The Dream

A man has a dream is it real

The flickering gaslight cast long, skeletal shadows across the room, dancing with the tremors that ran through Arthur Finch’s body. He wasn't just Arthur Finch, the mild-mannered accountant with a penchant for dusty tomes and a crippling fear of heights. In the hushed, nocturnal hours, he was the Scary Man. This persona, born from a childhood fascination with the macabre and a potent imagination, was his secret solace, a thrilling escape from the mundane.


Tonight, however, the thrill had curdled into a cold, gnawing dread. His dream had been impossibly vivid, a masterpiece of terror painted in the canvas of his subconscious. He’d seen himself, but not as the Scary Man, nor as Arthur. He’d seen himself as a victim.



The dream wasn’t about a dramatic, orchestrated demise. It was mundane, almost tragically so. He’d been walking home, the familiar damp chill of an autumn evening clinging to his coat. A sudden, violent lurch, a flash of blinding headlights, the sickening crunch of impact, and then… nothing. Just the echoing silence of a dream ending, leaving behind the chilling certainty of his own mortality.



He woke with a gasp, the taste of metallic fear still thick on his tongue. The gaslight, his usual companion in his nocturnal explorations, now seemed to mock him with its unsteady glow. The shadows it cast weren't exciting anymore; they were accusatory, pointing fingers at his vulnerable, sleeping form.



He tried to shake it off. It was just a dream, wasn't it? He was Arthur Finch, a creature of habit, a man who meticulously planned his day down to the minute. He’d never been reckless. He’d never put himself in harm’s way. The Scary Man was a fantasy, a harmless puppet he controlled.



But the dream had been too real. The sensation of the impact, the phantom ache in his limbs, the profound sense of finality �" they clung to him like a shroud. He spent the morning in a self-imposed paralysis, staring at his perfectly organized desk, the spreadsheets on his monitor blurring into an incomprehensible mess. Every car horn outside sent a jolt through him. Every passing pedestrian felt like a potential harbinger.



His colleagues noticed. “Arthur, are you alright?” inquired Mrs. Gable, her voice laced with her usual concern. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”



Arthur offered a weak smile, a performance he’d perfected over years of social interaction. “Just a… a bad night’s sleep, Mrs. Gable. Nothing to worry about.”



But the fear was a persistent whisper, growing louder with each passing hour. He found himself replaying the dream’s details �" the exact angle of the streetlamp, the specific shade of grey of the asphalt, the chilling realization that it was not an abstract entity, but him, walking into oblivion.



He tried to dismiss the Scary Man within him. He tried to cling to the comforting ordinariness of Arthur Finch. But the dream had pierced through that carefully constructed facade. It had merged the two, creating a horrifying synthesis: Arthur Finch, the victim, caught in a real-world echo of his own terrifying fantasy.



As the afternoon wore on, the internal debate raged. Was it a warning? Was the Scary Man, in his morbid prescience, trying to tell him something? Or was it just the overactive imagination finally turning on its creator?



He decided to break his routine. A radical departure, a desperate attempt to outmaneuver fate. Instead of his usual quiet walk home through the park, he’d take the familiar main road, the one he always avoided because of the heavier traffic, the less predictable elements. Perhaps, he reasoned with a desperate hope, by altering the script, he could change the ending.



The autumn air was crisp, carrying the scent of decaying leaves and distant exhaust fumes. The shadows along the pavement were long and distorted, just like in his dream. He kept his gaze firmly fixed ahead, his heart thrumming a frantic, irregular rhythm against his ribs. Every approaching headlight felt like a personal accusation.



He was nearing the intersection, the very one he’d seen in his dream, when he heard it. The screech of tires, a sudden, blinding glare. He instinctively flinched, his mind flashing back to the dream’s opening moments.



But this time, there was no waking up.



The impact was as sharp and brutal as he’d imagined. The world exploded into a chaos of sound and sensation, a terrifyingly real culmination of a dream that had, in its own macabre way, proven to be a premonition.



The Scary Man, the controller of fear, the master of imagined horrors, had finally met his most terrifying creation. And in the cold, unforgiving reality of a Tuesday afternoon, Arthur Finch, the mild-mannered accountant, truly died. The gaslight in his room would flicker on, casting shadows, but Arthur would no longer be there to find a thrill in them. He was gone, a victim of the very darkness he’d so often courted in his dreams.

Reviews

[damienf]

Hi Mark, this is a punchy, well written story, thick with atmosphere. No criticisms to offer, only a suggestion to explore the scary man aspect just a little more. Even one paragrah? Keep the mystery but hint, layer a little paint on that part of the portrait.

As always, only a suggestion and good luck!

Best, Damien.