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I am the Thing Inside Your Dreams

Charles Eades

The house remembers
Every word spoken
Every fist raised
Every heart broken
Leaves a trace in the walls
Echoes in the timber
Whispers in the eaves
While we short-lived creatures come and go
The house remembers
Creaking on its aged foundations
Watching the world go by with windows like sightless eyes
If it dreams
Its dreams are troubled

I am alone here
Shut away from the world I no longer care for
No troubles
No distractions
No voices to ask me why
Only dwell here in silence
With the house for company
I pad from empty room to empty room
The walls absorb every sound
I will not speak
Will not break the spell
Wrought by forgotten fingers
In a long dead past
My own fears
Built up over a lifetime
Might finally be smothered
Here in the dark
Where I sleep

Who is the girl at the foot of my bed?
There in the corner, do you see?
Strange, if I look at her directly
She is gone
As if perception would undo her
She’s still there
Watching me
Pale eyes in a pale face
Impossible to read
Afraid?
Appealing?
Antagonistic?
Perhaps all of them
If I should wake to find I dreamed her, what then?
No comfort there
She may yet return
When next I close my eyes

Something has changed in the house
Maybe something that was always here, dormant, has woken
Footsteps in the dark
Movement just out of sight
Voices whispered
And at night, disturbing dreams
Curious that I am not afraid
Puzzled, yes
But these visions do not repel me
I feel more and more a part of this place
Like furniture
Or a painting on the wall
Perhaps it wants me here
It shows me excerpts from its history
To prepare me for living here
The more I know, the more I want to stay
Tell me more

The dreams grow clearer
I wish they hadn’t
A child weeping on the stairs
Hands raised in anger
An agonised cry
Animal or person, I cannot tell
Dark, cold water pulling me down
Filling my lungs
Drowning the light
I trust this is not the result of a restless mind
The girl returns every night
She seems more tangible, more solid
I have never seen her blink

I have found the water
A pool on the edge of town
Like a great wound in the earth
Lifeless
Nothing to see beneath its black surface
Someone drowned there
A child of twelve, fifty years ago
It might have been an accident
She’s still down there
Too deep to dredge
I wonder if in her watery grave
She dreams of the house
As it dreams of her

I am beginning to feel unwelcome
Sleep gets harder every night
Bringing such terrible nightmares
I fear to close my eyes
Days are consequently wearisome
I catch myself nodding
Amid a strong sense of being watched
The house seems afflicted with damp
Water accumulates where it should not
Wet footprints
A maddening drip, drip
The source of which I cannot locate
I know when I am not wanted
The house will no longer force its tormented memories on me
There is no shame in running away
Time to go

She will not release me
She follows me to a drab hotel
I see her in puddles
Pools
Rivers
Even bathwater
I avoid water like a hydrophobe
Never leave the tap running
Hide from the rain
Still she comes to me
Every night
As I wake from horrific dreams
The house calls me home
What to do but answer?

The house welcomes me back
Like an old friend
I do not sleep
Walking the corridors at night
Every step echoed by another close behind
Though I am alone
Who whispers my name in the dark?
Who takes my hand
Leads me out
Through the empty streets
To the lonely pool
Draws me in
To the cold, black water
Further and further
Away from the world I shunned
Wraps its arms around me
Fills me up
Down
Down
Down

Now I belong to the house
And while you short-lived creatures come and go
I remember
Creaking on my aged foundations
Watching the world go by
When I dream
I dream of you
Somewhere in the future
Months, years, decades
We can wait
Sooner or later, you will come
I will watch you sleep
I will fill your head with horrors
I will take your hand and lead you
To the dark, cold place
We will walk there together
For we are the things that haunt the house
And when the house dies
We will be free to haunt the Earth
Forever.

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