Miniera
She sat straight up, her body rigid with fear and shaking so badly you’d think she was freezing to death. Her wide eyes scanned her dark room quickly, searching for any signs of danger. Upon finding none she seemed to relax a little, a sigh of relief slipping past her dry lips. As she sat quietly against the pillows, her gaze wandered over to the window on her right, taking in the sight of the moonlight pouring into her room through the blinds. They obscured the light so that it looked like there where jail bars lying on her floor and it gave her an eerie feeling, a sense of déjà vu, like she’d been trapped as a prisoner before. Just thinking about that sent chills down her spine and she tried not to think on it.
But the reason she had woken up so suddenly and filled with so much fear was because she had had that dream again, the one she’d been having over and over again for the past month. just like clockwork she would go to sleep and the dream would descend upon her, scooping her up into it’s embrace and dragging her off to relive it once more. It was a strange dream and she couldn’t make any sense of it at all, but she knew it had to mean something, why else would she continue to dream it?
In this dream she would be asleep in her bed but she could see everything in her room as if she were looking down upon it from the corner of her ceiling. Everything would be sufficatingly quiet but everything would be where it always was, the moonlight would still be pouring in through the blinds.
But after a little while, a shadow would appear at the window, blocking out the gentle light of the moon and giving the room a closed in feeling. Then, with a silence that seemed unnatural, the blinds would be pulled up and the window would open, as if done by magic, and the strange shadow would slip inside before floating over to the side of her bed like smoke. Once there it would suddenly take on a human form and it would stand there simple gazing at her sleeping form, it’s appearance cloaked in darkness like any true shadow.
Though she did could see what was going on and in reality would be scared by this sequence of events, in the dream she felt no fear but a strange feeling of familiatiry, as if whatever stood over her was no stranger as she believed it to be. And then, after a moment of curious waiting, the thing would reach out towards her, it’s arms long and thin while it’s finger appeared to be so thin, they were just bone, stained to the darkest color of ash.
Slowly, as if time were standing still, the hands would reach toward her, prepared to grab a hold of her with a strength she could never guess the thing possesed. That’s when she’d wake up, immediately filled with that the thing, the shadow, was there, that it wasn’t just a dream. But everytime the shadow was nowhere to be found and everything would be as it always was, just like it was now. But she was becoming paranoid, and she didn’t know how much longer she could handle her strange dreams, because it wasn’t the shadow that really scared, it was the feeling of familiarity that she got whenever she dreamed of it. That was what really scared her.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next day was like any other, she had gotten up, went to school, had come home, did her homework, and then ate dinner before taking a shower, her normal routine. But tonight she was nervous and the closer it got to the time when she would once again lay down in her bed and sleep, the more anxious she got.
She dreaded the night, because she dreaded dreaming that dream again. It seemed almost inevitable though, that she would get sleepy and soon be unable to keep her eyes open. So once again she fell into the waiting arms of sleep. But this time there was no dream, at least, she could not remember the dream, so when she woke up the next morning, she felt relieved, maybe she would be rid of it for good.
Happily she jumped out of bed and started getting ready for school, but she was in for a terrible surprise. After she had pulled on a brown tank-top she’d gone to look at herself in the mirror, and she was horrified to discover a bruise on each of her arms, in the shape of a human hand with long, thin fingers. She let out a strangled cry and stumbled back from the mirror, to horrified by the bruises to think clearly. How had she gotten them? No one had grabbed her hard enough to leave a bruise before!
It scared her so badly that she decided to not think about it, so she grabbed a jacket and threw it on, she didn’t want anyone at school to see them, she would hide them from the world. Maybe if she pretended they weren’t, they would go away, but deep down she knew that wasn’t the case.
Somehow she managed to make it through most of the day without any mishap, but something was bothering her, for the entire day not a single person had refered to her by name. In class when she raised her hand the teacher would simply look at her and ‘yes?’ when every other kid in the class was called on by name. And at lunch, now that had been weird, while they were all standing around mucnhing on their food whenever someone would direct a sentence at her they’d always say ‘so what do you think?’ or ‘Hey, do you want to hang out tomorrow?’ Never was her name said and it bothered her.
When she arrived home she rushed inside, shutting and locking the door as quickly as she could, desperate to get away from the day’s strange events. What was worse was that she really didn’t understand why all of this bothered her so much. Surely her friends and teachers had called her by name before, but when she thought on it she really couldn’t remember.
