The Dreamcatcher

[WP] The dreamcatcher you bought seemed to work, and you never had nightmares again. Tonight, as you prepare for bed, you hear one of its strings snap. Then another. And another...

******

The nightmares had been my closest companions for as long as I could remember.

Oh wait, that must have come out creepier than I expected. Well, my therapist always said that the best ways to heal were to make light of the adversities I was going through in life. Well, one thing I could make fun of was the fact I was getting ripped off by her - $200 a month and not a single bit of progress.

I fired her - well, not exactly since she wasn't working for me, but you get my point - and decided to do things the non-scientific way. I know, I know, you'll be quick to judge me now, saying I should have stuck with what was logical, scientific, and proven.

But science was just man's miserly attempt to explain what was well over their heads. All my past therapists' analyses, reports, and experiments were not able to explain the cause of my horrible, agonizing dreams.

Dreams, the detail of which I cannot explain here.

There was nothing logical about my dreams, so why should I bring it to someone who was taking a 'logical' approach towards attempting to end them?

What I'm trying to say is that I sought out help from Lionel, my friend who was a voodoo enthusiast and occasional dabbler in the dark arts, or so he said. My honest opinion of him had been that he was a spiritual hippie who was probably all kinds of fvcked up from years of drug use.

But then, as I said, I was after something unorthodox.

"What brings you here, Max?" he said in a high, almost comedic voice.

It was point-blank irritating.

"You're in my house. You were brought here. I brought you here. You know why, so can we just skip the ceremony?"

He sighed, obviously unhappy with my lack of 'spirit'. "The best way to make this work is to get in the groove, Max. You need to believe in this for it to work."

Not more of this crap now. "Look, what have you got for me, Lionel? That's what's important now."

"Okay," he said, pulling out a strange object from his suitcase. It was like a wooden ring, with a haphazardly-sewn net in it and different beads, amulets, and charms hanging from it, all making noise when they shook.

A dreamcatcher. How poetic.

"This? I know I'm not an expert, but doesn't this seem a little bit... elementary for my condition?" I asked, looking at the hideous object skeptically.

"Heh, you asked for my help[, at least endeavor to play by the rules. The fact that you see this in movies and cartoons doesn't mean it works, and besides, this is an authentic relic from the Ojibwa Chippewa tribe from Nativa America," he said with a proud grin plastered on his face like that was supposed to mean something to me. "You don't know who they are, do you?"

"I assume you'll tell me," I said halfheartedly.

"They 'invented" this. Here, nail it to the wall above where you rest your head on your bed at night, and I assure you, that'll be the end of the nightmares."

******

It had been fourteen days since that time; I count it as such because those two weeks were the best in my life. I slept like a baby, free, sound, and without any dreams or nightmares. I could have as many dispositions about Lionel as I wanted, but he had delivered this time.

Much unlike his inconsistent nature.

He was already beginning to enter my good books, no; scratch that, he was in my good books. Up until this very moment. When I heard a little snag from the dreamcatcher.

Then I heard it loud and clear. A snap.

I looked up at the object. It fluttered a little in the breeze coming from the open window, but other than that, it looked okay. Except for one of the fibers of the net which was dangling loose, apparently the one that had snapped.

Well, it was in relatively terrible shape when Lionel gave it to me, and it was an ancient object, so I reckoned that was not something to get all worked up about and I went back to bed.

Shortly after, I heard another snag, but I was already halfway into dreamland, so I just shrugged it off. For a while, nothing but the sound of the breeze slithering over my curtain could be heard.

Until I felt a thin rope wrap around my neck.

Jumping to my feet, I tried to drag the rope off my neck, but it quickly wrapped itself around my wrist and yanked me. I rubbed my eyes violently and looked at my arm.

It wasn't a dream. The dreamcatcher, now glowing eerily, was sentient and had wrapped one of its fibers around my arm. I looked at it, shocked as I heard several snaps and zips. All of a sudden, what looked like a hundred octopuses' tentacles flew out towards me, and several fibers wrapped themselves around me, pulling me to face the wall opposite my bed.

And then I saw Lionel seating on a chair, one leg folded atop the other.

"What is this?!" I screamed.

"This...is you." He said, his eyes glazed. He was hearing me, but his mind, his soul, his being seemed to be elsewhere. Somewhere that was not even this earth perhaps. "The Dreamcatcher was supposed to have executed its job on the first night, trapping all your nightmares in its stitching, in its intricate fibers, he said, standing up and walking towards me.

"Huh?"

"The reason why it's still working is you. You, Max, are the generator of your nightmares. You are your own problem. And once I realized that I knew the Dreamcatcher would change its approach and target the root of the problem this time around. In this case, you."

"I...cannot. It cannot..."

"Fighting it is futile, if not impossible. It will sew you in and trap you within its realm as another nightmare. But I pity you, Max. There you will be trapped till the end of time, feasting with your own past and present nightmares as well as the nightmares of centuries of users."

"No...No....NO!" I screamed, trying to wrestle free. But it was useless. One by one, the fibers loosed themselves before piercing into my skin, effectively tying me down and sewing me into the intricate yet haphazard netting. I could feel my organs contract as a billion needles of pain erupted all over me, and for the last time, I screamed as I was painfully dragged into the Dreamcatcher and into the world of untold horror.

******

@Hanzell, @Gwenie, @gertu13, @Leo_kitti here it is!!! Horror time!