Dreams From a Shiny Object

You would think that at fifteen, I would have been too old to take such an interest in something shiny lying on the ground. Obviously not. The object was so interesting that I even pulled the bike to a stop and dismounted with my heavy bag still on my shoulders so that I could pick it up.

I held the object up between my fingers. It was a rusty nail. But it was much bigger than I’d ever seen before and I couldn’t work out why it had looked shiny. My school bag reminded me of the weight my shoulders again so I slipped the nail into my dress pocket and hopped back on the bike.

After arriving home and releasing my back of the wrenched bag, I placed the nail on my bedside table next to my clock. I looked at it again, wondering why it had looked so shiny.

‘Maybe it will be bring me good luck,’ I thought. I knew right then that the nail held something magical, ‘I wonder if something really good will happen,’ I thought to myself. I decided that I would keep the nail as my lucky charm. I could add it to the many special objects I had collected over the years which I told myself had a connection to something more mysterious. There was something fun and exciting about objects and the way they stood for something.

I settled at my desk to do my homework, and later complete my nightly ritual of more homework, dinner, shower, still more homework, and preparing for the next day. Before I went to sleep that night, I looked at the nail which silhouetted against my clock. It still wasn’t shining. I thought about my life and how happy I was but how deeply I wished that something exciting would happen.

I rested back into the pillows for a good nights sleep…

I woke with a heavy tapping on my window. I jumped up, wondering what the hell was going on. The light had shifted in the room, signaling that it was much later than when I’d fallen asleep. As my eyes adjusted to the dark it was much easier to see. I heard the tapping noise again and one of my friends’ calling my name.

I lept up and pulled open the blind of my bedroom window. Three of my friends where hanging around outside! My friends barely even visited my home, let alone uninvited – and late at night! I stared at them, doing my best to paint annoyance on my face as I reached to pull open the window. Honestly though, I was more than pleased to see them.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” I whispered loudly.

“You need to come out with us,” my prettier friend said to me, “There’s something important we need to do at the university.”

How bizarre.

Oh well, never mind. It sounded like fun.

“I’ll just get dressed and meet you outside,” I told her excitedly.

The night was brighter than I expected, and my friends somehow looked prettier and more glamorous than usual. It didn’t take long to reach the university, and we cut through the track where I usually rode through on my way to school. We headed over to a part of the university behind the buildings which I’d never been to before.

It was with some surprise that I saw my boyfriend and a group of boys waiting there for us. I did not know any of these other boys, but they all seemed to know us. There were no introductions, but immediately it felt as though we were all old friends. I was so pleased. I had always wanted my friends and my boyfriend’s friends to all hang out together.

“Come on, we’re going on an excursion,” one of the boys smiled.

Awesome! I looked him up and down. He had dark features and was much better looking than any of the boys who attended my boyfriend’s school. I wondered if he was already at university, or maybe he went to a completely different school.

We jumped onto a waiting bus. Where they got it, no one asked, but I was sure there’d be no trouble. It was just a bus. I found that we were only taking it through the university anyway.

The plan was to take the bus back to my place and then go somewhere from there. But just as we drove towards the end of the campus grounds, the bus conked out.

“We must have run out of petrol,” the boy with the dark hair announced.

Suddenly it seemed darker and creepier on the grounds than usual. None of the three boys seemed to notice. The dark haired boy and his friend started to wrestle each other. I wasn’t exactly sure why. They were friendly enough but they seemed to be getting pretty rough with each other.

I was starting to get really creeped out and the darkness around the shrub area was really getting to me. I must have voiced my concerns at the boys’ behaviour because someone suggested that they fight at the ritual ground. Whatever that meant.

“It’s just up here,” one of the girls led the way through another part of the university which I’d never seen before. It was less than 50 metres from where the bus had conked out. She parted a thin layer of trees which concealed a flat, circular area of dirt. There was a wooden bench across the other side where my three friends went over and sat. My boyfriend stood near them. I stayed where I was, watching them from the other side of the dirt circle.

I had no idea what significance this place had, or what it meant for them to wrestle here, but I had a really bad feeling. The two boys grabbed each other by the shoulders and started to wrestle. It was just as they had pushed each other to the side when I saw him.

The Phantom.

