[WP] We always used to think that dreamcatchers were modeled after spider webs. It turns out, it was made that way for a reason. As the spider population declines, humanity is starting to see the effects of fewer and fewer natural dreamcatchers.
“All the kids have nightmares these days” Was what the old man that lived across the street said when we once stopped by his house.
He was a crazy one, or so the entire town said. Everyone told us to stay away and just leave him alone. They said his house was infested with pests and that we would end up getting cursed just like what happened to his family who suddenly perished one day.
My family just moved into that town recently. We weren’t even sure if the rumors were true or not but we all did agree that the man they kept talking about was odd. On our first day in town, he came to greet us and even gave each of us a dream catcher.
It shouldn’t be odd, yes. But what bothered me was how those dream catchers were made. Or rather, what it was made of. It wasn’t thread, that was for sure. It was sticky and just looking at it gave me the creeps. I still kept it, either way. And hung it over the window of what would be my new room. My mother and my older sister, on the other hand… They threw theirs away.
It was strange to admit that since we moved into that house, I’ve never slept so peacefully in my life. I often had nightmares when we still lived in the city. I always thought they would haunt me even here but despite the fact that there was a creepy house just across the street, and that spiders were a regular visitor in our household, it wasn’t such a bad place to live in. Maybe the people in town just overreacted.
A week after we moved in, I decided to pay our neighbor a visit. I knocked on his front door a few times and in a matter of minutes, he was there. He greeted me with a hello but what caught my eye was the spider that was perched on his shoulder.
“What brought you here, neighbor?” He asked as he invited me inside.
“I… just wanted to thank you for the dream catchers,” I said with what smile I could manage. I made my way into his house and what struck me the most was the number of spiders that freely roamed his house. It gave me the creeps but I chose not to ask.
“You’re welcome. Do you want some cocoa?” He gestured to his own cup which he said also had cocoa.
I answered with a nod and he poured some for me. We walked to his back porch which looked much cleaner compared to the inside of his house.
He gazed out blankly as he sipped his cocoa “Is the dream catcher working for ya?”
“It is, I haven’t had such good nights when we lived in the city”
“There’s barely any spiders in the city, boy. That’s why people are all having nightmares there” He muttered bluntly
“What does a spider have to do with nightmares?” I asked curiously before I took a sip of the cocoa
“Have you ever wondered why dreamcatchers are like spider webs?”
I slowly shook my head. The realization finally hit me. I always thought it was curious, the shape of those dream catchers.
“Spiders don’t just eat pests, boy. They’re also protectors. Dunno when people thought they were pests too but they’re harmless creatures” He reached to his shoulder to get the spider onto his hand. “They’ve been protecting us for hundreds of years now”
For a while, I just sat there and thought about the things we talked about. It may have been one of the strangest things I’ve ever talked about with a complete stranger but it made sense to me.
When I returned home, that evening, I came home to an extremely worried family. They warned me not to go back to that house again but I still did.
Word around town got out that I was being brainwashed and that I would be his next victim. The town’s people knew nothing. It wasn’t him, now the spiders who killed his family. It was the nightmares that consumed them. Nightmares came true. The town was just fortunate that he was trying to create as many dreamcatchers as he could with the spiders’ help.
The town thought otherwise. On one night, the town went into a frenzy. They all rushed to our neighbor’s home when they found spiders in their homes. They thought it was his doing. They burned his house down. And even went so far as to hurt him. That very night, as the town’s people slept, each of them kept waking up to nightmares.
Days passed and people started to dear sleeping. Their nightmares grew more terrifying than the last. At some point, they couldn’t even differentiate their nightmares from reality. The town was thrown into utter chaos. Even my family did. They all tried desperately to look for the man but he was nowhere to be found. Only I knew where he would be found. But I would never tell them where he was. They could all have nightmares for all I cared, as long as I could continue my peaceful nights, the world might as well fall into chaos for all I cared.
Hoping this would help me get a replacement phone cuz bank transactions won't process because it's holy week here so everything is basically on pause
Beautiful story