“I’m home…” She said, her voice echoing in the large enrty way of her house as she moved into the living room to drop her stuff off. When no one replied she knew her parents weren’t home, like usual. She was usually home alone because her parents left early in the morning and came home late at night, after she’d gone to bed. It had been this way for a while and she had a hard time remembering when she’d last talked with her parents or had even seen them. This was also a bit bothersome. Yet she continued on with her eveing, ignoring the feeling of unease growing in the pit of her stomach, hoping that maybe tonight when she went to bed, she’d finally get a good night’s sleep and not wake with any surprise bruises. Maybe everything would be back to the way it was tomorrow.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She stood alone in a dark, inclosed space. Before her was a tall mirror that seemed to reach to the sky. Behind her was a black wall that encircled her and was attached to the mirror, keeping her locked within the tiny space with no hope for escape, but she wasn’t worried about that. At the moment she was too busy looking at her reflection in the mirror, disfigured from the darkness and the small amount of blue light that filtered in from over the top of the wall and mirror, suggesting that it was just past the twilight hour of evening.
She reached forward, touching her fingers gently to the cold glass before her, only to find that it would ripple when she did so, like water. It was very weird, but once more she thought nothing of it. That’s when she heard the laughter.
“Welcome.” The voices of children rang out around through the laughter, which confirmed that some were speaking while other’s laughed, she could even hear some whispering to each other, passing along secrets no one else was supposed to hear. “You are one of us now...” The voices were quiet and they sounded like the wind, many sounding between the ages of five and possibly sixteen, but that was just a guess.
She suddenly got the feeling that outside of her cage, where she could not see, there were many other cages, just like her’s, which is where all the other children were residing, which was why she was one of them, she was captured, just like them. She also got the feeling she was being watched, so she leaned in close to the mirror, her nose almost touching the cold surface and she narrowed her eyes and tried to peer through the glass.
“I don’t want to be like you…” She whispered, earning laughter in reply.
“But you are, there’s no changing that.” The voices replied in unison, more laughter following the statement. “You are like us because you are one with no name and he collects us, he brings us together.”
“I have a name!” She said, her voice getting louder, a feeling of fear beginning to rise within in her for the first time. There was a silence followed by that statement, and it remained silent for quite a while after, until finally one voice from among the numbers spoke up.
“Then tell us your name.”
She was startled by the coldness of this one voice and she opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Her mind swirled with numerous emotions and thoughts as she realized, she didn’t remember what her name was! In fact, she didn’t even know if she’d ever been given one. “See, you have no name. Just like us. But he’ll give you a name. He is the giver of names to the lost ones.” More voices spoke up now, joining in with the single voice who had questioned her about her name just moments before.
“But who is he? Who are the lost ones?” More laughter in response along with a flurry of whispering.
“He is all we know, all we need, all you need. And we are the lost ones, the ones who have known no name and have found sanctuary in dreams. You are like us, you are one of us. You are a lost one.” And then all was quiet, so quiet in fact that she became nervous. She leaned in even closer to the mirror, desperatly trying to see beyond it’s reflective surface. But then a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she whirled around, finding herself face to face with the strange shadow that always appeared in her dreams.
“It’s you…” She whispered, her voice tense with fear. The feeling of familiarity had risen again and she didn’t like it at all.
“I’ve come to name you, because you are mine.” The shadow said, his voice seeming to echo in the silence. She trembled slightly, backing into the mirror in a desperate attempt to get as far away from the thing as she could.
“I’m not yours! And I have a name already, I just can’t remember it!” She whimpered, trying to find her strength, she didn’t want to seem weak. But the thing only chuckled in response, it’s long bony fingers reaching out towards her.
“But you are mine, because you have no name.” His fingers brushed against the skin of her cheek and she shivered. They were hard and cold and she didn’t like the fact that the touch seemed so familiar. “I’ve been waiting for you to open your dreams to me… to return to me and your siblings. They all return to me eventually.” His voice was soft and gentle but it held a tone of danger to it, as if his sweet words were just a lie to conceal his true nature.
“Don’t touch me!” She screeched, slapping his hand away. This only made him laugh harder, a dark, cruel sounding laugh that caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise. Suddenly he reached out, quick as lightning, grabbing onto her arms roughly and pulling her into his shadowed form, holding her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe.
She tried to scream but the air was gone from her lungs and all she could do was gasp for breath as she closed her eyes and tried to will herself to wake up, but this time she wouldn’t wake up, she was stuck within a nightmare that was to fantasticle to be real, but was more real then anything she’d ever known. He laughed again as he held tightly to her struggling form and then in a voice loud enough to be heard for miles away, he cried out the one thing that would bind her to him forever.
“Miniera!” He had given her a name, and forever she would belong to him, trapped within this tall cage for eternity, destined to live at his mercy. She was a lost one and she was his. She was Miniera.
