The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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by Kendra Smart  

Wake up. 

WAKE UP!

Rebecca screamed at her form from the crystallized version looking out. The ethereal screaming at reality. Such a beautiful lie to hide behind, to escape the demons of the everyday. 

Rebecca had thought that the pills would help, deeper more restful sleep had been what the ad had promised. She had bought it hook, line, and sinker. 

“Erase your sleep woes with the help of Paralyzo!”

True enough, the first few nights had indeed been bliss. Her mind had chosen a vividly hued futuristic dystopia that Gatsby would have been impressed by. The indulgence lulled her into a false sense of safety. 

“Get your best sleep ever!”

The more Becky became aware of the falseness of the world around her, the breaks in the seams, the more things would distort. What had once been beauty became distressed and warped. What once had calmed her, now put her on edge. 

Around her, the once kind and inviting faces in the places and spaces of her mind’s creation became disfigured and horrifying.  Their hands elongated with echoing cracks and crackles of twisting bones and ripping flesh. Their eyes became voids, deeply blackened and festering with wounds of angry flesh. 

“These findings have not been approved by the FDC.”

Each time it became harder to wake herself from the nightmare and while each time she had felt the relief of her eyes opening, this time was different. 

It felt like drowning. All the silence and heaviness of being under the water. Screaming at a void while her lungs screamed at her to give them what they needed. 

This time she found herself screaming at the lying form before her. The hands of those in her mind clawing at her, shadowy inky black hands that felt like sinking cold mud where their hands touched. 

She just wanted to wake up. Why couldn’t she force herself awake? She pinched, slapped, clawed at herself in any attempt to break the illusion. Despair filled her being as every attempt made her realize how futile it all was. 

She continued to scream and tried to move towards herself but something out of the corner caught her eye. 

In the corner was a smiling man. His face was made of teeth and flesh in the most odd way. He kept smiling, almost a knowing smile. A knowing smile that was encompassing the whole of his face. Almost as if he knew…she wasn’t going to wake up. 

“Side effects might include runny nose, diarrhea, heart palpitations, sleep paralysis, and in extreme cases, Death.”

Sleep tight.

Fiction © Copyright Kendra Smart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Kendra Smart:

Just Emotions:
A Gothic Bite Magazine Anthology

A collection of poetry.

‘Just Emotions‘ is exactly as it states, a group of writers who had feelings they wanted to express in poem form. Inside, there are a range of emotions to explore. Each writer has given a bit of themselves to you, each in their own way.

We hope that you enjoy these writings and that among the poems you may find some thing you can identify with or relate to. Thank you for giving us this chance to open the catacombs and share with you.

Available on Amazon!