It’s dark outside and there’s a storm brewing on the horizon, churning waves that knock against this cliff I stand alone on. Behind me, I know, is a building, my only company. Finally,  I’m back, I think, and the thought spurs within me a well of joy suggested only by the giddy laughs that flow from my mouth. Years spent logging dreams, counting fingers, and this is my prize—what my 11-year-old self had deemed the most interesting dream in the world, now mine to relive. I turn to greet my old friend, this Pseudo-rey Bay Aquarium as I’d dubbed it so long ago. It welcomes me back, thanks me for my return, asks me how I’ve been—fine, I say—and I  walk with eyes forward into its open arms. The doors slam behind me, but that’s alright. Just happy to be here.  

           Everything’s as I remember, so far. Specimen tanks, all cylindrical and bubbly, lie haphazardly around this cold, dark room, and I’m faced again with that same awe that drove me back here. The things in the tanks are just as unclear as the first time—like creatures ripped straight from a marine biologist’s worst game of Pictionary. The only discernible animal here is a tankful of moon jellies sitting dead center of the room. I try reading the info boards and captions near a few of the tanks, but the words are all jumbled; that, or they’re symbols or shapes, or just a big tangle of lines and intersections I can’t possibly understand, so I don’t bother with the rest.  I’m looking at some kind of messed-up shark, maybe, when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. My heart jumps as my eyes grow wider, darker, as they stretch up and out and take my face along with them. My smile curves up, up-per, too far up, and my mouth, I can’t feel it, but it  looks like it’s starting to open, slowly unhinging, ready to bite or laugh or scream, and suddenly  I’m brought back to that bathroom mirror all those years ago. My trembling hands can almost feel that cold, cold water run against them, and I’m hit with the spitting image of that thing I saw that day. Of “me”, of almost my face but worse, mean and warped. Instinctively, I reach a hand up to the locket around my neck and run a finger along its taut chain, snapping myself out of my thoughts. I can’t be surprised, I catch myself thinking, this is normal, this kinda thing happens with dreams like this. This is supposed to be fun, I’m supposed to be having fun. Just try to stay away from reflections. A minute floats by before I can even think to look at the tank again, but whatever’s inside doesn’t interest me anymore. Instead, I head for the spiral staircase stuck at the back of the room. I wave at the jellyfish before I begin the climb.  

           Floor two is brighter than the first—bright enough to hide a reflection— and lit by a cloudy sky through its floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s more tanks here, smaller this time, and just different enough to catch my attention. One of them holds a skeleton, of what I can’t tell, but it’s small and slender and curled up like a baby. Whatever info’s on the placard next to it is blacked out. In the tank next to it is some kind of dried-up animal. My best guess is a stingray if that creepy smile means anything, but the label below says one word: angel. A little hard to believe, but I’ll take it. I look at the angel-ray a little longer, until its mouth seems to stretch wider into a grin that snaps me out of my curiosity.  

           I don’t really remember the finer details of this place, to be honest. Just the general layout of at least three of the floors and the outside of the place, actually. But the rest of it’s fair game for my subconscious, and I’m not so sure I like how it’s filling in the blanks. If I try hard enough,  can I think up my own fauna? This is my world, after all. So maybe… something to fill this empty tank over here—a fish, perhaps? An anglerfish, sure, so I concentrate. The cylinder fills with water, and a glance away and back reveals a set of needle-point pearly whites attached to an even worse grin than the angel-ray’s. I don’t look for too long, but while I do, I can almost see my warped reflection again. My right eye looks like it’s heading south this time, but that’s all I  bother to catch before I bid my creation bye-bye.  

           I take to the stairs for a second time, trying to remember just how many levels this thing had on the way up. Can’t say for certain, but I’m placing bets on five. The third floor is filled with trees and shrubs, any greenery, really. But the air here is muggy, and it crowds my lungs with soggy breaths I can’t bear for much longer. The only other thing on this floor is a tanked lizard, a huge one, perched on its sweaty little rock in its sweaty little enclosure. I look a little closer and—I know this. It’s my friend’s. I have to dig through my memories for the name,  eventually landing on Scooter. He nods—though I don’t recall ever saying anything—and I nod back to this familiar face. His tongue flicks at me like a reciprocal hello, and his tail thunks against the tanbark once, twice. “Tell her I say hi,” I call as I wave my goodbyes.  

           Four has nothing of note—back to the tanks and the fish things—but I get to thinking about that old friend of mine on my walk-through. When was the last time I saw her, anyway? My answer gets handed to me on a silver platter—an info board with a date scratched deep into its surface. Vague, but I know exactly what it means. I guess she was there, wasn’t she? The one to shake me out of that trance and tell me it wasn’t real, that I was okay, and maybe I was just tired, maybe I was just seeing things and why don’t I lay down for a bit. Actually, I think I first saw this place right after that—somewhere in a nap taken to ease my mind.  

