Read stories to read when you are bored :: lucid nightmare

*in a quarter mile your destination will be on the right.* “thank goodness, almost there”. Today I will be visiting my old friend for the first time in years, in his old house in the middle of practically nowhere. I used to always ask why he wouldn't live in the city, near his friends and family. But, he would always answer plainly back to me, “it's just too loud in the city, and full of people. Too many distractions that might take me away from my work”. Then, he'd turn away from me and continue working on something on his desk. The only reason our friendship became reality was because He and I shared the same passion, art. We would meet at his house and work on our projects that would sometimes take weeks at a time, but it was always worth it. The pieces we made were brilliant. Landscapes,animals,objects, and even ourselves. Were copied to a outstanding likeness, like nothing ever seen- *you have arrived at your destination*. I pulled into the gravel driveway and put my car in park, and looked out the window. The house seems like it’s seen better days… the windows were cracked and dirty, shingles from the roof were splayed on the ground, and the stairs that led to the porch of his house were missing a step.I got out of my car, and took in the view. It was very quiet and serene, I kinda get why he would rather live out here than in the city. It's actually quite nice, the lighting has a moody calmness,birds are chirping in the distance, and it has that outdoor smell. I turn to face the house again,and start walking toward it. As I kept walking I pulled the letter he sent me from my pocket and read the letter once more “dear, calvin. I know it's been awhile since we have seen and heard from each other but how bout you come visit me for a while to catch up a little? Just drive up to my place, like old times. You should remember the way. I left the key hidden inside the missing stair to my porch. Yours truly, daniel.” I fold the letter back up and put it in my pocket, I approach the steps and knelt down next to them. I remove some cobwebs and leaves with a stick, and there before me lay a small silver key, I pick it up and get to my feet. I jump over the missing step and onto the porch, and get to the front door. I slipped the key into the lock and unlocked the door, I pushed it open and looked around, it was very dark with only a few strands of light peeking through the dirty windows. I flipped the light switch on and the dim light sputtered and went out. “I guess someone hasn't been paying the electric bill...”I muttered to myself. I closed the door behind me and let myself in, a table with a little tray with three matches sat next to the doorway against the wall. I walked to a staircase that led up to the second floor “daniel? I'm here!” I call out,with an eerie silence as my answer. Is he not home? I walked up all the way to the attic/studio, from where there was an open walk way out from the room onto a wooden plank, high above the ground below. A simple slip up could be fatal…i push the thought away, and look to the walkway. The view from up here was beautiful nonetheless especially during sunset, this is where we would create our pieces up here in this little attic. We would gaze up at the sky and the landscape below to get our inspiration. I turned to the desks, and canvas holders that my dear friend and I worked tirelessly over those many years ago.the room suddenly starts to dim and i turn to look at the sky outside, it was starting to become night. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my cell phone, “oh please turn on.” I flip open the phone and hit the power button,and a few seconds later the small screen lights up. “Yes!”I exclaim. I shone the light around the small room, it got dark very quickly. The light from the screen landed on An old lantern that sat on Daniel's desk, and I walked toward it to examine it closer. The thing was basically an antique, I set my phone on the desk facing up so the light would still illuminate the room. I wiped away the dust from the glass, it looked like it needed to be lit by a candle or a match… wait! There were some matches I saw on the way into the house, “now i have to move around in the dark in a creaky old house,great…” I let out a deep sigh and snatched up the lantern with one hand and my phone with the other, and I shone my phone light back to the staircase I walked up earlier to get to the attic. I moved the light back and forth slowly across the stairs so I wouldn't trip over anything on my way down.