"A Sigh of Relief" by Ciri Kovida

 

A Sigh of Relief

One September night, my younger brother and I were home alone when my parents were out of town which gave us a reason to pull an all-nighter watching movies. So, we started preparing for a movie marathon and ordered a pizza with extra cheese. We picked movies of the thriller, crime, horror and mystery genres.

We started watching the first movie while waiting for the pizza. The volume was on 80, the ambiance was dark and so was the movie. We were so indulged in the movie that we didn’t realize an actual killer broke into our apartment complex and started shedding the blood of the residents. The whole place was filled with cries of fear while we were clueless.

Suddenly I received a phone call from my friend and paused the movie for a while to talk to her; that’s when I heard the loud screams of the residents. I opened the door and peaked at second floor through the stairway railing.

I saw a person holding a knife, blood dripping from its edge. He was covered from head to toe in black clothes and a black skull cap. He started heading up to third floor leaving blood stained footprints behind.

We lived on the third floor.

I was uptight and filled with apprehension. I rushed back to my apartment and closed the main door, asked my younger brother, who was still unaware of the situation outside, to lock himself in the bathroom while I went to hide myself in my room. I took my phone and called the police and stammered anxiously about the killer. Not a second later, I heard a huge thud on the front door which gave me chills.

After a while, I heard the killer break open the door. We had switched the lights off before playing the movie, so the house was dark, with the mystery movie running in the background as the killer entered.

He placed his bloodied knife on the dining table and started approaching the bathroom where my younger brother was hiding. Fearing for his safety, I mustered up the courage to come out of my room, and noiselessly grabbed a spoon from the dining table and tossed it towards the kitchen to distract the killer. He stopped walking and I took the chance to take the knife that he left on the table and rush back to my room and lock the door.

Covered in sweat and frightened, I followed my instincts and hid the knife in one of the shoe boxes in my cupboard. The killer started hitting the door to enter my room, and that’s when the sound of the police siren was heard and the banging on the door stopped. I still didn’t open the door. Instead, I switched on the lights and started searching for the knife I hid in the shoe box. I rummaged through all the shoe boxes but I still couldn’t find it.

I was too late. Someone opened my door.



Then I heard my mom scolding me about making a mess.

I was in a state of confusion for few seconds and then I realized that my mom had opened the door.

Reality hit me hard, when I realized that it was all a dream. I breathed a sigh of relief, sat on my bed and started pondering on how a dream could be so real that I actually started scattering my shoe boxes, searching for the knife without knowing that I was already awake. Though it was a dream, I experienced the fear of losing my loved ones and trust me when I say that that feeling is the worst.

I wiped the sweat off my face and started cleaning my room with my mom nagging me in the background. I laughed at the fact that my dream was so unrealistic that no one on the first and second floors thought of calling the police, but then again, our dreams are meant to make us the protagonists.

My dreams have always been incredibly vivid. And the fun fact is that this dream occurred when I took a 20 minute nap!

                                                                                                                          - Ciri Kovida (BA)