A swaying sensation pulled at my body, a sensation I’d felt before. I was dreaming. I used to love dreaming as a child, never was I a nightmare sufferer. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve experienced life, the more in depth my dreams have become. Suddenly dimension and development are big focuses. Such as the case with now... I’ve opened my eyes to see a form of fast food restaurant before me. It’s beautiful, actually, somewhat cartoonish in it’s loud colours that picture quite the scene when paired with the distance pink hued sky. As my feet move upon my own command, a thought of lucid dreaming crosses my mind, am I lucid dreaming? The way I’m capable of controlling all my body is strange, I’m aware of the brisk breeze moving my hair away from my face, aware of the feeling of the strangely soft and wet ground beneath my feet. Despite me wearing shoes, I can feel the ground as though I were bare foot. I look back up. The doors open and close as customers crowd in and out, despite the windows being clear I can’t quite make out anything within the building. I venture in before I’ve had a chance to form a real impression of the fast food restaurant. As I enter, I’m filled with a desire, one I pursue without understanding it; I’ve clocked in for my shift. Now I’m aware I’m wearing an employee uniform. It’s a soft fabric, like a pyjama fabric. I suppose some things don’t translate into dreams when my real body is asleep ... elsewhere.

I retreat behind the counter and smile at my fellow co-workers. I don’t know why. But my smile doesn’t falter upon my realisation that every single employee resembles me. Resembles me exactly. Down to my new hair colour and the scar at the bottom of my chin from when I fell over onto a rock as a kid. It’s uncanny. Yet, despite this being a horrific realisation, it calms me. Seeing my own face smiling back at me is calming. They don’t speak, but whenever one of them stares at me, I can hear their voices. It echoes in my own mind. It’s not hard to deduce we must be telepathic. Dreams hold no rules, and so admittedly this doesn’t exactly shake my core. I hear one of them tell me to work at the tills today. “Today”... as if I’ll be back. Doubtful. I don’t often dream the same dream again. Finally able to force my tunnel vision to evaporate, I lift my eyes to the entire restaurant and I shudder. The lights are vibrant, each colour on each item is sickeningly bright, the food is all steaming to a concerning standard and the place is busy. That doesn’t bother me. But the hands grabbing the food are creepily long with more knuckles than humans are supposed to have, their fingers curl into tight little positions as they converse. Every hand my eyes lay upon are an other-wordly red or grey hue. Moving up their bodies, their skin morphs into fabric rather than being separate clothes, it physically twists and contorts to appear as though not part of their skin, but I can see their skin-coloured threads tugging against themselves each time their bodies move. All of their “clothes” are a solid black that doesn’t reflect any light. I see as their spindly hands wrap around burgers and fries, their fingertips all curl upwards which causes their nails to narrowly avoid touching their food, they bend their elbows to bring their food to their face and ... it vanishes. Yet I see their throats swallow as though they’ve eaten. I don’t know if they have mouths, actually, as everywhere I look they all wear golden masks with printed black mouths and eyes on top. I can hear chatting amongst the restaurant, but I can’t see any mouths moving. I notice quickly that within the printed back eyes on the golden masks, there’s little blue or green or brown eyes within. One of the people sat at their tables notices me staring, their green eyes vibrate and deepen in colour. I feel goosebumps prickle my skin. I turn away.

I notice somebody entering the establishment and any hint of fear I felt before is elevated. It’s just a dream anyways, there’s nothing to fear. Somebody enters and gives me a piece of paper, “a cheeseburger. No tomato”. I smile and input the request into the till. The amount pops up on the screen and I ask them for the total. I realise there’s no card machine, I suppose this dream is set a little back in time with purely cash. I see the person’s head dip as their golden mask shines the light behind me, they lift their hands which I see are a red hue. I smile, but it wavers upon seeing there’s no wallet or coins or anything in their hand. I wait to see how this dream plays out. Their head tilts to the side as their left fingers crowd their right index finger. Every single nail is of different size, none that seem in preportion to the size of their fingers. They fold each knucle down and clasp around the nail. My smile drops. With a flick of a wrist and a disgusting crack and snap in my ears, they fold their nail over and rip it from its bed. There’s no flinch. It peels with ease and reveals a black ooze beneath the nail that detangles and squishes as the nail is drawn further away. The nail is placed in front of me. I suddenly feel more squeamish. With a nervous smile, I pick it up and open the till. Inside are different sized nails that, I notice, are all wriggling and moving, sliding between each other as though to get comfy. I place the nail inside and close the till. A receipt pops out, which I hand over.

