Writing to Describe

Describe a Nightmare World

The steady, rhythmic, shuddering noise awakes me. It is all around, filling my ears with incessant vibrations. My body feels the noise as well. It creeps like a spider making its web from the tips of my fingers, along my trembling arms, into my spine and follows a path back to my head where the noise echoes with itself.

My nerves are jangling, moving in harmony with the pulsating beat; almost inviting it as a lover greets their other. My brain resists. It strains against the invader and craves peace. Solitude. Death, even.

My eyes have been shut since I awoke. What will I see if I open them? Possibly, the source of the noise. Some large engulfing machine which cares nothing for human sanity? A living creature perhaps, with no thought, evil or otherwise for the life trapped within its domain?

Nothing. I can see nothing – It is actually blackness that surrounds me; but it is not the soft velvet blackness of a kitten’s fur. It is sharp black; piercing black. The black of nightmares; of ghost trains. The blackness of nights when as a child, a bad dream awakes you and fear strangles your voice, so you cannot cry out. This black frightens me. It frightens me like when I was a babe, not the adult I now am.

The noise continues, but seems to have moved a distance. How far? It is impossible to gauge. Softer, but still a steady beat which matches the drumming of blood in my ears. My heartbeat increases as my fear intensifies. Adrenalin is beginning to flow through my veins; ready and alert for the danger that I sense awaits me.

My body is hot; so why is there an icy coldness within my chest? Fiery beads of sweat push from the pores in my forehead and run down y face to mingle with their icicle cousins. Tiny pinpricks on my arms tell me that gooseflesh has arrived. My organs turn somersaults inside me.

I need to stretch out my limbs to prepare myself, so I move a leg cautiously and feel relief as I appear...