Masked Dreams (a story by Roy Klipping)

Masked Dreams

Part 1

I felt my body being pulled as if I were on a ride at the state fair, then heard a man's voice yelling. At first, I wasn't sure what was happening. As my eyes started to focus, I looked up at a man who had me by my arm pulling at me. Confused, I pulled my arm back and asked him what he wanted.  I could tell he was mad at me, but I hadn't a clue as to why.  I took a quick look around and noticed that I was on a greyhound bus. Again, confused, I asked the man that was pulling at my arm what was going on, but all he could say is that I needed to get off his bus or he would call the police. I started to walk toward the front of the bus though it was as if I wasn't even moving. The next thing I knew I was standing outside the bus. I remember the sound of the diesel engine and the smell of the exhaust as it roared away, but I didn't remember seeing it pull away.

 "Where am I?" went through my head. My eyes scanned the area for any sign of something I could recognize but I wasn't sure what I was seeing. It felt like I had been placed inside a hourglass and everything seemed blurry.  I could feel the ground beneath me but didn't know what I was standing on.

I closed my eyes hoping that when I opened them everything would be back to normal. Seconds passed into hours when I realized something that scared me beyond any thought possible, then my mind went into a frenzy and I started to panic.........









                                                                        Part 2 

 Normal complete silence surrounded me as my mind tried to grasp what was going on. Was this a dream?  Was I really here?   I opened my eyes slowly hoping to find my pillow under my head but I wasn’t in my bed. I was standing in a place unknown to me. As I looked down I noticed something sticking out of the ground beneath me.  I knelt down to get a closer look, it was the edge of what appeared to be a notebook.  I dug the ground away until I could pull it free. As I brushed the dirt off it I noticed there was something written on the cover, just one word, "Unknown” and as I opened it to the first page there was a short paragraph. I started to read it. It said, "You may have found in your dreams a place to hide, a place you feel that when started you can control it, but here, on this day,  behind this mask you will only control what you cannot see."

I read it again, trying to figure out what the person meant by the words.  I didn’t really understand what was going on. I paged through the notebook looking for anything else written, but each page was blank. After a few more minutes of trying to figure out why all this was going on I heard a noise. As I looked up I saw a road in front of me.  It seemed I was standing on a corner of a street, there was a sign on the corner, but I couldn’t make out what was written on it. I heard a noise again just off to the left of me, it sounded like it could be a vehicle.  Maybe the bus was coming back to get me. I waited, again minutes passed into what seemed like hours. The street seemed hazed over in a fog, and then my eyes fixed onto a movement. It was a car moving slowly in front of me and I could hear the tires biting the pavement as I watched it pass.  I could see a small boy in the back seat, his eyes fixed directly on mine, I remember reaching up to wave when everything went dark….

  Part 3
Time seemed to stand still although I didn’t really know what had happened.  I could hear a faint humming sound, I’m not sure why, but for a split second I wondered if my eyes were shut or maybe I was asleep. A few minutes later I started to see light and then movement and as things became clearer, I noticed I was moving, or at least something was.  I had been leaning against a window and as I sat up, I found myself in what seemed to be the same greyhound bus I had just been asked to leave earlier.  I took my hands and rubbed my face trying to wake up.  I must have been sleeping after all. I thought what a strange dream I had.  As I turned back toward the window, I noticed my reflection in the window but wasn’t sure who it was I saw. Again I rubbed my face and my eyes then looked back toward the window, but this time I couldn’t find a reflection, I had thought maybe the lighting was different so I just shook my head, I started to wonder where I was so I looked around the bus for someone to ask where we were but the bus was empty, I leaned into the aisle and looked toward the front of the bus. The driver was behind a partition and I didn’t want to holler to him, so I started to get up so I could go ask him a few things when something fell to the floor.  I reached down to pick it up. Have you ever had one of those moments when time stops? Well this was one of those times. My heart started to pound like a drum, my eyes flashed over and over like the shutter on a camera. As to what I was seeing, oh my God, it was the notebook I had dug out of the ground in my dream. I stopped cold; my mind had my body trembling with fear of what this meant.  I sat there just staring at the word written on the cover. (UNKNOWN) What this meant kept tripping my thoughts. What I had thought was a dream a few minutes ago now had become something I didn’t know how to react to or think about.
I kept staring at the small notebook when something made me open it. The page before me was not blank as it had been earlier. I started to read it. It was talking about a man who could see things forward but failed to react on what he could see. I turned to the next page and it too was filled, but this time the writing seemed hurried, it was if the person writing this was screaming. There were lines scribbled in between some of the words at the bottom of this page and there was some red blotches on the edges and toward the bottom of the page.  I turned to the next page and there were more and more red smears. The words though in a sentence didn’t make any sense at all.   I started to think it was blood, and a lump filled my throat. The next page was worse and the more I turned the deeper red it became. I jumped to the back page to see if it was continued throughout, but the last page was clear.  I started going backwards page after page, I wanted to see what was last written.  I don’t know why but I had thought maybe whoever wrote here would give me some clue to what all this meant. I kept going back further until….

Part Four of Masked Dreams

I found the last page written on, there was what I believed to be blood almost dripping from this page, there were words written and I tried to make out what they were.  At the top of the page I could see the word help.  I guess to me, that is all I really needed to read because I could feel the fear placed in just the way it was written.  I turned back to the next page and again the only word I could see is help.  Several pages further back I found the same thing until I turned the page and my heart dropped. I just sat there and stared without even blinking, I swallowed hard, my eyes blurred from emotions running inside of my mind. There was a small handprint of what looked to be a child’s hand that covered the page, and at the bottom written hard into the page was      (believe in what you see ).  I just sat there staring not even knowing at that moment where I was or what all this meant, I turned the pages shut and just looked at the cover of the notebook. (UNKNOWN) was screaming from the page and I knew I needed to open it back up and read what I could.

After sitting motionless I turned the cover back open but something was different, what was written before was not at all what was here now. There were words here, but they were written in crayon in a child’s handwriting. It started off by three simple words, words that made tears fall down my cheek,

( I am sorry).  I turned the page and more of the same writings in crayon said (today I played alone waiting for my birthday to come.  My friends can’t come because I was naughty, but they might come next time if I am good.)

So many thoughts went through my mind, sadness couldn’t help but to show in my heart for this little child. I wondered what parent would do this to their child. At the bottom of the page there were three stick people drawn. I could tell that one was the mother and one was what looked like a little boy. The third didn’t have a head, only a square box with eyes and sharp teeth. In my mind this must have been the dad or maybe stepdad or even the boyfriend of the mother. As I turned to the next page, I wished I wouldn’t have. There written in a dark blue crayon was…
To be continued.