I drift onto the river of sleep late at night. I lay down on the canoe, rest my hands under my face, close my eyes and let my mind take me on a journey for the night. We start off slow, my mind slowly doing backstrokes in the midst of all the plasma. The world around me is pink, purple, and crimson, the color of the sun setting or of the blush of dawn. I’m not quite sure of anything anymore. Gold flakes dance around me and I am sound asleep. I feel myself smiling faintly at the beginning of this journey, for I am everything I’ve ever wanted to be. The water is glittering and crystalline, the world is a plethora of beauty. I never want to wake up, but of course it’s just the beginning.

Suddenly, the waters start unsettling and crashing as drips of fear leak into the world. I feel something slither up my legs. I try to shake it off as if it were some sort of pest, but my efforts are futile. The slimy icky touch is then followed by an evil cackle. I always forget about him, that monster that lives around here at the back of my subconscious mind. He never misses a chance to attack my fantasies. The colors around me shatter and I am consumed by the dark. I fall off the canoe as he grabs my ankle and drags me off into the path of recurring memories. The water feels like black tar, and I want to retch. I can’t see anything except the flashing scenes of reality: a monster crawling up my body as I lay limply in shock counting all the bumps on the ceiling. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to escape him.

Desperately I try to wake up, but all I can manage is to swallow more of the thick black water. He grabs hold of my shoulders and pins me all the way down to the bottom of the abyss and I see his face for a moment. Grey, rotten, and lifeless. He smiles but shows no remorse. I’m forced to watch as his jarring teeth are a hair away from devouring me. I turn away and cringe at the feeling of his hot breath and teeth sinking into my flesh.

All of a sudden, I burst back up onto the surface, gasping for air. The black water simmers into the pale blue color of my room’s walls as my eyes start to adjust. I sit up and hug my knees to my chest. I rock myself back and forth the rest of the night wishing to never return to my stream of dreams. However, I cry knowing that I’ll have to sleep again tomorrow night.