*creak creak creak* Even though I was moving slowly and stepping lightly, the stairs would respond with a low creaking sound each time I took a step. At the bottom of the flight of stairs I shone my phone light toward the table with the matches and approached it. I set down the lantern and picked up the matches, putting two of them in my pocket. The light from my phone was starting to dim, so I quickly set my phone face up on the table and struck the match across it and the match lit instantly and with that my phone died and the only light was from the flickering match in between my fingertips. I lit the wick in the lantern and adjusted the flame with the small knob at the base of it. I lifted up the lantern to where I expected the front door to be...but…it wasn't there anymore. I could have sworn the front door was right there! So i turned around and my heart nearly skipped a beat, the stairs weren't there anymore either, instead it was replaced by a corridor with a couple of doors to which i assume were different rooms. But what I couldn't grasp was how this was all the sudden here and how the front door disappeared. I held my lantern out in front of me and proceeded to walk down the corridor. Every once and a while when I mustered up the courage I would open a door or two, just to see what was in them. What was in the rooms were a dresser with an alarm clock, a bed and a dull colored carpet. And the sequence of events followed, more plainly designed rooms and more eerie silence as I walked. But as soon as I was about to reach for the door knob to another room I heard a faint sobbing up ahead, I quickened my pace and followed the sound until I saw where it was coming from. This seemingly endless hall of doors and darkness did have an end after all… there in front of me was a man sitting at a desk with a lantern similar to the one i was holding in my hand, he stops crying and sets a picture frame on his desk.i quietly move closer to make sure he wasn’t aware that i'm in the room with him and i look at the picture in the frame it was of… a little girl. The guy then brings out a piece of paper and a pen and begins to write, he finishes and he then reads his letter aloud “dear, calvin. I know it's been awhile since we have seen and heard from each other but how bout you come visit me for a while to catch up a little? Just drive up to my place, like old times. You should remember the way. I left the key hidden inside the missing stair to my porch. Yours truly, daniel.” That's what Daniel's letter said..“daniel? Is that you? What is going on here??” he didn't respond, He turned and looked at the picture on his desk “my poor baby girl....what happened to you..?” wait.. Daniel had a daughter!? Did she-? Oh my god…. All of a sudden, Daniel started to sob even louder than before. his cries filled the room, he turned my way and looked me in the eyes. With tears rolling down his face, he turned away and caught himself on his chair and dipped his head down and started to mumble something, but as he kept speaking his words became clear “...it should have been me... It should have been me… IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!” he then grabbed an ink well off his desk, reeled back his arm and threw it in my direction. Time seemed to slow in that moment, I tried to move out of the way, but my feet were planted where they stood. when it was an inch from my face all went dark, my eyes were shut tight bracing for impact… but it didn't come. I opened one eye and I was in a tunnel, and at the end of it I heard the ringing of an alarm clock. I walked the tunnel until my vision clouded with a bright white light, when my vision came into focus I was in a bed with a ringing alarm clock next to me on a small dresser with my lantern and two matches. I bolt upright and look around the room “how… how did I get here?” I ask, with only the deafening ringing of the alarm clock as my answer. I get up and plant my feet on the floor and the alarm clock stops, I grab the lantern and a match from the dresser. While holding the lantern in one hand and the match in the other I struck the match on the dresser and a small flame started to flicker, I lit the wick in the lantern and the match burned out. I look ahead of me and there is a door, it seems that it is my only exit so I walk toward it. But as I reach for the knob I hesitate, and stop in my tracks. The events that happened suddenly all come back to me at once, Daniel crying…. The picture of the little girl…. the letter…. And the way he blamed himself… the little girl must've been his daughter, and the way he was crying must mean she disappeared? Or she… died?, I shake the thought away and grasp the door knob and open the door. It was another dark hallway with little visibility, I held out the lantern and pressed onward. I kept walking down the hall until my foot bumped into something, I veered the lantern down and what I bumped into was the start of a staircase. I moved the lantern up and there were stairs leading up to what seemed to be another floor, I reached out my free hand and fell along the wall. No handrail. I let out a