I only ever had two dreams in my entire nineteen years of life.

Of course, I had dreams and goals for the future, but in the nights and days when my body would find sleep, I never dreamt. Only twice did I ever experience such a thing, and both were separated by years.

Every other time, my nights were clouded with darkness and I would drift off to sleep, only to open my eyes at morning light, remembering no such thing as a dream.

My friends always told me that sometimes they didn’t dream either, and others told me that perhaps I just forgot. I decided to adopt that idea because it made more sense to me. Only ever having two dreams? Everyone had dreams during their sleep.

Sometimes I even believed that those two dreams were just my imagination trying to make me feel a bit normal so that I couldn’t say I didn’t know of a dream, but even so, from what they said, I didn’t know what dreams were like…

Because my dreams felt real to a terrifying degree. Each sensation and each word echoed in my mind and shook me down to the marrow of my bones, but when I woke from each of the two dreams, it felt like a distant memory, yet it was so vivid in my mind, each detail so intricate and believable.

Didn’t people usually dream of getting abducted by aliens and learning to bake waffles in an underwater spaceship? Wasn’t that the common type of weird shit to find in a dream?

Mine were too real, and the very fact that I never dreamt any other night, forgetting each and every dream to float around in my head, was abnormal.

I ignored it, however. It wasn’t important- just a strange phenomena.

My true dreams consisted of goals for my future- goals to achieve as I lived my life. I believed in each and every one, and when a person said that anything was possible, I truly believed it. I was young, motivated, and I was ready to take on the world with my bare hands.

Not alone, of course. I fell in love with a boy in high school- more of an infatuation before it truly blossomed- and we dated for three years of it, and on graduation, I was engaged and married at eighteen years old, only months later. My parents couldn’t say anything about it, and sometimes I wish they had. I was a fool in love, and so, I was trapped with my high school sweetheart.

At first, life was beautiful, wasn’t it? A newlywed couple, both in college- one freshman and one senior- and it was the perfect start to a perfect life. Never before had my dreams for the future felt possible. God, I believed I would take the world in my hands and bend and shape it all around me, impacting my life and the lives of others. I didn’t exactly know how, but I saw that I was destined for a great, perfect life.

Something went wrong.

I began daydreaming- fantasizing- instead of setting goals and achieving them. I imagined scenarios both possible and not, letting them fill the dull cracks and empty silences of reality. My goals shattered and died as I continued floating through life with my mind half awake, a part of me locked away and hollow.

The daydreams were all I had eventually. They were all that kept me sane. In a world where my job was tedious and my home life was filled with unspoken words and heavy secrets, I needed my fantasies.

With a murdering husband, I became more desperate.

I pretended it was fake. I pretended it was all a dream which I would wake from, but I knew very well it wasn’t. I’d noticed his late night departures, and I made the mistake of following him. I made the mistake of watching in the window, anticipating an inevitable affair which only turned out to be something much, much worse.

Sleep was my sanctuary. At least I could be empty for hours, and even if it was short lived in my perception, I never dreamed of anything. I didn’t see his wicked face as he drew a simple kitchen knife across one of his co-worker’s warm throat, spilling her blood right into her sink.

Sleep was all I had to look forward to.

Half of me was hollow- lifeless.

The other half was overfilled with guilt. Guilt for never saying anything. Guilt for sneaking after him and watching a second time. Guilt for waiting until the fourth murder to start gathering evidence. Guilt for what I was about to do to those I actually cared for. Guilt for living my life like this hollow shell and merely witnessing everything passing by, ignoring what was important and what mattered. Guilt for marrying a madman- not seeing the subtle signs of what might be a psychopath. I only ever took one class on psychology in high school, anyways.

It was, unfortunately, summer when I learned of it, and so, I was trapped in my apartment with only an empty feeling of a part time job and nothing else to distract my turmoil ridden mind. It was pain and it was torture, and I couldn’t even look at him with a fake smile before turning away in disgust soon after.

The world around me moved so slowly, and some days I’d call in sick to work just to sleep it away. Eventually, I quit my job and buried myself in my sheets, only ever telling my husband that work liked to let me out an hour earlier than normal these days in order to explain why I was always home when he returned.

With a smile on his face, he acted like he was normal. With a smile on his face, he’d take a hold of my red locks and caress my face. With eyes so warm and skin so soft, he’d hold me in an embrace and tell me he loved me.

Each time my insides churned and my stomach turned to lead, the few things I’d managed to eat threatening to spill out at his mere touch.

He told me he loved me, but I fell out of love with him long before I even learned of who he was. It was a shock- betrayal- but the already empty me could only feel horrible for myself. Selfish. So selfish.

So now, I stood at the edge of a cliff, looking out over the salty sea. It was a calm day, the waves too small and subtle to be anything of importance. It was cloudy, dark, and the summer air was anything but warm. Perhaps a storm brewed. Perhaps it didn’t, but I didn’t care anymore.

With the sting of a cold metal revolver pressed up against my temple, I prepared myself for the inevitable end that I’d been waiting for.

Sleep was only a temporary sanctuary.

But death was eternal.