Thursday, Feb. 03, 2005 - 08:28

I find myself walking down a long corridor. It seems to go on forever. But when I get to the end of the corridor I find a door. It’s slightly ajar. I push the door open and find a room. I step into the room.

I am struck by two things; 1) the room is enormous, being several times larger than your average suburban house, and 2) the room has been fitted out so that it mirrors my own bedroom.

The furnishings, such as bed, bedside table, desk and so forth are all slightly larger than they normally would be, and so, too, is the bedside lamp, the PC on the desk and numerous other bits and pieces. The overall effect is strangely distorted, and yet it seems to be unmistakably my room, right down to the doona cover and my dressing gown hanging on the knob of the built-in-wardrobe.

But there is something else in the room. I see them almost immediately, for they are everywhere; dozens and dozens of them: bodies.

Hanging from the ceiling in a spider web of chains and hooks and elaborate pulley systems, there are countless figures high above me. They are motionless. I can see that old blood is spattered against the walls and has dripped onto the floors. I notice that the figures all resemble one another: male, thin build, dark hair.

And then I see two other figures propped up against the oversized bed. It is Heddy and Bubbles. Their hands and feet have been bound. A plastic bag has been put over each of their heads.

They have been dead for some time, for I notice that their skin is blue-grey, and their lips have curled back to expose their gums. There are droplets of moisture trapped within the plastic bags.

An arm comes around my throat from someone standing behind me. It chokes me. I am held fast where I stand. My attacker forces me to look up at the grisly display hanging from the ceiling.

“They took the Gift I gave them,” he said, and I recognised Simon’s voice immediately. “There aren’t any Second Chances. You have to stay dead, Jay. I’ll stay with you. I’ll watch over you and make sure. It’ll be OK,” he assured me in a strange tone of voice.

I felt something sting me and realised he had injected some unknown substance into my neck. My vision blurred, my legs buckled and I felt myself begin to fall forward, but Simon held me up, dragging me towards the bed…

Then there was blackness. I cannot be certain this was the same dream or a different one altogether. But I woke up and found myself laying on my back, lost in semi-darkness. I went to move, but realised something heavy was on top of me. It felt like a body. I tried to move my arms and realised that I didn’t have any space.

My vision strengthened a little and I saw that there was a wooden panel mere inches from my face. I found the air to be dank and sparse and a terrible certainty and fear crept over me. I was in a coffin – buried alive, somehow I just knew it.

Then I felt the heavy thing that was laying on top of me move… I looked down the length of my body and saw Simon’s upturned face staring back at me. His eyes were utterly black – there were no whites, no iris, just a glistening blackness that seemed to have things writhing in them, making a noise not unlike the sound of a moth’s wings as it beats itself mindlessly against a window pane.

“Jay…? Jay…? You awake?” he asked, dragging himself up the length of my body until we were face-to-face in the claustrophobic space. "I’ll watch over you... I’ll watch over you always and forever… and make sure you stay dead.”

… At which point, I woke up.

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