Nightmares

I was awake yet again, crying, the same as last time. I looked over to the clock and saw the time, 3 am. I had only been asleep an hour. I sighed and got up. I walked into the kitchen and made myself some tea, not that it would help any, I was tired enough to sleep, but was afraid to. These nightmares I'd been having kept getting worse. Always seeming so real they terrified me. It kept repeating some aspects, but sometimes with different people. Always with them getting hurt. Always someone I loved. Always taking me through every detail, till I woke crying. I sighed again. So far I had been able to hide exactly how bad the dreams had been, and how little sleep I had been getting, but I knew I couldn't do it for long.

MusiKai came into the kitchen and looked at me. "What are you doing up?"

I smiled and leaned against the counter. I told him I had wanted a drink. I set the cup on the counter, and went over and kissed him. "I'm going back to bed. Care to join me?" He nodded and we went to bed.

I managed to get a little more sleep, very little. I went into the store tired and worked all day. By the end of the day I was almost falling asleep on my feet, so I closed up shop and went home, where I fell asleep watching television. Again I woke crying, but this time, I found MusiKai looking down at me, concerned. I smiled at him, and wiped my eyes, as I told him it was nothing, just a bad dream.

He looked at me longer, then shook his head. "No, there's more than that. Please tell me Arania, what is wrong."

I debated with myself as I looked at him. I knew there really was nothing he could do, for either the dreams, or the fear of sleeping because of them. So I smiled and hugged him. "Thank you MusiKai, but was just a really bad dream, I'm fine now." I wasn't sure if he believed me, but he said nothing else, and went into the other room to use the computer. Meow walked in and looked at me frankly.

"Why didn't you tell him the whole truth." She made herself comfortable on my lap as she spoke to me. I sighed.

"Because, even if I had, there would be nothing he could do about it. They are only dreams, in spite of how they effect me." She just gave me a look and went into the kitchen. I got up and went for a walk, trying to figure things out.

When I got back I tried going to bed, and managed to fall asleep easily. The dream I had this time was different. Instead of the death of someone I loved, I relived the day of my grandfather's funeral. I saw everything again, the pain on the face of my grandmother, the worry from my parents, even the patronizing tone a cousin had to a comment I made. I said and did everything the same as the first time, but then I saw something different.

As I walked to the front of the church I saw three people. They all turned and looked at me. They smiled at me, and held their arms out to hug me. It was my cousin Rhonda, my uncle Dennis, and my grandfather, all people who no longer walk the world of the living. I looked in awe between him and the casket, and ran to hug them all. They hugged me, and then everything around us vanished. The three of them looked at me sadly, and they also disappeared.

I fell to my knees crying. The emptiness was painful. I hurt so much I couldn't move. Eventually I managed to force myself to stand, and I looked around as a forest appeared around me. There was a path winding through the trees and a shadow flitted around the corner of the trail ahead of me. I turned around and tried to walk away, but the trees encircled me, leaving me only one way to go, forward on the trail. I walked slowly, cautiously. As I came to the turn where the shadow disappeared, I looked ahead. There was an empty cabin. It appeared abandoned, yet was in perfect condition, like it was left only the day before. Yet, the air was so still, as though no one had been here for ages. Again I turned and looked behind me, and the path was blocked by trees that had closed in. There was no other way to go, so I went into the cabin.

When I went in, I realized I knew this place. It was the home that my grandparents lived in before my grandfather died, though it wasn't in the middle of the woods in reality. This house had been sold a year or so after grandpa died. I hadn't been there for over ten years. The house had also been remodeled before it was sold, and this was the way it was before he was so sick. I climbed the stairs, and looked around, smiling at the memories of happier times had here.

I walked into the kitchen and saw my grandfather sitting at the table looking out the window at the birds eating at the bird feeder, his favorite place to sit. I saw the back of his head, his hair was just barely turning Gray, and was as curly as it had always been. The back of his neck was dark, the bonze color that told of his Indian heritage. I walked up to him slowly, and wrapped my arms around his neck. He raised a hand and laid it lightly on my arm. His voice was as I remembered, a calm strength behind his words, treating me as an equal, as he always did.

"My dear granddaughter, your dreams have been haunted." He turned and looked at me. I saw his face as it was before cancer took it's toll on him, warm and glowing with life and love. His warm brown eyes met my green ones and held them. "I know why the pain feels so real, why you awakened crying. I have watched over you these past years, have seen you grow from a child into a beautiful young woman, and am happy that you have now found love, and happiness in your life. You still hold onto the pain of our deaths so many years ago. You need not, we know you loved us then, and continue to love us now." He motioned and I looked behind me. Standing there were my uncle and cousin. I was there with three people I had treasured dearly in life, and missed terribly in their absence. My eyes teared up, because I knew it was only a dream, and I felt my grandfathers hand on my shoulder. "Know this and have peace. We will always be with you, watching over you. As long as you carry your love for us in your heart, we are never really gone. Now awaken, there is someone watching you, who is concerned." With a final embrace, they each smiled to me, and they vanished, one by one.

I awoke to find both Meow and MusiKai watching me. Again I had tears in my eyes, but this time from the knowledge of love that was around me, and as I hugged MusiKai tightly, I knew I no longer needed fear the dreams.