DREAMS COME TRUE

"Wake up", a soft voice whispered to him inside his head.

"I'm awake", he replied, he was used to conversations like this. He couldn't help having them, he was a loner, talking to himself helped him get by a lot, although the voices in his head recently seemed to be a bit too real and loud.

"No you are not, you have to wake up", the soft voice said to him again.

Moa's eyes were wide open, he was slightly confused as to what the voice meant by he had to wake up, he looked around, it was the early hours of the morning, he had woken up before his alarm rung and was just laying on his bed. Although the voice sounded oddly familiar, he brushed it aside as the consequence of his very active imagination. He looked at his bedside clock and noticed the time had not moved since he last checked, he sat up and reached for the clock.

"Maybe it's the batteries", he said out loud. He stood up from his bed, sluggishly reaching for his reading table, he opened the drawers and searched around for spare batteries. The light window curtains above his reading table rippled as cold airbrushed through, spreading itself thick on him, sending goosebumps all over his body, he was very sure he had closed the windows the previous night. As he slowly reached for the curtains, his alarm suddenly went off. Startled out of his mind, Moa threw the clock in his hands into the window and it smacked straight into solid glass.

"What is going on here, those windows were open just now", moa said, peering through the curtain that covered his full view of the window. As he reached for the curtains again, he heard a creaking sound behind him, he immediately turned to where the sound came from to find his doorknob was slowly being turned.

"Who's there?", he feigned a brave voice while asking, reaching for the baseball bat he always kept around at the corner of his room.

"It's just my love, wanted to see if you were okay. I heard some sounds", a familiar voice replied. With a sigh of relief, he dropped his bat and headed towards the door to unlock it.

"It's okay mum, just had a bad dream", he said. As he opened the door, a black hand grabbed his throat squeezing tightly.

"You have to wake up moa", the voice rang urgently inside his head, "You have to wake up".

Moa couldn't see the figure clearly as the room was still a bit dark and the figure seemed to be clad in the shadows.

"HOW DO I WAKE UP?", he screamed at the voice in his head. As the grip on his neck tightened, struggling for oxygen, he tried pushing the handoff him but only managed to anger the figure as he was flung across the room landing on his reading table head first. Feeling dazed, he looked around and noticed the figure walking towards him, he struggled to get on his feet and reached for the bat he had dropped. He tried screaming for help, but couldn't even hear his voice.

"You are mine", he heard a sick voice waft into his mind, "you belong to me", the figure said before it paused, peering curiously at Moa.

"The window, jump out the window. That's your opportunity!" the voice screamed at Moa.

Moa still pointing the bat at the figure who although it seemed was looking at him wasn't rather was shooting evil stares at something inside the curtains.

"It's a suicide, this is a two-story building, I'm going to die", Moa lamented.

"If you stay here you're going to die", the voice whispered furiously.

Regaining its composure, the figure directed its full gaze back on Moa. Seeing this, Moa immediately lunged for the window, making contact with the curtain, he immediately fell through. Free falling out the window, he closed his eyes waiting to make contact with the hard pavement below.

'BANG', a resounding smack was heard as someone fell back from his seat to the hard floor.

"Moa please pick yourself up from the floor, stand by the wall and try not to doze off during my class, thank you", Mr. David, the biology teacher, said without turning around as he continued writing on the whiteboard.

Most of the students, who up until now had been giggling, turned back to see a grumpy, skinny boy struggle to stand up from the floor while keeping his eyes on the ground avoiding eye contact as he cleaned the dirt off him, as they burst into fits of laughter.

"This is the third time this week he's been caught sleeping", whispered one of the girls to her friend who only offered biology class with them on Thursdays.

"Doesn't he get enough sleep at home?", Her friend asked also in a whisper as she shrugged and looked away from him.

"His one weird kid", another student said.

"Why don't you all focus on copying your notes", Mr. David said as he glanced back at Moa who was still standing at the back of the class keeping his head down. He turned back to the board and continued writing, knowing he would have to talk to Moa's guardian later.

Moa was sniffling hard, as his chest squeezed with shame. He kept lamenting in his mind, wondering why such awkward things kept happening to him. Why was he sleeping so much and what were these dreams that kept tormenting him?

They felt so real, he couldn't even tell he was in a dream. It was always worse at night, he would be sleeping but his mind would be fully awake, making him feel exhausted in the morning. Even as he stood at the back he couldn't help struggling with this feeling that kept dragging his eyelids together. It felt like the only time he was truly alive was when he closed his eyes.

Looking around the class, he could see some of the friends he had known since elementary school actively involved in the classwork. He managed to look at the board and from the shapes on the whiteboard, they were talking about splitting cells and the molecular structure of the human body. He enjoyed sciences but lately, he had been having a lot of issues that affected his grades.

As he kept thinking deeper and deeper about himself and his life, he saw in his mind's eye a white light touching the sides of his peripheral vision, as it tugged at him he could hear a soft feminine voice calling out to him.

"Moa, Moa".

And with every call, the voice sounded more urgent.

"Come to me Moa, find me", she said. He tried to speak to her but the words couldn't form in his mouth. Then he tried to walk towards the light but he felt stuck like something thick was binding him to the dark floor beneath his feet.

"Hey are you alright?", another student who had turned back asked as she heard muffled sounds coming from the boy who had fallen from his seat.

He didn't reply, rather his face looked more contorted as though he was struggling with something heavy.

"Sir, I don't think he's okay", she reported. Mr. David turned back to see Moa, slumping to the floor, as he fainted.