Short Story -- Familiar Ceiling
A short story I wrote for writerverse's Table of Doom challenge. The prompt? Waking Dreams. Has a bit of a horror story feel and it was required to do it in second person POV. I'm kinda proud of it.
Your eyes snap open, the dark expanse of the ceiling above you reminding you that you are, in fact, in your room.
Despite the familiarity of the ceiling, you can’t turn your head. Can’t curl your fingers, your toes. Blood red envelops your vision, your eyes closing as you remind yourself you’re still dreaming, that you’re not awake -- not really, that’s why you can’t move.
You hear his voice -- a voice you never thought you’d ever hear again. His words pleading, begging you to turn your head, to open your eyes and to move. Anything to show you’re alive. But you’re already alive -- aren’t you?
Except you can no longer feel the rise and fall of your own chest. But maybe that’s because of the weight pressed steadily upon it, forcing the breath from your lungs, keeping you from drawing in more. I’m awake! you try to shout, but your lips barely move. I’m awake, I’m awake!
Then he comes into your vision, his eyes wide with fear and filling with tears. A scalpel is closed tightly in his fingers, and the glinting instrument moves ever closer to your throat. And you’re forced to watch, forced to endure the pain as it slices into your flesh from clavicle to pelvic bone.
A dream, you remind yourself as your body tenses in pain. It’s just a dream. Except the pain is excruciating, consuming you and drowning out any other stimuli, any other thought that might force your body to move, for your mind to truly wake up.
The blood cascades down your sides, down onto the once cold metal table you’re laying upon. But the warmth of your own blood makes the able hotter, uncomfortable, sticky. Still, no matter how you much you will your body to move, it can’t. It won’t. It spasms instead, pain overloading your circuits and threatening to bring on a black that’ll never go away.
When your vision fades, you see him, blurry and out of focus. Something wet drips onto your cheeks. Tears -- a single word, one white hot and stark against the overwhelming agony within your abdomen. You can feel hands, now, fingers pressing themselves between and around organs, moving them and feeling them.
Your stomach rolls. You gag on your own spit, the only sign that you’re still so very much alive and very much awake, but he doesn’t stop. He never stops, not even as you finally curl your fingers, finally get your lips to move, and force a word or two through your throat with what little breath you have left.
The edges of your vision are black, the table is burning underneath you, your fingers and wrists struggle against restraints, and you beg. You beg to wake up. To be let go. To be back in your own bed, for him to stop inspecting every organ, removing them one at a time. And still, your consciousness never fully fades.
When it finally does, you realize maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t a dream, after all.
Your eyes snap open, the dark expanse of the ceiling above you reminding you that you are, in fact, in your room.
Despite the familiarity of the ceiling, you can’t turn your head. Can’t curl your fingers, your toes. Blood red envelops your vision, your eyes closing as you remind yourself you’re still dreaming, that you’re not awake -- not really, that’s why you can’t move.
You hear his voice -- a voice you never thought you’d ever hear again. His words pleading, begging you to turn your head, to open your eyes and to move. Anything to show you’re alive. But you’re already alive -- aren’t you?
Except you can no longer feel the rise and fall of your own chest. But maybe that’s because of the weight pressed steadily upon it, forcing the breath from your lungs, keeping you from drawing in more. I’m awake! you try to shout, but your lips barely move. I’m awake, I’m awake!
Then he comes into your vision, his eyes wide with fear and filling with tears. A scalpel is closed tightly in his fingers, and the glinting instrument moves ever closer to your throat. And you’re forced to watch, forced to endure the pain as it slices into your flesh from clavicle to pelvic bone.
A dream, you remind yourself as your body tenses in pain. It’s just a dream. Except the pain is excruciating, consuming you and drowning out any other stimuli, any other thought that might force your body to move, for your mind to truly wake up.
The blood cascades down your sides, down onto the once cold metal table you’re laying upon. But the warmth of your own blood makes the able hotter, uncomfortable, sticky. Still, no matter how you much you will your body to move, it can’t. It won’t. It spasms instead, pain overloading your circuits and threatening to bring on a black that’ll never go away.
When your vision fades, you see him, blurry and out of focus. Something wet drips onto your cheeks. Tears -- a single word, one white hot and stark against the overwhelming agony within your abdomen. You can feel hands, now, fingers pressing themselves between and around organs, moving them and feeling them.
Your stomach rolls. You gag on your own spit, the only sign that you’re still so very much alive and very much awake, but he doesn’t stop. He never stops, not even as you finally curl your fingers, finally get your lips to move, and force a word or two through your throat with what little breath you have left.
The edges of your vision are black, the table is burning underneath you, your fingers and wrists struggle against restraints, and you beg. You beg to wake up. To be let go. To be back in your own bed, for him to stop inspecting every organ, removing them one at a time. And still, your consciousness never fully fades.
When it finally does, you realize maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t a dream, after all.