*Warning: Strong depictions of graphic violence and gore. Proceed with caution. *
The nightmare came to me again. I saw the kitchen door from my parents' home. The door is similar to any other old door, its hinges rusting a dark brown, the white paint peeling to reveal the yellow interior wood, and the monstrous size it is compared to me. I could barely distinguish the sound behind the door, but it sounded like hollering. I stepped closer to the door and placed my ear onto it. I still couldn't differentiate the noise from gibberish.
Whoosh. Swish. Crash.
The sound changed. It was no longer yelling but the sound of crashing waves. Confused as I was, I kept my ear to the door to hear.
Squeak...
I pull my head back. The door is opening. My heart is racing again. Usually I'd wake up by now, but I didn't. Little by little the door slowly opened until it exposed the other side.
A pitch-black darkness.
Whoosh. Swish. Crash.
The waves are louder. Drowned by the overwhelming waves, I couldn't feel or hear my heartbeat. I felt calm for the first time. I stepped into the void and felt the trickle of liquid between my toes.
Did I forget my shoes? That didn't matter to me; nothing did.
I see a light switch in the distance, the only light in this pitch of dark. I walked towards the switch. Though the switch seemed close, it was further than expected. Every step took me further and further from the entrance. It shouldn't matter. I walked to the switch. A step into the dark felt like a mass being removed from my body with every step. Finally at the switch, I looked around. The entrance is gone, and the darkness engulfed my vision but the light switch. I flip the switch, and suddenly everything shifted again.
A sky of blue and orange. An endless plain of sand. Seagulls flying above the soil. Clouds spurring a never-ending stream of vapor. The smell of rusted metal and sulfur. I've never seen anything like it.
It's beautiful.
The pomegranate blue shore[1] reflects the spectrum of warm colors off the sun.
Gasp. Gag. Argh.
I flick my body to see what the noise is.
An abomination.
The eyes were gouged out to form a groove. The once-known location of the hair shows the blood-stained lining of the skull. The jugular slit from ear to ear. The mandible dislocated from its socket. The arms were pierced by its snapped bones. The legs folded inward. A gash along the abdomen to reveal the guts and intestines. The intestines stretched into the ocean shore.
Whoosh. Swish. Crash.
Once more, the waves silenced my heart. I didn't feel anything from the corpse.
Argh.
"m.....y.......s.....o...n....." The abomination exhaled.
I stood silent with no expression; they couldn't see me anyway.
Gag.
"m.....o.....n.....s.....t.....e.....r....." the creature sounded.
"What?"
Gasp.
"M.....y.......s.....o.....n.......m.....o.....n.....s.....t.....e.....r....." Mother called me.
I felt my body explode in rage.
"I am no monster!"
I stomp my foot on the creature's face. I stomp once more. Again and again until I felt satisfied. Her head was squashed like a watermelon to make a thick brain soup.
Gasp.
I finally woke up.
You never loved me, so don't call me the monster.
[1] Describes the shore as a crimson red, yet a blue hue.