Midnight Dreams

This may feel like deja vu for some. This is a writing response, in which I had to create a horrible, painful scene, but describe it beautifully, with vivid language and imagery. It's meant to mimic William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies.

The boy tiredly stood up, the dim light of the room only confusing him further as he struggled to remember where exactly he had slept moments before. The answer came to him in a flash, looking around the hospital room and realizing he was in another world, one far from his ideal. He saw his sleeping mother, so peaceful in a chair, and his father, on the bed, the only signs of life being the slow rise and fall of their torsos. The curtains of the single window of the room remained closed, and the boy ambled over, and with a vast motion opened the curtains, letting the light suddenly blind him, illuminating the room with a golden glow, the darkness of the shadows fading away. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he looked outside, at the immeasurable garden in the front of the hospital, a sanctuary amidst a Hell. The multiple colors of flowers splashed across the green grass with the paved paths in and throughout the entire area painted an illustration of optimism.

A sudden gasp for air, more akin to a wheeze, ruined the peace and he spun around, the familiar noise suddenly chilling him. He saw his father, his skin now clearly waxy in the gilded light, breaking out into convulsions, the beginnings of seizure taking hold of his mind and body. The boy’s mother shot out of her chair and was out the door to call for help as the boy helplessly held his father in his arm, pleading for aid. Nurses and doctors poured in, pulling him away, the golden light still filling the room, the soft particles of dust clear in the radiance of the space. The boy saw the crowd swallow up his father, the medical team seemingly arching completely over the bed, their now disfigured forms hiding his father from view completely. Turning away from the dark scene, he stared into the garden, hoping that if nothing else, the serenity of it would grant him at least a little peace. What he saw only added to his fear; the garden then turned into a graveyard, and he could see cemetery workers digging a new grave, and the boy already knew. Before it had been beautiful, now a scene of an almost greater horror met him, and as his mind struggled to comprehend it, a hush befell the room.

The boy turned, baffled and petrified, seeing no one but his father. The doctors, nurses, his mother—all gone. His father lay still, his torso no longer moving, and the boy ran to him, ostensibly feeling as though those few feet were dozens of miles, the seconds turning to hours in his mind. He began to shake his father, begging him to wake up. He wanted his father to open his eyes, tell him he was kidding–he knew he wouldn’t—and save him from this nightmare. The golden light no longer brought peace and its beauty now hurt him. He knew his father was gone, he was alone, he was lost, he was suddenly engulfed in the sea of despair known as Pain, and there was naught left in his world. He looked down and saw that his legs were completely gone, invisible or perhaps atomized and to his horror, the void creeping up to his midsection. He looked up, and the entire room was gone, nothingness consumed him, and he distantly saw a single dark outline rushing to him, and it opened its large maw, as though it were grinning, and the Fear overwhelmed him, sucked him in, and he was—

A man sat up in bed, sweating and abruptly lucid, the lurid nightmare finally over.