WHO: Bethany Chastain. WHEN: Just before midnight, August 23. WHERE: In her dreams~ WHAT: Beth is gifted her first memory. WARNINGS:Spiders!
It was late and she knew that she should be asleep, but she couldn't. Not when she knew what was coming. Not when she knew that it didn't matter if she was awake or asleep. They would come no matter what.
The room was dark, even with the nightlight plugged into the wall next to her bed. It cast long shadows off of her dresser and desk. The toys that she had diligently put away at her step-mother's request were piled on shelves, each having their own place, but they, too, made sinister shadows that seemed to almost come alive the longer she stared at them. They weren't, of course. That was impossible and she knew it, but the awful anticipation was building and her chest felt tight.
She shifted in the bed, the springs squeaking softly as she did. Immediately she froze, hoping that they wouldn't have heard the noise and taken that as reason to come sooner. After a few seconds, she summoned enough courage to pull the blankets up and over her head, blocking out the shadows. It wouldn't protect her from what was coming, though. She learned that early on.
First she heard the skittering. Her heart started to hammer in her chest and she immediately closed her eyes and covered her nose and mouth, turning onto her side and crawling into a ball. Her knees were pressed to her chest as she tried to take up as little room as possible. Again, it wouldn't protect her. In fact, it only took seconds before she felt the movement on her blankets. Soon they were under the blankets. Then they were crawling on her, over her pajamas and onto her bare skin. She could feel each of their eight legs as they kept coming, her breathing growing heavy and panicked.
Why were they doing this to her? Why wouldn't they leave her alone? Even as she started crying out for her father, she knew it was no use. Her step-mother would never call him when this happened, not believing her as they were always gone by the time she came down the hallway to see what was happening.
It was when they started to bite that she began thrashing, sobbing despite her refusal to open her eyes.
But then she did open her eyes, though Bethany was still kicking in her bed, her blankets on the floor due to her frenzy. She let out a soft yelp, more out of surprise than anything else. Despite the thud in her chest with each beat of her heart and how she was gasping for air, the realization that she'd just been dreaming hit her like a ton of bricks. She was in her bedroom at her father and step-mother's home, familiar with her books strewn across every surface and pictures of Peter on the walls. It hadn't been real.
Right?
As Bethany started to calm down, the dream didn't fade. It had seemed to real, so ingrained into her mind. Her skin felt itchy, a combination of the spiders crawling on her and the bites they were leaving, but as she ran her fingers along her arms, she could feel that there were no marks.
It had just been a dream, she told herself in her most logical tone as she sunk back into her blankets. Lots of dreams felt real. It was nothing.