I don’t like dreams. I never have, never will. Partly because they can be filled with so much nonsense, and partly because the dreamer will believe whatever it is. Until one wakes up and notices all crazy things in it, or forgets the dream altogether. Most of all, dreams seldom tell the truth. How am I to describe a dream with words when there is no rhyme or reason? How to describe the feelings the mind brews up for me as I sleep? I can only try to give a picture of my nightmare.

I woke up standing in my room wearing a common dress. It was night and there was no window or door. The room was covered in dust and instead of my normal furnishing, there was only a small table and a chair shoved against a wall. There was someone knocking behind me so I turned and opened the door.

Behind the door was my mother dressed in a similar dress to mine. Right there before me, she aged from a young maiden to the oldest person I had ever seen. She seemingly towered above me as her roaring voice came as a whisper behind my back.

You should have died like your father, now look what you have wrought upon us. I walked out the door and the ghost of my mother slid to the left side as I passed her. It was day and the sun was shining high in the cloudless sky. I was at the entrance to the valley as it was before we arrived. There was no water running down the middle and trees so far as the eyes could see. There were plenty birds in the sky and animal sounds from the forest. Paradise to my eyes, yet the peace felt so wrong.

As on cue, the sky darkened and strings of smoke rose from the forest. I recognised them as ghost, of what I did not know. Then the mountains rippled and big chunks of stone rolled of them until all that remained was an enormous pile of gravel. I could not see beyond the former mountains. A light absorbing curtain was in the way. I followed the smoke with my eyes up in the sky, and there I saw a mirror image of the valley as we made it.

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The ghosts were trickling into the houses through the windows and doors. The whole village was brown and grey, there was no greens or reds or any other colour. There was no people to be seen, only the ghosts that continued to rise from the forest below to the village above.

I wanted to look back at the forest but when I looked down, I saw the stars fall from their place in the sky. I looked up and saw the world far above my head get destroyed by the falling stars. I took a step forward ready to fall into the burning world below. Instead I found myself standing in the windowless room. The chair and table were nowhere to be found. In the darkest corner was a crib.

I unwillingly walked towards the crib and looked down into it. Two new-born children lay in a pool of blood. I reached my hand towards them. Before I could touch them, I knew they were never to move or cry. Stillborn.

Undead twins. Who would have thought I would give birth to such abominations? A quiet voice said behind me. There might be some sport making them fight each other. I turned around to see who had spoken. The scenery shifted to a silent hill with a dead greying tree at the top. A skeleton with my dress hanging from a noose. I wanted to speak but every time I opened my mouth the wind would start howling drowning my words so much I couldn’t even hear myself speaking.

My body felt weird so I looked at my hands, only to find nothing but my bones and the sleeves of my dress. I looked down at my chest and saw the dress hang loose on what was left of myself.

I looked at the roots of the tree. They grew and slithered further down the hill and the tree grew bigger and bigger. It was still grey and bare but with every branch that came, another skeleton would hang from it. Until it was so huge it covered the sky above my head and I could barely see anything but the dangling feet of the many corpses that had died by my hand. I could hear words coming out from my own lipless mouth once before the world spun into nothingness.

I gave you something, children. Remember what I gave.