“It will just be a moment.” I say.

I turn to face my employees who all stare back at me upon my turn, I tell them,

“one cheeseburger” and they return to their work. I hear the door again, but before I turn, I notice one employee still staring at me. Their eyes are wide, face still. Slowly, without blinking, they approach me. I hope I don’t appear this unsettling in staring contests. She walks right up to me, to the point our noses touch. She’s freezing cold. My nose feels instantly numb. Her hand lifts to something behind us both and I hear her say, but don’t see her say “read the sign”.

She walks away. I’m suddenly not a large fan of this dream. My finger touches the tip of my nose, I flinch back. It’s like ice. It feels completely numb. I spin my head to see where she pointed to notice a very, very tiny sign that reads “feed the golden eyes first”. I haven’t seen anyone with golden eyes, only golden masks. But every single person par from the employees have a golden mask on. I turn back to the door, which I heard a minute or so ago now, and see exactly what I was warned of. All is the same, a grey or red hue in their skin, several more knucles in their fingers, fingernails which don’t match the fingers and a golden mask. But in their black little sockets of the masks are golden circles instead of green or blue or brown. There’s four of them, they move in near sync. For some reason, I just know they’re all ladies. One of those things were a dream signals to me a truth, one I’m thankful for. They approach and say nothing, I presume they’re deciding what to get but they aren’t looking at the menu, they’re scanning the kitchen behind me. I raise an eyebrow and ask “What would you like to order?”

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I’m ignored. They silently scan further, ignoring my presence. Their eyes linger on something for a moment, then each of their heads violently snap 90 degrees to the side as their golden eyes grow in size. I flinch. They seem furious. I notice the gold in their eyes swirls in delicate movements, much opposite to them now. They’re still as their eyes grow and grow, becoming more vibrant, too. I glance to where they look to see an employee, a version of me, struck with fear as her mouth is opened to an ungodly size, inside are no teeth and no tongue, just a wet, dark red hole. Her eyes are aware, she’s crying. The other employees in the kitchen seemed to have sped up in their work. Finally, they let her go, she falls to the ground with a thud. The golden-eyed ladies snap their head back to me one of them slams down an envelope on the table before they all turn to walk out the building. I feel confused and horrified. Other employees ignore the girl, stepping over her and continuing on, still with a rushed and tense manner they didn’t have before the ladies entered. Somebody takes over the job, too. I look to the envelope and pick it up. It sayd “DEFECTIVE EMPLOYEE” on it. It’s sealed. I lift my thumb to open it, but I sudden hand clasps onto my shoulder. I jump and look back. It’s an employee, staring at me, shaking her head. She points behind me to a corridor and motions for me to take the envelope down there. I nod and begin to walk towards it. I make a point to not make eye contact with any of the customers, though they seem happy enough.

I keep looking down to the envelope as I circle around to the corridor and begin to walk down it. I stop. Instantly. It’s gone deathly silent, it’s become colder, and it’s become very, very dark. I look ahead of me to see the dark corridor leading to a blue door. A large, deep blue door with a golden doorknob and keyhole. I look behind me, the lights look as though they’ve turned off as it’s gone darker than it was before. I feel suddenly more terrified. The only light illuminates from the door, though it’s more of a moonlight than a bright light type. Reluctant, I clutch the envelope and walk brisk to the door. Once I slide the envelope under the door, I can leave. I might even wake up.

It feels like the corridor surrounds me as I venture down it, like it taunts me. I know it’s not, but it feels like it’s shirnking around me and getting darker. I blink frequently to stop my mind playing tricks on me. As I near it, I become unsure if I’m hearing a sound or it’s another mind trick. I blink, it’s like it resets me, but this time the sound doesn’t fade. It must be real. It’s certainly coming from behind the door, and now closer I can notice from under it and from the keyhole is another vague light illuminating. Somebody must be in there, judgining by the sign on the door saying “MANAGER”, I take wild guess. But the sign doesn’t seem merely informative, it feels like a warning or a threat.