sigh and started up the steps, each step resulted with a creek,no matter how lightly I stepped or how slowly I moved the stairs would creak. I Keep walking up the stairs for what seems like forever “how big can a staircase even be..?” I muttered to myself. But that's when I reached what was probably the second floor and at the end of a hall was a doorway, light spilled onto the floor and the wall opposite to it. As I walked closer I started to hear a voice… my voice… I moved to the open doorway and I saw myself and Daniel, the other me began to speak. “You were saying you wanted to tell me something daniel?” he continues to work on a canvas with slow and even brush strokes “yeah… I just wanted to say that… i don't think that i can enter the gala” the other me stops painting on the canvas “what…?” He turns around and walks up to Daniel leaving some space between them “y-you can't be serious, we've been waiting for months for the gala! We have worked so hard on our entry we can't just quit now!” the other me paces back and forth and returns back to the canvas “we can't quit, no. i won't stand for it, we've been working too hard for this” he lifts his paintbrush to the canvas and begins to paint again. “Calvin… i know how much this means to you, but-” before daniel says another word, the other me cuts him off “but? But what daniel? How can you just decide to back down just a week before the gala. hey, hey, hey i get it if you're gonna have stage fright or if you think we can’t do this, but the thing is that we can do this, we are going to win that prize money and we will become famous and recognized artists. We've come this far together…” he turns to look at him, and Daniel stands. “It's not stage fright, or that i think we can’t do this… its that i have been homesick, so i booked a flight yesterday, and… it's on the day of the gala” the other me drops the paint brush and it silently hits the ground, he rushes to daniel and puts both hands on his shoulders. “D-daniel… you can't do this, please i don't think i can do this without you, we still have to finish our entry!”He looks down, slightly trembling. Daniel puts his arms around him and gives him a hug “cal, you are my best friend and i hope that you understand…” the other me breaks the hug and steps back, “*ahem* well then i have to get home before it gets dark” he puts on a jacket and comes toward the doorway “good bye daniel, i'll see you tomorrow” once again my feet are rooted to the floor, and i come face to face with my other self and i get a flashes of images of what seems to be a rockslide and fallen landlines and trees, i close my eyes and i hear the same faint ringing, i open them and i'm in the tunnel once again, i walk down the tunnel until my vision clouds with the bright white once again, and i wake up to the alarm clock and sit up on on the bed. I turn to it and stop the alarm, sitting for a moment to process what I just witnessed. That… that was the last day we saw each other… because that night there was a storm that caused rockslides and closed off most of the roads and knocked out landlines and phone lines, you couldn't call anyone for an entire week and by the time they had everything fixed, daniel had already left for his flight. And just like that days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and eventually, months turned into years. I get up and pick up the last match and strike it on the wood. I pick up the lantern and I light the wick once more, the match burns out. I head toward the door and it doesn't open to another dark and ominous hallway, it leads to the staircase in the main room of the house. I start heading up the stairs and I walk up to the attic and I see daniel. He is standing in the middle of the room with his back facing me, he begins to walk slowly toward the plank that stood out from the walkway, he stops in the doorway. I step forward, I guess I'm not paralized this time around. I continued walking forward until I stopped. all the sudden i couldn't move anymore, “this is it huh…? Heh… the end of my story…”, he begins to step onto the plank slowly making his way to the end of it. no... no, no no no!! I dash forward and reach out my hand, and yet again I freeze in place. Tears start

to stream down my face, he turns around with his feet at the edge. With tears in his eyes he gives a pained soft smile “goodbye…” he whispers as he leans back and begins to fall, “NO!!!” I rushed forward in hopes to save him… but… he fell out of my reach, I fell to my knees as he fell farther…. “DANIEL!!!!-”, i gasp for air as i bolt up right from my desk, i let out a shaky breath. Im? At home?... I look around my room until my eyes land on the bulletin board right in front of me. There was a newspaper clipping that had yesterday's date on it, and the headline read this, ~local painter daniel steinman found dead~.

fin.