Nightmares

Nightmares poke their heads around the corner. Sneak in through that open window, which for the briefest of seconds you forgot to lock. You liked that cool night breeze drifting in across your wet, damp skin. Carrying with it the song of a world that doesn't sleep.
And there you are, hovering somewhere between knowing and oblivion. One foot in our world, the other slowly inching its way towards theirs. Your mind is being sucked through the window as their hollow eyes watch in rapture as the answer to that gnawing hunger unknowingly dances to their door.
You've been away for so long, forgot what the entrance into your hell looks like. You hear the voices, and they aren't at all unpleasant. Just edged with that hint of need. Need for your heart, for your mind, for your soul. And without a second thought, the world's lullaby drags you under and you slip through hell's door.
The voices get louder with anticipation. You are the feast they've just been dying to eat. Licking lips, wringing hands, their eyes would devour you upon the spot if capable.
It's not until the door slides shut, with an ending thud, cutting away the song, do you realize that you are alone. The only living among these starving nightmares.
They reach out towards you and brush against your skin. You recoil at the touch, only because it feels all too familiar. You raise your eyes to meet theirs and look past them to the abyss. It's a void, a nothing. And that's the fear that grips your heart. Squeezing it to beat faster and faster. Fear is breathing down your spine, it's breath's condensation forming on your palms. Biting its nails so loud, there's no other sound you can hear.
Fear is clawing at you because there's no fighting a black hole- that takes you whole and doesn't even spit out your soul, like the other monsters do. It won't burn you, impale you. It wont tare you apart piece by piece until you are such a pile of fragments that there no hope to be put back together.
No. The eyes of nightmare, for all the lurking ink shadows and depths unknown can't reach out and harm you. They can't eat you, chew you, or literally devour you.
It's worse. They numb you. Swallow you into the abyss until you are nothing too. Because nightmares don't appear one day, a void. They are made from dreams that have been desensitized and consumed by the soul. Only then do you find, you can't live off those dreams. They lose meaning, become empty, become nothing.
And staring at you were your dreams come to die. One day, one hour, one simple moment it takes to make the decision. You are deep into hell.
The seconds it took to push through the heavy wooden door. Hands wishing to reach out towards those who pity you. Carry them through the door so they can give you strength. You don't understand how you moved to what lay beyond, with every fiber  longing to not be alone.
But then we were like cattle for the slaughter. Separated, examined, and herded back together, to await the end.
And the women who ushered us from here to there. Voice short, eyes rolling, demener judging. The last could just be one projecting. One woman held soft eyes and a gentle voice as she stuck a pin into your finger. You closed your eyes and bit your lip in shame, unable to look upon your own blood. Just a tiny drop, but enough so You know- that's why I'm alive.
You hate that she saw you weak, but you couldn't find the hate inside the eyes. But then sometimes Satan paints his face with piety and believes that he is saint. Speaking words no others speak. Reassuring when no others were. She makes you believe, this is not the end.
Then she sends you back to the rest of the heard. Our room a mockery. Scared faces, longing faces, blank faces, staring back at you. All of us the same in the fact we sat upon our pedestals and blamed the other. Point fingers, placed the blame. Upon our cracked pedestals we each lied to ourselves as not to feel the pain. On the TV the spoke of a Nun excommunicated for saved a mothers life and letting her baby die. What does the church's god think of our waiting room?
In less then ten moments the nothingness absorbed you, consumed by a burned in your fingertips. Fire to purge us of our sins. Wipe us clean. Wake up the same as before; but really so different.
Those seconds is all it takes to throw out the dream. Eating them into the darkness. And your mind places the puzzles together. The hungry eyes creep closer and closer. Reaching hands out towards you. Fear balls itself in your throat and every scream you wish to utter is silenced. One hand reaches out and your eyes widen as you're about to be pulled into that blank nothingness, into nightmares.
But it never does grip your throat; you back against the door, nudging it open because subconsciously you're longing to get out. You're trying to fight the fear. And with barely a whisper the door is open and you're sucked back into the knowing once again. Your eyes snap open. Seeing the light, and you remember- close the window this time.