CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: NIGHT TERRORS

I thought the night terrors were gone for good. I mean, since Gregory's spirit had been exorcised by Robin, he should stop following me, right? That was my thought. That was what Robin made me to believe. So, I thought if he didn't follow me anymore, the night terrors would stop. For good. They didn't. They came back days after. Sometimes it'd feel like I was being punctured by a deep, sharp object and I'd wake up with a deafening scream, sometimes it came like a simple not-too-good dream, and some other times, I felt like I was sinking, or falling down a cliff. The thing was, they all scared me. So I concluded that Gregory didn't want to leave me. He's decided to make use of my sleep to torment me now, or maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was just a nightmare disorder if there was anything like that? I didn't know, and I didn't want to talk to mom or anybody about it. You know the reason. I didn't want to return to Dr Brown's, or perhaps this time around, mom would take me to a stronger specialist, perhaps a psychiatrist who'd drag me into an asylum , a mental hospital where I'd end up actually becoming one of those crazy people. I am not crazy. I wasn't and I aren't. It's just ...I don't know what was going on with me. To avoid screaming, I started to cover my mouth with a lot of cotton wool and duct tape that I bought at a store secretly. I'd stuff the wool in my mouth and then tape my lips together, while I went to bed, so that at least my voice would not be loud enough to rouse attention from my parents. Surprisingly, it worked. Or maybe I usually jerked awake early enough to stop the screams. It didn't help so much that I was now back to sleeping alone in my room. You know, mom and Cameron were uniting again, and there was nothing I could do to prevent that. It was actually a good development. Exactly two weeks after mom's visit to Nora (with me of course), I had a horrifying experience that night. It was on a normal day with me and my friends at church. I didn't go to church that frequently, except mom dragged me. You know, something about my mom was that she went to church all the time. She believed in God. She took me along many times but hee devotion dwindled after the incident with Cameron where she ended up calling under the tree, metres way from our house. She had been scared to death. She thought she'd lose her babies. After they were born, she refused taking them to church for Thanksgiving. She claimed the church had more enemies than friends. After I returned from camp, she stopped going to church, but she didn't stop praying in her closet, for all of us. In my nightmare, I was walking with mom. It seemed to me that we were returning home from church Along the line, mom told me to keep on walking ahead, because she had to talk to a friend of hers in the church neighborhood. So, I kept walking home on my own. As I walked, it got to a point that I could feel my legs getting heavy and my gait, imbalanced. I felt like I was falling down a cliff. You know when you're descending a mountain slowly and carefully, maybe out of fear or sheet carefulness, yes, that's exactly how it felt. It didn't feel like an earthquake because it only happened to me. Other people were walking on the same road, but I was the only one who felt like I was falling deep down into the ground. The ground was sloping downwards as I walked, but if you looked at it, or if I merely stood on a spot, it was straight and smooth. I was so scared that I ran back towards the church, and as I ran, I kept falling backwards , slowly, backwards... Falling, and falling...until my body was totally buried in the ground, never to be found again, as the ground closed up over me. Of course I screamed. Who wouldn't? It was a silly one because why in the first place were we trekking back home? Mom's car was in the parking lot, fine and had enough gas. So, why did we trek? Besides, mom asking me to walk ahead while she waited to see someone has got to be the silliest part of the dream. Mom would never leave me alone. Even now that I'm grown, she still watches over me most times. It was not in her nature to abandon me. Or anybody she loved. Not so easily. Immediately I opened my eyes to reality, with cold sweat breaking out on my brow and forehead, I took off the duct tape and cotton wool, and waited. No sound in the hallway. No staggering feet. No movements at all. The night was still very young but my parents were already deeply asleep. Nobody heard my screams. Definitely, or they'd have come running to me Did they not hear me because the walls of their room was soundproof, or because I had my mouth sealed even in sleep? I would never know. However, I was grateful no one heard me. Despite that I was relieved, I still felt like being heard, at least. Someone should have been more attentive for me. They both knew I experienced night terrors and I saw a spooky figure at my window almost every night, they should have watched over me a bit more. It was a battle for attention and secrecy all at once. That night, I could not fall back to sleep. I switched on my bedside lamps and the lights and just stared into nothing. When I got bored, I surreptitiously walked into my bathroom to brush my teeth, have a bath and afterwards, I sat at my table, where I did the only thing I really loved doing--draw. Before i started to draw the picture of what I had seen, I meditated for a moment. I sat on my rug, with my feet facing each other and my hands stretching sideways, and with my eyes shut-- the way Dr Brown had taught me. He called it yoga, and I must confess, they always worked for me. It's just that I coveted a permanent maybe magical solution. That wasn't yoga. After minutes of yoga, I was a bit relaxed enough to draw. So, I carefully shut my eyes and dabbed my brush on the palette-the one Cameron bought me, as though I were meditating deeply. And without looking at my paper, I drew everything in my imagination. When I finally opened my eyes, I found that it was amazing. It was perfect! It was exactly how I had seen it in my dream. This was what I did to explain to Dr Brown how my night had been, because most times I could not explain in a way that he could feel what I felt. I wanted him to feel it. Like he was there too. So, I usually drew a picture of my experience. Most times, I didn't get to paint them perfectly well but this one? I did! It was so perfect, and staring at it for too long made me forget my surroundings. Satisfactory. It was capable of burying you into it. The night also kind of gave it a smooth realness. Sensational. I kept the painting in my wardrobe after it was done and dried, and I was sure the colours matched my imagination. Then I went back to sleep. I usually very rarely had two experiences in one night, so I knew it was safe to go back to sleep.