My heart froze in my chest. I knew who he was as soon as I saw him, although I couldn’t quite place exactly how I knew. I could see his face; his stoneless expression, his eyes unnaturally void of expression. He was wearing black clothes and his hair and ears where covered with some kind of black hood. I could see his face, but I didn’t recognize him. He was there to tell us to leave.

He was standing to the left on my friends; both the boys had their backs to him, so no one had seen him yet but me. Suddenly, it became the most important thing in the world for me to alert his presence to my friends. I raised my arm to point at him, but no words would come out of my mouth.

The boys, holding each other’s shoulders, where turning around in circles. They seemed to be moving in slow motion. Finally, they turned and they saw him. They stumbled back in fright. I was almost relieved that I hadn’t imagined him. I saw my friends running, so I followed them.

We made it back to the mini-bus and almost piled in. Someone yelled out a desperate reminder that it had no petrol.

“We’ll go back to my house!” I yelled, “It isn’t far, come on!”

As I ran, I felt them follow me. The fear in my chest never left me. I kept tossing my head behind me to check they were following me, too afraid to stop and wait for anyone. All of us made it back to my house, threw open the back door and ran into my darkened room, closing the bedroom door behind us.

We stood around each other, puffing, and hoping our chests would release the desperate fear soon.

“We’ll stay here for the night.” I told them, “We’ll be safe here.”

So we camped out in my bedroom, slowly relaxing away from university campus, away from that ritual ground. We sat up and chatted for a short while, unable to sleep. It wasn’t until much later that I left my room for the bathroom.

I felt safer in the house, but I was still afraid and creeped out about what had happened. I was still afraid to look in the mirror above the sink. In all the scary movies, the creepy guy is always standing behind you if you look in the mirror. But I had to do it. I washed my hands, looking down at them. I dried them, and then I placed my hands on either side of the sink and steeled myself. I looked up into the mirror and for a moment I felt my heart would burst. It was just me in the reflection.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned to leave the bathroom. My heart reacted first – he stood in the hallway, outside the bathroom door. My throat ached as I opened it for a scream that wouldn’t come out. I felt myself flying through the house, over the landing and into my bedroom, slamming the door shut.

“He’s in the house!” I freaked, holding the door closed.

“What do you mean he’s in the house?” one of the boy’s voices asked, sounding clearly as upset as I felt.

I turned to them, my back against the door, “I don’t know!”

I really didn’t! How on earth would he get into the house, and why? He wanted to us to leave and we left! And then I remembered: the nail.

I ran over to my dresser where I had put the nail and picked it up, “I found this at the university on the way home. I knew there was something about it,” I told them. I had to get rid of it. The nail was some kind of mystical object, I had known it from the moment I saw it.

I was afraid to leave the bedroom, but I knew I had to get rid of that evil object. My entire body shook as I raced out of the room, out of the house and towards the bin, tossing it into the trash, and then ran back inside again.

Once back in the room, I felt safer, but still desperately afraid. What if he was still inside?

I lay back in my bed, hearing my friends try to get comfortable on the mattresses tossed on the floor. Eventually, I drifted into a dreamless sleep, drugged by fear.

I only woke up through the night once. I sat right up, feeling my muscles and body shake, my chest constricted. My legs ached but I was too afraid to move them. I lay back down slowly, quietly, carefully, trying to breath. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep some more.

My alarm woke me up at 7:00am for the school day. I opened my eyes, feeling the fear in my chest, despite the fact that the sun was up and the room was bright. It might be day time, but the Phantom could still be in my house. I looked around my room.

It was empty. Where was everybody? I sat up and looked at my clock. The rusty nail was still there, sitting just where I had left it the night before.

Sudden clarity brought incredible relief which rushed through my entire body. It was all a dream! I’d never had a dream so vivid before. I smiled and placed my hand on my chest. How could I think that was real? My friends would never come over to my house in the middle of the night! There was no such thing as the Phantom. How silly. Why on earth would I dream something like that?

I looked at that nail. I had known there was something mysterious about it when I first saw it. I considered keeping it for less than a second. Jumping out of bed, I grabbed the nail, walked out of the house and towards the garbage.

Some mysteries are just not worth sticking around to find out about.

Copyright 2006