           Me and her, we stopped talking after that. Whether it was that event that scared me out of that friendship or whether it had died of natural causes, I’m not sure. I’m inclined to think the latter, but something in my gut says the former was a factor. Steadily, I stand, shaking myself out of my blast to the past, and continue my journey. 

           The answer to the floor question is six. Never was much of a gambler, I guess. Five was a masterful recreation of my grandparents’ backyard, complete with pool and sky and the overbearing heat that only Vegas could produce. There were people, too. All of them were faceless—mannequins, I think—but they gave rave reviews about the coral reef at the bottom of the pool. I asked one of them how long they’d been here. Since the surfing started, he’d said,  then he took a dive, sending the fish of the reef packing. Another one, a kid, asked me if I wanted to see her pet stingray. It was safe and sound in the hot tub, floating around in circles. I watched it for a while, until my face was the only thing I could see in the water. Warped, again, like my brain wants me to know what I don’t look like. I’m used to it by now, looking instead at the little mannequin girl crouched beside me to avoid seeing any more than I have to. I thank her for showing me.  

           “Careful now,” she says, and I ask her what she means, but she refuses to elaborate. I  leave after that.

           The final floor is the only other one I could remember before this. Wood walls, wood floors, wood torches, wood everything, plus that huge tank in the center that held the one thing about this room I can’t recall for the life of me. It was big, probably. As big as the tank that caged it, which, again, was big. I’m climbing the final turn of the staircase when I’m hit with darkness,  just sheer darkness, and— 

           It is not there. The tank is broken, spread in chunks across the waterlogged wood. I do not like this. My head spins, tells me to turn around and leave, but my feet keep climbing, walking,  stopping, and standing. They plant me at the edge of the tank, and I stare into its emptiness,  trying to make sense of the jagged glass still standing and the blood that stains its edges. But this is a dream, I tell myself, and I feel like a genius just saying it. That swell of panic subsides,  leaving me alone with my steadying heartbeat and a mission in mind. I bring up my left arm, just a little, and pinch.  

           It’s not working. I pinch hard, harder, hell, the nails even get involved. I pinch until I  can’t anymore, until there’s no reason left to, other than to feel something besides terror. But it’s not working, why isn’t it working? My arm is covered in useless little crescent marks, and I’m left with nothing but a dull throb to commemorate my efforts. I let my limbs drop by my sides,  catching my reflection in the chunk of glass below me. My face, though I expect it to warp as it has been, remains unchanged—it’s just me. And at some point, I’m begging for it to change,  because that would feel more normal here. But it does not. It just looks back at me with that same stupid frown. I need to wake up. 

           Maybe it’s friendly. Maybe it’s not so bad; it just wanted an out, not unlike me right now.  I grab that passing thought and hold it tight, then I turn and try to see myself out of here. The desert heat greets me first, but that’s really all that’s left of the welcome wagon. The surfers, the kids, the stingray, all of it scattered in limbs, in heads, like a bull saw red in a clothing store’s display window. Something’s gotten into the pool, something big enough to splash most of its contents onto the pavement. The reef, the parts that aren’t broken at least, peek out from what’s left of the water, baking in the Vegas sun. There’s few fish left standing—most of them are scattered on the ground, or squashed or torn or what looks like bitten. There’s no sign of the creature, though, besides the mess it left. No helpful footprints or maybe a claw mark or a sign that says “Monster went this way!”, none of that. I kick a mannequin’s head out of the way.  Ouch, it says, and I stop and turn. 

           “Where’d it go?” I ask. No response. I bend to pick it up, feeling like that picture of  Hamlet as I look it in its nonexistent eyes, “Where did it go?”  

           No response. I flick it, it yelps again. I knock on its dome, it tells me to stop that.  “Please,” I say—beg, really—but there’s just no response.  

           “Fuck you.” I throw the head into the pool. It’s here that I notice an outlier. One mannequin seated on the swing set just past the hot tub. Still intact. While the others might just be limbs now, at least they don’t bear the same scars as this one: deep gashes clawed repeatedly  through its torso like hate fueled this attack. I hadn’t realized before but it’s got my face. I waste no time in leaving.  

           I’m not surprised to see floor four is a mess. I don’t think I’d be surprised at anything,  anymore. Something does catch my eye, though, and I’m not sure how given its size. Regardless,  I toe my way through the glass, trying not to catch myself on any standing chunks. Hung on the edge of a broken tank is a necklace, my necklace. I snatch it off its perch, stuffing it in my pocket. It hits me after a minute that my necklace is still hooked snug around my neck, but I  really can’t afford to think about it right now. I’m three steps from the stairs when I feel the ground beneath me shake, severe enough to toss me on my side, on a floor full of glass.  Screaming is my first thought, but my hand beats my voice to the punch, slamming itself onto my wide-open mouth. There is a piece of glass in my side. There is a piece of glass in my arm,  driven deeper by its rush to shut me up. The pain is tangible, real—an invasive sensation, one that lights my nerves on fire, burns hot holes through brain. A piece of glass juts up right next to my head, taunting me or maybe tempting me, who knows. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know what I’m doing here and I don’t know how or if I’m going to get out.  

