Like A Dream

He smiles at you, turns the key and opens the door to the terrace house. You nod in return, out of curtesy, even though he seems rather dishonest and pretentious. You enter the house, and the man turns around to attend to another lady whom you cannot see clearly. You peek through the gap between the door, and you hear them talking in hushed voices, barely above a whisper, but you cannot make out what they are saying.

Suddenly the man turns back to you, gives you another sinister smile and gestures for you to move so he can close the door. You oblige, letting him close the door with a resounding snap. Tentatively, you walk down the corridor and enter the first room you see to your right.

The room is spotless, with fluffy white bedsheets, and a bedside table with a beautiful, elaborately designed table lamp. You notice an alarm clock lying innocent on the table, but there are no numbers. It isn't working. The closets, made of expensive wood and metal, seem outstanding and prominent in the bedroom. Your ideal bedroom, actually.

There is a sliding door on your left, and you open it, revealing another room an exact replica of the one behind you. Everything is made and tidied, delicately rearranged, just as you like it. Then you leave the room, back into the long corridor. To your left is a window that looks out to the forest. You think that the view is breathtaking and you cannot wait to get out there and stroll through mother nature as you enjoy the fresh air.

You then enter a living room, with white leather sofas complete with a coffee table stacked with magazines and a plasma TV. You decide that the sofa looks too good to be left un-sat on, so you plop down and close your eyes. It is just as comfortable as you have imagined.

After a while, you decide that you have rested enough, and it is time to continue the journey. You walk along a corridor again, and the kitchen looms near. Inside, the kitchen is clean and tidy, not a single hair out of place, with plates, bowls and utensils stored neatly in cupboards.

Before you know it, it is night-time. You return back into the living room to receive the greatest shock of your life. There, sitting on the sofa as if they sat there every night, are your parents, smiling benevolently at you and motioning for you to join them. You walk forward slowly, tears forming at the corners of your eyes but you manage to hold them back in a deep breath.

You make your way slowly towards them, and reach out a hand. Thin air. Your mother's hand is made of thin air. She smiles again, "Hey."

You stutter, "You're a....s...spirit?" You are disbelieving. When did they get here?

"Yes," your father answers, nodding seriously at you.

You decide not to ask anymore questions. You could have been dreaming. Three of you settle down, your parents on the sofa and you on the floor in front of them. You talk about things. This and That. That and This. And you fall asleep.

Next morning, you wake up, and see that your parents are gone. You run into the two previous rooms you have been in and search every crook and nanny you can find. Any evidences, any clue, anything... Bits of paper under the bed with writings on them that do not make any sense. An alarm clock that never works. A window that never opens.

Running past the kitchen, you realise that the back door has no knob. There are hinges on both sides of the door. Sprinting to the front door that you came from the day before, you realize that it is the same thing. There is no door knob. You wonder why you didn't notice it yesterday.

Night comes faster than the previous day, and once again you see your parents sitting patiently on the sofa, and you spend another night talking to them in the living room until fatigue overtakes you and you fall asleep.

The same thing occurs everyday, searching for evidence, a way out, and at night, you chat with your parents. There is no one there to company you in the days, and that's when you realize how lonely you are. You have no one to talk to you, to care for you, to share with you. The silent stillness of the house terrifies you to the very core of your faint heart.

There is nobody.

Nobody.

One day, you wake up to the silence of the house. Today, you feel lethargic. You sit there, alone, as tears roll down your cheeks and you tremble with the emptiness in your bones. You hold your head in your hands, and you remain there, unmoving, even as your body groans with the pain from sitting on the floor last night.

You do not have anymore strength to continue this ordeal. It is too painful. It is too tiring. It is too lonely.

That night, you say to your father, "I'm going to use the chair to smash the window to get out tomorrow. Is that okay?"

Your father nods gravely.

Your mother smiles at you again, sadness evident in her hollow eyes.

Tonight, you fall asleep with your head on the sofa.

Morning comes. You wake up and the first thing you do is to find the heaviest chair in the room. With all of your might, you throw it against the glass window. The chair bounces back like a basketball.

That was the last straw. You collpase onto your knees and this time, you howl. You howl for all the loneliness you had felt. You howl for the spirits you see every night. Are they bits of imagination, even? You howl for the emptiness of the house. It is a beautiful house, but it is empty. It contains no joy, no laughter and no happiness.

You cry until your tears dry out and your eyes sting from the empty air that surrounds you. Your shoulders slump, and your eyes lose the shine they once held so vividly.

You turn around to face the steps that leads to the second storey of the house. You have nothing else to lose. Shrugging, you venture up the stairs and you realize that you have entered the master bedroom. There is something -- or someone -- on the bed. As you near it, you realize there are two people on the bed.

The sheets are white, like all the others downstairs, but they are stained red with blood. You examine the two people by bending down closer to them. They...

...are your parents.

The ones who had been talking to you every night since you were trapped inside this house. The ones who had kept you company. The ones who you thought came from your imagination. Each of them have a knife wedged in the middle for the abdomen, and their eyes remain wide open.

If they weren't your parents you would have shrieked and ran away. Instead, you remain stunned, pained by their betrayal. Had they not trusted you enough to tell you that this was where they had died? They had been lying upstairs, eyes wide open, while you chatted every night downstairs.

Looking at them, something snaps deep within you. The last thread that had been holding everything together for you, has snapped. Tears that are pouring out of your eyes are now out of your control and you have no desire to command it. Instead, you climb into bed, in between your parents who are lying and facing each other, pulled out the knife from your father's abdomen and plunge it into your own.

Finally it has ended. Your agony is gone. Everything comes to a close as your vision fades. Death is a welcome relief.

Home-sweet-home.

And you awake, cold beads of pespiration on your forehead.