investigate. Nonetheless, I was paralyzed for long moments, just listening to the weeping. It started with sobbing. When the wailing began, I left the bed. The laminate wood floor chilled my bare feet as I padded over to the door. The noises grew louder with each step. I laid my hand on the knob, and it was startlingly cold. I twisted the knob, and gently pulled it in toward me. I poked my head around the edge of the door, so my eye could peer out into the hallway, which was mostly dark except for some indirect street light.

There! On the ceiling, a girl was kneeling, upside down. Her flaxen hair laid perfectly upon her shoulders, seemingly immune to gravity. She was dressed in what was probably a nightgown, and her back was to me. Each sob wracked her body, and after I had watched for merely a second, she threw back her head and shrieked. Paralyzed in fear again, I noticed that, despite seeing her body arrayed perfectly to be able to shriek, the sobbing and wailing had never ended… merely layered together with the shriek.

I heard running footsteps, and she disappeared. The terrible sounds of despair did not however. Her disappearance had broken my paralysis, however, and I stepped back from the door and closed my eyes. I heard my pulse racing in my temples, and I tried to take some deep, calming breaths. ‘You’re just cracking up. Insane. Nothing to worry about.’ I tried to tell myself… Until I felt the drips on my face. I opened my eyes and looked up…

And there she was, her mouth opened wide. Too wide to be human. Worse, her left eye was a savaged, bloody pit. I remember thinking that the dripping was her blood from her eye socket. ‘Make’s sense, right?’ I thought numbly as I passed out.