It was getting late and I was falling fast asleep, into a peaceful slumber. And then, suddenly I awoke to a strange surrounding. It was daytime, several hours had obviously passed and I was oddly outside in a macabre setting. How I had gotten there was quite unknown to me. The sun was high, trees were all around and the figure of a filthy, vulgar man towered over me. With a half-smoked cigar gripped tightly in the corner of his mouth he asked me, “How ya likin’ that? Doesn’t it feel gooood?” As he finished his question, his speech became taunting as if he were playing some sort of twisted game.

Sweat and grime dripped off his forehead down to my face. I could smell his rancid breath filled with stale cigar smoke as he slurred each word. I quickly turned my head away from him. I could see that we were in a desolate place out in the middle of nowhere. I was alone with this societal reject who for some ungodly reason wanted to execute his perversion onto me. He had me laid out on my back on a hard surface, maybe a make-shift table or something, who knows…. and I was stiff, but not paralyzed even though the tingling sensation that coursed throughout my body caused me to feel numb. It was weird, like I had been drugged.

I struggled to move my arms and bellowed out. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

He erupted with a deep, guttural laugh, “HAHAHAHAHAHA… WHOOHOO!!!!” Laughing so hard that it caused him to stumble backwards, almost losing his balance, then he was back to me. Bending over, face to face with me again, as his eyes left mine he eerily led his gaze down to my stomach area. With his grisly smile he goaded, “You haven’t even noticed, have you?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” I was confused, my vision blurred as I tried making sense of it all.

“LOOK!” He demanded.

I mustered enough strength, blinked a couple of times to clear my eyes and brought my attention to where he was talking about.

“OH MY GOD!!!!!” I screamed.

He laughed even harder and more sinister as the look of terror consumed me. My eyes were lain upon a horrendous vision, one so vile that to speak of it continues to unnerve me.

What I was seeing before my very eyes was one of the most gruesome acts I had ever seen, and it happened to me. It threw me into a world of shock. Apparently the disgusting man was getting off on it because he looked so elated as he jeered around.

“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!?! WHHYYYY?!?!?!” I cried. My hands reached down to my midsection, grabbing what I could to piece myself back together. I had been sliced open, from side to side, with my entrails emerging to the surface. Blood was all over me as my insides slipped between my fingers.

His depraved laughter continued as I attempted to gain my freedom. Still on my back with my body ripped apart, I tried pushing backwards with my feet to inch my way off the table.

“You can’t do it! Look at you! HAHAHAHAHA…..” He roared.

Then, “PLOP!” My body fell to the ground. I moaned in agony as my back cracked with pain, but I didn’t let that stop me. While this revolting man continued to laugh, he casually wiped the sweat from his brow with his dingy white tank top. He was clearly enjoying watching me suffer for he knew I wouldn’t get far due to the dreadful state that I was in.

With each minute inch that I moved, so did my exposed intestines as the blood pulsated outward. I arched my back upwards to keep everything off the dirt and ground below, and just like a contortionist, I tried crawling backwards to get away. I looked ahead in my upside-down position, hearing his heckling behind me, knowing that I would eventually have to give up. I knew in my heart that there was absolutely no way that I was going to escape this wretched hell that I was in, but I had to at least try to survive.

It was in that moment that reality finally kicked in and I woke up. Everything that happened above was merely a nightmare. Thank God! It bothered me so much that I found it hard to go back to sleep. I went to work the next day feeling drained and offbeat. This was a few nights ago and I still can’t shake the vivid imagery of the dream. It was so real…  the colors, the surrounding, the intense fear. What would provoke me to have such a horrible nightmare? I’ve conducted dream interpretation before in the past, not just for myself, but for others as well. However, this one continues to bother me. Did I watch something disturbing prior to drifting off to sleep? Nope. Did I have a crazy conversation the day before pertaining to anything similar? Nope. So, what could it have been? Just some randomness played out by my subconsciousness?

The human psyche is a complex one, one that is so diverse that it leads to insurmountable inquiry.

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~ Sheila Renee Parker on Twitter: @sheilarparker.

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