Nightmare

Dreams, too many dreams that sear themselves across my consciousness, choking me, smothering me.  I gag at the stench of burning flesh as smoke blinds me.  A layered, maddened scream tears through my hearing, shattering into laughter that sounds like broken glass scraped over stone, and I turn my head, feeling a sticky wetness against my cheek, trying to see the source of that chilling scream, though my stomach coils in horror at the thought.  All I can think of is Run.  Run.  Run.  But I can’t— they won’t allow it, these youthful and ancient men with insanity in their eyes that stand around my prone form.  I just want to wake up.  I am drawn from my burned and broken body like a last breath. I see a stoppered bottle from blurred vision-- how can I see with no eyes?  It is an ornate thing, this bottle, gilded, filigreed  and encrusted with amethyst, something that might hold perfume.  It is so much larger within.  This will house you temporarily until an appropriate body is found, they say.  You will forget, they say.  But you will remember one day, and when you do, we will be waiting.  There is a liminal echo of command, of threat to their words.

I just want to wake up.