Her smooth vanilla skin slid across his hands like smooth velvet and he couldn’t help but feel that he was losing himself, as if a part of him was already in her hands. Her long hair flowed on his palm as he drew his hands threw them, the beautiful ebony river of hair. She lay beneath him, her back facing him, on red satin sheets, like a white rose, so pure, on a pool of blood. He couldn’t comprehend why his conscience would compare it to blood but it seemed apt. On a whim, his fingers lingered on the small of her back, before grabbing hold of her hips to turn her around. He wanted to see, now that he has touched the softest, he wanted to see the face of the woman and he saw.

He saw the sharpest pair of collarbones, framing such a voluptuous, yet somehow, fragile body. Her long arms seemed to reach for his neck, while his own remained on her hips. His gaze shifted up to witness a pair of lips, that looked like a luscious strawberry but biting into them, would be intoxicating. Her lips seemed to be naturally dyed to red, as if the colour seeped through her dangerously seductive milky white skin. His thumb, instinctively went to the corner of her lips and that made this angelic woman under him to lift the corner he touched, as if in a half smirk. In that moment, the dream felt surreally realistic.

His gaze shifted above to a perky nose, adorned with a line of freckles. He must have been tripping before he slept, for, in his view, those freckles were golden dust sprinkled across her delicate cheekbones. He seemed to be filled with such completeness when he saw her alluring smile as his thumb, now, played across her cheek.

When his gaze shifted higher from her lips, as if a switch was put off, he felt the background getting darker, while his eyes never left her sculpted mouth. Her lips parted in a grin to reveal, not white teeth but, fangs. He jumped off her and landed on the floor, he could feel the harshness of the cold stone, all while never leaving the image of the woman, who was rising mid-air now. ‘Stone?’, his mind questioned, all the while fear gripping his rationality, as the woman inched closer, feet barely touching the ground. The same woman, still having the most beautiful skin he had ever seen, floating mid-air but it felt as if she was surrounded by a red aura in the black background. Her hair, which now he noticed, was a flame red, flying around her as if they were the flames of the Hell itself. She now extended her hands, embodying a silhouette of a menacing beauty. He clutched at his throat, as he realized that her extended hands were not an invitation but to reach into his being to suck the life out of him. It was difficult to breathe, he chocked, grappled at his chest and throat. He was now violently coughing as she, whose face was unclear due to the heat haze of her hair, which turned out to be real fire. His body started bucking and his eyesight was dragging upwards when he saw the deep red lips inched away from him, in a full grin.

With that last image, he felt his body fall backwards and with a startling jerk, he sat straight on his bed, still clutching at his throat. The night was dead silent except for the occasional humming of his air-con. There’s not much traffic noise when you live in the 15th floor of the tallest building in midst of the capital city. It took about 20 minutes, which felt like hours, for his breath to calm down and take in his dim-lighted room. His mind was blank, he did not try to recollect. He got down from his king-sized bed on shivering legs to the huge balcony double-door framing only one-way see-through glass. He lived in the 15th floor of a 20-storey building – there’s virtually nothing above him except the rest of the 5 floors of the building and the sky.

He looked up. It was a moonless night with a number of stars peeking from under dark clouds. It was depressed to look at, somehow. His gaze shifted down. There is not much to see from inside the room and it was too cold to go out into the balcony wearing only track pants. He could see the rooftops and top floors of some buildings a little farther away from his own apartment. There were no lights on except for a few windows and the billboards.

He trudged back to his bed and slipped under the duvet. His heart was beating a bit less erratically now but he couldn’t shake the uneasy feelings. It was as if it was a premonition of something bad that was about to happen.

A loud jingle made him shudder involuntarily before his conscience recognized the familiar alert tone of his phone. He turned on his side to the part of the room which held the doorway. His phone was a bright slab on the black nightstand, connected to the charger. He unplugged it and shrank his eyes against the bright screen. The alert was to notify that the phone was fully charged. He breathed a sigh out, his mouth set in a grim pout. He noticed the time – 3:07 A.M. He still can take around another 3 hours of sleep before he had to leave. He set his phone back in its original place and let his head sink into his pillow with his mind wandering to the day awaiting. It definitely felt odd to have an odd dream right before an important day. His thoughts drifted back to how it could be a premonition of a bad omen.

His thoughts slipped his mind as his body fell into a restless sleep, with an irrecoverable dream and an unsettled mind. His sleepy conscience still kept on pondering on how odd it was to have such a nightmare right before his coronation as he drifted out of consciousness.