Alleyways; they terrify me.
Ever since I was a little girl, and every time I step foot into an alleyway, fear would overcome my body and mind. I’d shiver and shake. I’d walk quickly with my head down and my arms crossed tightly around my chest. I try not to look at the mysterious shadows dancing across the brick buildings or across the worn-down cement. I block out the sounds that I’d heard all around me and focus on my feet beneath me.
People say that there’s nothing to be afraid of in alleyways. They look at me, shaking their heads, as they stare at my frightened expression as I tell them that alleyways are cursed. I don’t know why I have this feeling of nausea and cowardliness every time I think of alleyways, especially in the dark. It’s just there, a feeling that haunts me. A foolish feeling.
In stories, you’d hear about how someone would get stabbed in an alleyway, how they’d come upon an intimidating person who crawls out of the shadows and brutally kills them. Then, leaves them bleeding out in the barren, cold alleyway.
My older brother once teased me as we walked through an alleyway. He said that during the night, ghosts would come out and follow you. He said that if you look closely, as you walk through a dark alleyway and pass by old houses, you will be able to see a face staring back at you through a dusty, dark window.
Now whenever I walk past houses in the dark, especially in old towns, I find myself hauntingly and frighteningly staring into windows.
Alleyways follow me into my sleep. There was a dream the other night that was one of the most horrific nightmares that I have ever had.
It was dark, and I was walking through an abandoned alleyway. In the distance, I heard Christmas music. Though not the cheerful and joyous songs you’d hear at Christmas carols or during fun, festive times.
This was frosty the snowman, a classic song, but darker and slower. It was chilling. I vividly remember feeling the shivers run through my body in this dream.
I remember stopping and looking around. The music drifted through the air and dragged on. I remember seeing mist and shadows.
Suddenly, I heard a train. Not a train on tracks though, it was one of those trolleys that you’d see driving around a city.
It came around the corner and I realized that was the source of the music. It was playing loudly and drifted towards me. The song terrified me. I was frozen on the spot as I stared at the almost empty trolley slowly coming towards me.
There was no driver, but there were passengers. I had seen a couple women, some men and a child. They stared at me with blank, vacant faces. They had no expression and their eyes seemed dead. They wouldn’t look away either.
Then, everything became blurry. The song became terrifyingly faster, yet it was still playing slowly.
I stood there, a silent scream escaping my lips, as I witnessed blood dripping down the passengers faces. Their bodies shook. Then suddenly, they all spoke at once.
“Beware! Beware! Beware!”
Their voices were loud and robotic. The words mingled together until it was merely screams.
I was petrified.
The music was still playing, but it was all around me. I heard it everywhere and I couldn’t escape the dark tune.
I remember feeling so scared in the dream, I felt as if it was happening.
Then, the most dreaded and horrifying thing happened. A man came out of the shadows, but he had no face. He was unknown and vague. His figure, was a blur.
Cold, rough hands grabbed me. My legs would not move. They were jelly, and felt as if they had been glued to the ground.
I felt the edge of a sharp knife pierce my skin, then I saw the blood red liquid seep to the ground and create a pool around me. Everything became red, then dark.
I felt myself grow dizzy, my eyes started to close and all I could hear around me was demonic, vile laughter and the same chilling tune playing. I remember falling to the cold, cement ground and laying in my own blood.
I barely knew what was happening. I heard myself screaming but then again, was I screaming? Or was it the passengers on the trolley? Or was it something else? Everything was disoriented, and I finally woke up when I could feel my heart stop beating in the dream.
My hands were shaking, I noticed. I felt hot and beads of sweat was dripping down my face. I had touched my tear-stained cheeks and felt my warm flesh beneath my fingertips. I was still alive, and I was in my room, on my bed. That was obvious.
But that realization that I was awake and that it was just a dream, didn’t stop the paranoia and fear seeping into my brain.
The picture was still fresh and vivid in my mind. The pain I felt, and the bone-chilling fear, was still festering inside of me.
I finally realized my whole body was shaking, then I became aware that I was sobbing. I was sobbing so hard that my shoulders were shaking, and my chest felt tight and hollow. My body was cold, despite the warm temperature inside my room. Goosebumps had started to cover my skin.
My eyes darted around the room, chasing the shadows and analyzing every object that I could make out in the dark.
My gaze shifted towards the window. It was still dark, and the curtains were open.
I did not bother getting up and closing it though. My legs were frozen, and I felt as if I was in the dream again, not being able to move.
The raw fear that I felt was something that would stick with me for a long time. The feeling that the nightmare etched into me, was something that would haunt me.
I didn’t fall back asleep. I was afraid of sleep, I was afraid of the vividness of dreaming. The nauseating fear, it had latched onto me and refused to let go.
When night fell into day, I was still afraid even though I could no longer see the shadows everywhere I looked.
Although, what really spooked me, was the news I had received in the early afternoon. I got a phone call from a woman. A detective. She informed me that my daughter, had been murdered. Brutally. She was discovered in the early morning by a man taking a detour to work.
The woman said that her body was clumsily dumped. She was found, laying in her own blood. They said her flesh had been cut so many times they could barely see the skin. There was red all over her body.
The only way that they had identified her and had been able to get into contact with me, was because of her license in her wallet.
That knowledge, it struck me, painfully. A dark and wretched wound was opened, one that would be almost impossible to repair.
My daughter’s murder had happened the same night that the dream had occurred; in a dark, empty alleyway.