The sounds are like vacant groans of all pitches and ranges. Taking into account the dream so far, I can only imagine what the manager must look like. Once again the dream informs me something; the manager is a he. I don’t think it’s important, but now I know. I stop in front of the door and close my eyes. I listen to the sounds that deafen out the silence, but they’re vague and distant. I re-open my eyes and bend down in front of the door to push the envelope through. It must be a complaint about staff, but I guess I can’t open it and I won’t ever know. As the envelope gets halfway, it feels as though somebody on the other side pulls it their way and it escapes from my hands. I stay crouched, my hand retreats from the door. I noticed a light protruding from the keyhole just above my eyes. I could look into the keyhole and see what the manager is like. I can hear the groans still, they’re loud and I can hear desperation in their voices. They aren’t distant anymore. I feel strangely nervous and on edge. I start being able to define each voice, they have an individual intonation and emotion. I focus on one at a time, on this gentle voice that sounds slow. The intonation sounds like a mumbled sentence, I begin to realise, I listen further and notice all of the voices sound like a mumbled sentence. I focus on the part of the door I’ve been staring at through all of this, the light just above on my head has gone. He must’ve turned a light off. I keep listening. Suddenly letters in their voices can be heard, the aggression of a “K” or the rhythm in an “M”, the trapped sound at a back of a throat in the letter “A”. They become more frequent, to the point I’m hearing sentences.

“Don’t eat...”

“Go away...”

“...he won’t let...”

“Leave the door.”

“The food is us.”

“...he knows...”

What does that mean? I raise my eyes to look in the keyhole as my curiosity grows. I let out a yelp of fear and push myself back from the door after I see a large, bloodshot, blue eye staring at me through the keyhole. The voices return to groans. I begin to scramble away and turn my back to the door, I run down the corridor. But I don’t seem to be going anywhere. Just like in all dreams, I can’t ever run, I move like I’m in slow motion. Behind me, the door squeaks open. I feel dread drown my body. The more desperate I am to run, the slower my moves appear to travel. A shadow appears from the light of the door, a horrific, misfigured shadow that creeps all the way down the corridor. Within the body, I can see several limbs all reaching out from the main body. Like hundreds or thounsands of extra body parts have been added ... including human heads. I can see the shadow of their noses and ears and lips. I feel tears prickle my eyes, I repeat over and over,

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

But I don’t. I usually do. But this time, I don’t. I can’t. I’m so scared. I see the shadow moving closer to me, he’s faster than me. I feel his presence and hear the groans furiously screaming out. It’s loud and defeaning, it’s also right behind me. I see the shadow move its arms up, I feel roasting hot skin near my own flesh. It doesn’t even make contanct with me yet. I try to duck down to avoid it, but his hand swoops over my head and presses against my throat. I let out a gargled scream as the skin is so hot against my flesh, I hear it sizzling away at me, the arm physically fuses into my own melting skin. My voice screams out, but it isn’t loud, it’s like a whisper. The arms squeezes, each bit of contact sizzles louder than the last. It burns and I cry, but he doesn’t stop. Another arm moves and I notice it sprinkles cheese over my forearm, I try to shake it off of me but the arm quickly grabs onto my forearm where the cheese was placed. I scream as it sizzles. He begins to drag me backwards as I continue to burn. I hate to say it, but it smells amazing. It smells like the start to a perfect cheeseburger. My screams are completely pathetic, they’re just whispers. I keep trying to scream, trying to get away, but each time I wriggle in his grasp, he holds onto another part of my flesh and burns it to a perfect shade of brown. The pulsing of my blood under the burnt areas aches me to give up. I feel my eyes grow tired and the deafening sounds of the groans around me becoming faded. I keep crying, I can’t stop, but I stop wriggling for life.

“Wake up.” I can’t even say it, I don’t even think I mouthed it.

But I don’t wake up. I don’t wake up. I don’t wake again, though I keep mumbling and groaning out to keep trying.