           I realize now that there is nothing here to keep me from bleeding out, so the glass remains where it wants. I ease the final steps to the stairs, then very slowly try to get down them without disrupting my new accessories. I’m almost down to the third floor when I have to stop to ease the pain. At some point, I start crying. The glass does not help this—fact, it makes it much, much worse. I have to choke on my tears to try and keep up this trend of quiet, but I’m really starting to not care anymore. One shaky step, then two, and I’m back in motion, sucking up painful hiccups and blinking my eyes clear. Floor three is— 

           Floor three is perfect. Untouched, unharmed. Scooter’s still there, it’s all still there, and my face softens, almost relieved. I glance at Scooter, giving him a nod. His tongue flicks out again and it almost looks like he’s smiling at me. His tail lifts and thunks against the glass once,  twice, then rapidly, pound pound pound like an “Over here!” and I limp toward him, wondering.  Then I’m pressed against the glass asking what he wants, but he just flicks his tongue and grins up at me. The thumping stops but silence, like hope, can’t live here long. He shrieks, long and shrill and loud enough to trigger a responsive roar from deep within the greenery. I slam a fist against the glass, then turn and try to make a run for the stairs. The stomping starts off dull, but it doesn’t take long for it to sharpen into something close. It’s tailing me, I know it, but I try anyway.  

           I’m greeted by the angel, stingray as I hit floor two. It’s huge now, though, and,  somewhere in my pain-fogged mind, a perfect hiding spot. I limp furiously toward it, not before thinking to flick a speck of blood or two down the steps in a half-hearted attempt at trickery. The angel smiles at me, follows me with its shriveled eyes as I take refuge behind it. Not a moment too soon. I can hear the thing panting, stomping down the steps, sniffing. It screeches and I  freeze, but it thuds its way down to the first floor before it catches wind of me.  

           I am going to run. I am going to, no matter how much I can’t. I am going to run out those damned doors and into that vast nothing that surrounds this place, I am going to run for my life until I can wake up or get out or be anywhere away from here. I thank my guardian angel and peek around its shriveled leg to make sure the coast is clear. I am going to make it out of here, I  tell myself. I limp to the stairs, then down to my freedom, one slow step at a time. Careful, now,  no noises yet. I can’t hear anything, no breathing or panting or slobbering, so I have to wonder if this is the right choice. I continue to spiral, physically, mentally, with freedom close at hand. I  almost fall down the final two steps, but I manage to get a hold of myself before anything worse can happen. I still don’t hear it. That doesn’t matter anymore, though. I work my way up from a limp to a jog, then a mad dash for those double glass doors, nearly slipping on a jellyfish as I  race with arms outstretched toward the light—I hit the glass. The doors are locked. I hit the glass, I try to shatter my way to freedom,  cringing as the shard burrows deeper into my arm. I hear breathing behind me now, and a hand crawls its way onto my shoulder, patting me like it’s trying to soothe me. Hot breath warms my  ear as it coos, “Shhh.”  

           I look at my freedom, then my reflection—unchanged and unwarped and now doubled. It tricked me. This fucking thing tricked me. 

           “I did, didn’t I?” It grins with my mouth, says this with my voice. That beast it made itself out to be would’ve been better than this.  

           “Let’s not get rude, now.” It mocks, reaching another hand up to my head, petting me.  “What do you want?” I finally manage in a shaky, shaky voice.  

           “You couldn’t tell?” It wraps its arms around my shoulders, hugging me from behind. At some point its hand reaches up to stroke my cheek.  

           I don’t answer. Instead, I ask, “Why trick me?”  

           “I need you afraid.”  

           “What?” 

           “It’s easier afraid.” Its hand shifts from my cheek to my eyes, and it presses its palm flush to my lids. “Wasn’t this what you wanted? To come back here?”  

           “I want to wake up now.” My words come out stilted. 

           “Already done.” 

           My hand jerks up, trying to hit this thing off of me. I feel fingers press deep into my head,  squeezing tighter, holding harder, and its other hand runs for the glass in my side, shoving it,  twisting it, unlocking a scream so guttural, one I’ve never heard before.

           I wake up against the cold, dark tile, still surrounded by glass and blood. I am alone again.

About the Author:

Ciarra Hawkins is currently a junior working towards a BFA in Creative Writing at Chapman University. She has been writing for as long as she can remember, and “Dreamscape” marks her first attempt at putting her work into the world. She thanks you for your consideration.