She sat straight up, her body rigid with fear and shaking so badly you’d think she was freezing to death. Her wide eyes scanned her dark room quickly, searching for any signs of danger. Upon finding none she seemed to relax a little, a sigh of relief slipping past her dry lips. As she sat quietly against the pillows, her gaze wandered over to the window on her right, taking in the sight of the moonlight pouring into her room through the blinds. They obscured the light so that it looked like there where jail bars lying on her floor and it gave her an eerie feeling, a sense of déjà vu, like she’d been trapped as a prisoner before. Just thinking about that sent chills down her spine and she tried not to think on it.
But the reason she had woken up so suddenly and filled with so much fear was because she had had that dream again, the one she’d been having over and over again for the past month. just like clockwork she would go to sleep and the dream would descend upon her, scooping her up into it’s embrace and dragging her off to relive it once more. It was a strange dream and she couldn’t make any sense of it at all, but she knew it had to mean something, why else would she continue to dream it?
In this dream she would be asleep in her bed but she could see everything in her room as if she were looking down upon it from the corner of her ceiling. Everything would be sufficatingly quiet but everything would be where it always was, the moonlight would still be pouring in through the blinds.
But after a little while, a shadow would appear at the window, blocking out the gentle light of the moon and giving the room a closed in feeling. Then, with a silence that seemed unnatural, the blinds would be pulled up and the window would open, as if done by magic, and the strange shadow would slip inside before floating over to the side of her bed like smoke. Once there it would suddenly take on a human form and it would stand there simple gazing at her sleeping form, it’s appearance cloaked in darkness like any true shadow.
Though she did could see what was going on and in reality would be scared by this sequence of events, in the dream she felt no fear but a strange feeling of familiatiry, as if whatever stood over her was no stranger as she believed it to be. And then, after a moment of curious waiting, the thing would reach out towards her, it’s arms long and thin while it’s finger appeared to be so thin, they were just bone, stained to the darkest color of ash.
Slowly, as if time were standing still, the hands would reach toward her, prepared to grab a hold of her with a strength she could never guess the thing possesed. That’s when she’d wake up, immediately filled with that the thing, the shadow, was there, that it wasn’t just a dream. But everytime the shadow was nowhere to be found and everything would be as it always was, just like it was now. But she was becoming paranoid, and she didn’t know how much longer she could handle her strange dreams, because it wasn’t the shadow that really scared, it was the feeling of familiarity that she got whenever she dreamed of it. That was what really scared her.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next day was like any other, she had gotten up, went to school, had come home, did her homework, and then ate dinner before taking a shower, her normal routine. But tonight she was nervous and the closer it got to the time when she would once again lay down in her bed and sleep, the more anxious she got.
She dreaded the night, because she dreaded dreaming that dream again. It seemed almost inevitable though, that she would get sleepy and soon be unable to keep her eyes open. So once again she fell into the waiting arms of sleep. But this time there was no dream, at least, she could not remember the dream, so when she woke up the next morning, she felt relieved, maybe she would be rid of it for good.
Happily she jumped out of bed and started getting ready for school, but she was in for a terrible surprise. After she had pulled on a brown tank-top she’d gone to look at herself in the mirror, and she was horrified to discover a bruise on each of her arms, in the shape of a human hand with long, thin fingers. She let out a strangled cry and stumbled back from the mirror, to horrified by the bruises to think clearly. How had she gotten them? No one had grabbed her hard enough to leave a bruise before!
It scared her so badly that she decided to not think about it, so she grabbed a jacket and threw it on, she didn’t want anyone at school to see them, she would hide them from the world. Maybe if she pretended they weren’t, they would go away, but deep down she knew that wasn’t the case.
Somehow she managed to make it through most of the day without any mishap, but something was bothering her, for the entire day not a single person had refered to her by name. In class when she raised her hand the teacher would simply look at her and ‘yes?’ when every other kid in the class was called on by name. And at lunch, now that had been weird, while they were all standing around mucnhing on their food whenever someone would direct a sentence at her they’d always say ‘so what do you think?’ or ‘Hey, do you want to hang out tomorrow?’ Never was her name said and it bothered her.
When she arrived home she rushed inside, shutting and locking the door as quickly as she could, desperate to get away from the day’s strange events. What was worse was that she really didn’t understand why all of this bothered her so much. Surely her friends and teachers had called her by name before, but when she thought on it she really couldn’t remember.
