Again, last night with the head phones on, curled up into a tight ball against the night.

As if in a response to my rejection of the physical reality, it seems that the Monster has returned to my dream state, influencing me even as I sleep. Last night, nightmares returned. I dreamt of my bedroom, of that hideous creature still standing in the corner, watching. Still I refuse to meet his eyes, his gaze. In the dream, my windows slide open slowly, allowing in a cold night breeze that sweeps over the room and below my covers. It feels almost as if some intruder has slipped into my bed with me, and its touch makes gooseflesh spring across my skin. I try to cringe away from it, but can’t.

When I look up again, the Monster has moved next to the door, which is opening slowly before his hunched form. He turns to me and I look away into the pillow.

I’ll let it in, He says. If you don’t I’ll swing this door and invite it in myself.

“What?” I murmur into my bed.

From outside.

I look up again, starting with the floor below, crawling along its legs. Its not the Monster anymore, my brain tells me. It’s the Stranger. And in the way that dreams can be so transitional, it made sense. Of course it’s the Stranger now. I can’t rightfully make out any form or distinction, he’s only a darkness against more darkness, not even as substantial as the Monster from before him. He’s an idea, he’s a sensation, he’s a feeling. It’s how he started, how he and I met, and how he’ll remain.

Best to invite them in.

The thought hardened in the pit of my stomach.

Or bring you out?

I wanted out. I wanted out right then and there, but not from my home in the dream, the dream itself, and screaming, I tore from one reality and into another, breaking through the film more difficult than I’d ever broken through before. First starting with my limbs, thrashing out against my bed and the world that I knew, I tried to come back, I tried to force the visual away, to become aware of my consciousness inside my head again, to feel the world around me and look back on the dream as little more than a city, reflected, mirrored in the rear view as I drove away along the highway.

It worked. I did wake up. But I almost screamed when I opened my eyes to my bedroom, feeling as if I’d again been dropped into the vivid dream – to have come around away from the nightmare only to so easily open your eyes to it again. In my bedroom, the window was open and the door stood open only halfway.

I’d shut them both. Of this I was sure.

But there was no presence of the malevolent or the uncomfortable. They at least had escaped me. My imagination was through with them. And so long as they remained in the bed, I’d remain alright. So long as they stayed away, I could handle whatever happened, I could rationalize it.

Wide awake at this point. Not wanting to go back into the dream state and reacquaint with the Monster again, the transition to the real world again taking too much energy, I pulled my headphones from my ears and swung my legs out of bed, moving toward the kitchen.

4:25

the clock read on the stove. So it was still early, but not too early that I’d be forced to return to bed. Four thirty hints at being practical. The morning yawned before, an empty time of day with little to occupy me, stores closed, people sleeping. Perhaps I’ll hit a coffeeshop later, I thought as a cold air tickled around my legs. The sensation brought with it more detail of the dream, and I cringed.

The cold breeze was odd though. Why should it be sneaking along the floorboards at this hour? A car passed along the main road behind my back patio and the sound was altogether too loud – I turned to the back door and found it standing wide open, the screen door too, a cloud of gnats just inside my living room, swimming inside and then out again, around the back porch light.

“Shit.”

I turned out the kitchen light and moved toward the back door swinging at the bugs to no avail. They circled and tickled my forehead, hair, scalp. I mumbled obscenities and tried to figure what to do. They were attracted to the light, yes. Turn the light off? I flipped the switch and the back porch and living room plunged into a darkness impermeable.

I waited for my eyes to adjust, feeling the bugs around my face and trying not to slap at them. I could only imagine them pouring inside, unsure of where to go. I needed a flashlight, to draw them back outside to the porch again, further this time. But I’d have to let my eyes adjust first.

So I stood there in the dark for a good couple minutes, each one stretching longer than the first, my mind with little to do but remember the nightmare and scare myself. Where did all these bugs come from? There were plenty at the lake yesterday, sure, but I hadn’t seen any around the house until now. And of course, the million dollar question, why had the sliding glass door (which had been locked – this complex had too many sketchy characters not to lock it), been standing open to let all the bugs in. It’s one thing to have the front door blow open in the wind, another thing entirely for the sliding door to unlock and move open on its own.

There had to be an explanation.

Sleepwalking? Some practical joker who could jimmy the lock? Sure. Possible. Impractical and unlikely I suppose, but possible. Likely the reasons are beyond what we even expect or consider. I’d make a terrible detective.

My eyes having finally adjusted, my heart having not, I made my way across the room back to my bedroom where I eased open the door and fumbled in the dark for the drawer that held the mini flashlight I’d thrown in a bag upon moving out. Colorado, right? The outdoors? How could one not pack a flashlight.

I clicked it on and off, for an instant destroying my night vision before the angles and dimly lit surfaces came slowly back into focus. It worked, hopefully it would draw out the bugs.

Walking through the cloud of gnats and probably mosquitos was torturous. For the rest of the night I’d be feeling their light bodies slipping along my face (covered with dried sweat from the nightmare too, I was a regular spa for the little shits). Standing on the back edge of the patio, I unscrewed the cap on the light, the beam blinking on and then widening until the cap was completely off, the bulb exposed. I balanced the light on the back fence and turned to the door again, expecting to be mobbed by the drones seeking new attention from a new electronic God.

But they didn’t. The air was clear of the things. I stepped back to the opening and looked both inside where the shadows were cast light and funny across the inside carpet, and out, illuminated in the dull glow. Nothing. Not a single bug. No moths batting around, fuzzy flying, mosquitos looking for life water from my life water. The dark held only dark.