>>> Such bloody dreams...

... do humans have.

Woke up this morning feeling even more tired than when I went to sleep. Even more so due to a strangely disturbing dream that I had.

Especially since it had me waking up with a silent scream and almost bathed in cold sweat.

Allow me to relate the details of my travails within the Realms of Dreams.

I was in a dim room, lying face down on a wooden counter-top of some kind, the grains of wood rough against my skin. What light there was shone down through a grimy bulb fixed to a lamp swinging from the ceiling.

My wrists and ankles were tied down, the cords chaffing, yet bound tight. I was only able to crane my neck up a little off the table to see a full-length mirror with words scrawled across it in a dark red paste almost like clotted blood. I realize now that the mirror was how I knew the swinging lamp was above me. The words swam across the mirror's surface like words typed across a screen, seemingly alive.

All I could make, from among the multitude of passages and phrases, was this, "Broken thou art, thy back snapped, thy heart lost. She careth not for thee, or, as more likely, careth not enough by far. Close thou standst, yet further from thy reach doth She dance and caper. Thou havest no need for that which is already broken."

It is still seared in my mind's eye. I can only hope that it fades away soon. It is really quite disturbing.

Yet again, through the mirror, I catch sight of two faceless women with long, curly hair, dressed in blood splattered and ragged nurse-like dresses. And when I say faceless, I really do mean faceless. Faceless without any features, flat and as plain as a plate. As one of them moves, her hair swings, her bangs sweeping across her forehead, I catch a glimpse a symbol that looks almost Japanese carved into her forehead.

(After much searching, I finally found the closest possible kanji to it: 死)

I strangely feel no fear or wonder or any sort of emotion. It is like I'm numb on the inside. I'm watching, with detachment, as one of the faceless nurses produces a scalpel of her palm. A scalpel the length of my middle finger.

And while one presses down on my shoulders, the scalpel wielder plunges the scalpel down between my shoulder blades and in one movement, slices my back open all the way down to the base of my back. My flesh parts like butter sliced with a red-hot knife, the blood that sprays in the air vaporising as though the air was boiling hot.

My back feels like somewhat has set me on fire by throwing me into a raging bonfire with my skin already torn off. I scream but no sound comes out, my eyes are open so wide that I can almost feel my eyelids going back into my eye sockets.

Then the two nurses rip out my spine.

The raging pain disappears, replaced by a low burning sensation and a fading sting-like pain.

And then I watch in horror as one nurse drives her arm in through my open back and digs around for a while before pulling her arm out in a fountain of spraying blood and chunks of meat.

She's holding my heart in a crushing grip with her up-stretched arm and...

It's. Not. Beating.

I try to scream, my mouth opened wide...

... and I wake up in my bed, mouth open to scream but no sound coming out.

And I swear that my back felt like it was on fire and for a few moments I think I couldn't feel my heart at all. The weird, vivid dreams that plague my sleep, and this is the worst nightmare of all time so far.

Hope the rest of you can sleep peacefully.

Or at least more than I do.