“I’m home…” She said, her voice echoing in the large enrty way of her house as she moved into the living room to drop her stuff off. When no one replied she knew her parents weren’t home, like usual. She was usually home alone because her parents left early in the morning and came home late at night, after she’d gone to bed. It had been this way for a while and she had a hard time remembering when she’d last talked with her parents or had even seen them. This was also a bit bothersome. Yet she continued on with her eveing, ignoring the feeling of unease growing in the pit of her stomach, hoping that maybe tonight when she went to bed, she’d finally get a good night’s sleep and not wake with any surprise bruises. Maybe everything would be back to the way it was tomorrow.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She stood alone in a dark, inclosed space. Before her was a tall mirror that seemed to reach to the sky. Behind her was a black wall that encircled her and was attached to the mirror, keeping her locked within the tiny space with no hope for escape, but she wasn’t worried about that. At the moment she was too busy looking at her reflection in the mirror, disfigured from the darkness and the small amount of blue light that filtered in from over the top of the wall and mirror, suggesting that it was just past the twilight hour of evening.
She reached forward, touching her fingers gently to the cold glass before her, only to find that it would ripple when she did so, like water. It was very weird, but once more she thought nothing of it. That’s when she heard the laughter.
“Welcome.” The voices of children rang out around through the laughter, which confirmed that some were speaking while other’s laughed, she could even hear some whispering to each other, passing along secrets no one else was supposed to hear. “You are one of us now...” The voices were quiet and they sounded like the wind, many sounding between the ages of five and possibly sixteen, but that was just a guess.
She suddenly got the feeling that outside of her cage, where she could not see, there were many other cages, just like her’s, which is where all the other children were residing, which was why she was one of them, she was captured, just like them. She also got the feeling she was being watched, so she leaned in close to the mirror, her nose almost touching the cold surface and she narrowed her eyes and tried to peer through the glass.
“I don’t want to be like you…” She whispered, earning laughter in reply.
“But you are, there’s no changing that.” The voices replied in unison, more laughter following the statement. “You are like us because you are one with no name and he collects us, he brings us together.”
“I have a name!” She said, her voice getting louder, a feeling of fear beginning to rise within in her for the first time. There was a silence followed by that statement, and it remained silent for quite a while after, until finally one voice from among the numbers spoke up.
“Then tell us your name.”
She was startled by the coldness of this one voice and she opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Her mind swirled with numerous emotions and thoughts as she realized, she didn’t remember what her name was! In fact, she didn’t even know if she’d ever been given one. “See, you have no name. Just like us. But he’ll give you a name. He is the giver of names to the lost ones.” More voices spoke up now, joining in with the single voice who had questioned her about her name just moments before.
“But who is he? Who are the lost ones?” More laughter in response along with a flurry of whispering.
“He is all we know, all we need, all you need. And we are the lost ones, the ones who have known no name and have found sanctuary in dreams. You are like us, you are one of us. You are a lost one.” And then all was quiet, so quiet in fact that she became nervous. She leaned in even closer to the mirror, desperatly trying to see beyond it’s reflective surface. But then a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she whirled around, finding herself face to face with the strange shadow that always appeared in her dreams.
“It’s you…” She whispered, her voice tense with fear. The feeling of familiarity had risen again and she didn’t like it at all.
“I’ve come to name you, because you are mine.” The shadow said, his voice seeming to echo in the silence. She trembled slightly, backing into the mirror in a desperate attempt to get as far away from the thing as she could.
“I’m not yours! And I have a name already, I just can’t remember it!” She whimpered, trying to find her strength, she didn’t want to seem weak. But the thing only chuckled in response, it’s long bony fingers reaching out towards her.
“But you are mine, because you have no name.” His fingers brushed against the skin of her cheek and she shivered. They were hard and cold and she didn’t like the fact that the touch seemed so familiar. “I’ve been waiting for you to open your dreams to me… to return to me and your siblings. They all return to me eventually.” His voice was soft and gentle but it held a tone of danger to it, as if his sweet words were just a lie to conceal his true nature.
“Don’t touch me!” She screeched, slapping his hand away. This only made him laugh harder, a dark, cruel sounding laugh that caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise. Suddenly he reached out, quick as lightning, grabbing onto her arms roughly and pulling her into his shadowed form, holding her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe.
She tried to scream but the air was gone from her lungs and all she could do was gasp for breath as she closed her eyes and tried to will herself to wake up, but this time she wouldn’t wake up, she was stuck within a nightmare that was to fantasticle to be real, but was more real then anything she’d ever known. He laughed again as he held tightly to her struggling form and then in a voice loud enough to be heard for miles away, he cried out the one thing that would bind her to him forever.
“Miniera!” He had given her a name, and forever she would belong to him, trapped within this tall cage for eternity, destined to live at his mercy. She was a lost one and she was his. She was Miniera.
