The bleeding figure limped toward me, in my dream, reaching out a trembling and skinless hand. No lips, eyelids, nose—its face was a red smear with teeth—yet it spoke as it crawled out of the darkness. Unblinking, unable to blink, it kept its horribly intense gaze fixed on me as the words poured from it as like its own, constantly dripping blood.
And dreams are terrible things. I know he spoke. I cannot image but that it was important what he said, and yet I do not recall a word. A warning or threat or plea, it was lost in the morning light.
I sat up in bed trembling, my eyes desperately scanning my room for the bleeding figure. He was not there. The nightmare left no red stains on my carpet or any memento but that fading image and an indelible sense of dread. Unreal, and yet I am unable, as the morning continues toward noon, to move or go about my day. I sit here, thinking of that hellish vision, trying…trying…trying…
Whatever those words were, they are lost.
Tale Told 