Waking To Nothing
A woman, middle aged, woke up to an unusal sound coming from her backyard. The noise wasn't the main reason that made it unusual, but that the fact she had woken up easily, 3 hours before she normally gets up. The woman, groggy and incoherent, slides out of bed and succintly falls into her slippers and heads to the back of her house in the near dawn light. This trip is normally quick and stealth like when she's up hours later, but in this early morning light she has trouble subconsciously remembering where which doorway is and where to step up or down. After a few slips and near falls, she arrives at the back door which leads to a deck and to the noise that awoke her in the first place. She takes her time, not wanting her trip outside to be like her struggle inside, and opens up the door to hear the noise louder than she had ever imagined. With the noise from outside deafening her ears, she heavily steps onto the deck and down to her lawn. Just then she realized, that in her whole journey from bed to lawn, she never once thought of what the noise was or what exactly was causing it. So, she searched with her eyes, up and down and all around, to see what on this green earth could make such a sound. But to her amazement, she could not find a source. It seemed to her that the noise was everywhere, and it was engulfing all other sounds around. As her amazement grew, she started circling uncontrollably about her lawn, searching anywhere for this sound. "No where!" she screamed, "No where is this sound in one place!" Her anxiety grew and she began to panic. If she could not find this sound emenating from one place she would go insane. She was about to scream, but suddenly it became bright and she woke up to find herself in bed again. Panting and scrounging for air, she discovered it was all a dream. She then corrected herself, saying "This was no dream, it was a nightmare." The sound she heard was silence, and she knew exactly what it meant.