Nightmare

"Blood. Flesh. Dead bodies. Everywhere the eyes go. Death. Everywhere. Why? Why is this happening? Why to us? Why again?" He thought to himself, standing in a far corner and watching all the hell break loose in front of him.

"My hands. My legs. They won't move. Why? Why?" He felt his hands trembling uncontrollably by his sides. His legs, shaking. His face, grim. Sweat glistened on his forehead even in the dim light of the crescent moon. His hazel eyes full of water were shining like an emerald.

"After everything that happened. Why? This is not how it was supposed to be."

"Then how come it is?" He heard a calm feminine voice from beside him. He slowly turned his face to look at her but suddenly something splashed on his face and instinctively he closed his eyes. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes just to see a crimson liquid flowing from the woman's chest. His eyes widened. As he stood there staring at her chest unable to move his body, her body shook and another spot on her chest started pouring the same crimson liquid. And then another and another. Soon enough, she collapsed on her knees. And within seconds, her body met the cold ground making a crimson pool around her.

The man started feeling faint. Everything started spinning. It was like someone was pulling a carpet from beneath his feet. All the noise of people screaming, gunshots being fired, bones crushing, blood spilling, fainted in the background. It was just him and the lifeless body of the woman lying in front of him in her own pool of blood. And then everything went black.

His eyes flew open and he found himself sitting on his bed in his own pool of sweat. He was panting and struggling to get some oxygen in his lungs. He was trembling despite the fact that it was a hot summer night. After a few minutes of deafening silence and void, he gained control over his body.

He finally got off of his bed, put his shirt on, and left the room. Taking a deep breath to gather his thoughts, he made his way to his kitchen and helped himself to a glass of water. Through his kitchen window, he saw the small pond outside his house. A fragile and unstable wooden footbridge stood on top of it.

He walked towards the kitchen door that led to the back of his house, gently stroked the knob and pushed the door. It opened with a creak and gave way to a gust of dry wind. He slowly walked towards the bridge and stood there staring at his own reflection. He could clearly make out the tiredness in his face. He looked old, much like the neighborhood amidst which he was standing.

The whole place was damaged and unsteady. It was a small neighborhood with a few old wooden houses clumped together, like weed growing in the wild. They were small and shabby. A single flight of stairs would have led to the top of each of them but there was no need for the stairs as there was no terrace to get to. There were holes in the roofs at random places making way for the sunlight as well as the rain to come in. There was a road, more like a trodden path encircling the entire locale.

He stood in the middle of this nowhere surrounded by the darkness and silence. It was his therapy. His sick way of punishing himself which he liked to call 'therapy'. Standing alone cocooned by darkness while the silence sang lullabies for him. Not the kind that would make him fall asleep but the kind that reminded him why he couldn't sleep.

He kept staring at his dark, tired reflection in the water, without blinking or moving, as still as the night around him. He was lost in his thoughts when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to see a man leaning against the parapet of the shabby wooden bridge.

He was looking straight ahead and said, "I called out to you, several times. It's like you were lost...somewhere!" With the last word he turned his head to look at the man beside him while still leaning against the parapet. His eyebrows raised and eyes concerned.

"What are you doing up at this hour?"

"You are changing the topic."

"I am not." He stated in a monotonous voice.

"Issac." The other man emphasized.

"Aiden." He replied with a nod and the same emphasis.

Aiden turned to fully face him. He crossed his arms, tilted his head and deadpanned at him.

Issac made his puppy face and shrugged in response. Trying his best not to make any eye contact.

Aiden opened his mouth to say something but before he could make a sound, they both heard loud scream, growls and snarls coming from the house at the opposite end.

They instinctively looked in the direction of the noise and then back at each other. Shock was evident on their faces as they stared at each other, wide eyed. Without wasting another minute, they both sprinted towards the house.

"Aiden go get everyone and come to the bridge. I am going to go check what is going on." Issac ordered him as he ran ahead towards the last cabin.

"Without weapon?" Aiden shouted from behind him but he didn't pay attention and kept going.

He stood outside the cabin with his hand on the door knob. He could hear the weird screech and grumbles with low moans more clearly now. He closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep breath as he turned the knob and opened the door quietly.

The door opened in the open kitchen area of the house. He stepped inside taking a quick look around while slowly closing the door behind him to make sure nothing gets out. He could see in the dark but just to be sure he switched the lights on from the board beside the door. There was nothing in the living space in front and neither in the kitchen space beside the door. But he could hear the noises. It was coming from the room in the right corner, opposite the kitchen.

He tried to be stealthy but the houses were so old it was hard to be quite. As he stepped beside the kitchen counter, the floor made a heavy creak and in that moment the weird noises stopped. He took a quick glance towards the knife on the kitchen counter. His breathing changed, eyes were more focused towards the door of the room. Everything was so calm that it was surreal. A deafening silence beset the whole place.

And then he jumped towards the kitchen counter and picked the knife. He turned around briskly when he heard the room's door open and two rotten, bloodless, stiff and gaunt bodies launched themselves at him.

Their skin was withered and was coming off from random parts of their bodies to reveal the rotten flesh. At some points on their bodies even the flesh has slipped off and all that was visible was their stiff, slowly decaying bones. They had fresh, thick, crimson blood all over their face and mouth and even on their clothes. Their clothes were torn, heavily but nonetheless they existed. The blood on their clothes, however, was not just new. There were layers upon layers of blood that had made their clothes hard.

Issac quickly sprinted right and just barely dodging them he pushed his knife through one of the mutant's throat with all of his strength. He twisted the knife wildly, cutting through the mutant's blood vessels and splattering the blood all over his face, clothes, the kitchen floor and the aisle along with the walls. He then pushed the knife out and the mutant's lifeless body fell on the wooden floor with a loud thud.

He quickly moved away from the kitchen space and towards the living space to get more room for his movement. As he was taking his fighting stance, his eyes fell on the bloody and torn up body in the room. He gulped, his eyes widening, breathing became more erratic and his brows furrowed. Before he could get his senses back, he was knocked down on the floor by the mutant. The knife fell out of his hand and near the kitchen counter.

The mutant was desperately trying to bite him but he with his sheer muscle strength was stopping the thing. The mutant's mouth was inches away from his neck. He had his eyes closed and was concentrating into channeling all his strength to push the thing off of him.

He opened his eyes to look at the mutant because it stopped moving. But he immediately closed his eyes as his face was showered with blood. With a lot of effort, he opened his eyes to see what was going on. With his blood soaked eyes he saw a girl standing in front of him. One of her blades was driven through the mutant's brain and the other one across its throat. She twisted the blade in its throat and retracted it out cutting its neck in half. Issac got an up-close view of this beautiful scenario as the mutant's half intact head hung over his face.

The girl then pulled at the blade in the mutant's head and due to her absolute strength, its head completely came off of its neck. And the headless body, spewing blood all over Isaac's clothes lay over his body. He immediately pushed it off of him while the girl yanked her blade and the head flew and hit the kitchen counter with a loud skull crashing sound.

She quickly yanked her blades a few times to get rid of the blood and then put them back in the holster behind her back. She picked the kitchen knife with her one hand and offered her other hand to help Issac get up.

He took her hand and as he stood up with their bodies almost touching, he felt something but brushed it off. She backed off and gave the knife to him. As he took the knife from her, she said, " We need to move. Fast. They are coming," and with that she jumped through the hole in the roof and was outside before Issac understood what she had said.

"Is that where she entered from?" He asked himself while he moved towards the door and helped himself out.