That Strange Song

I'm 22 years old, and I like to listen to the radio. Strange way to start out a story, but it's relevant. I, personally, like to listen to Mix 103.1. The hosts on that show are hilarious. Anyways, personal preferences aside, I have a story to tell you. This happened when I was 17 years old. I don't know if it was a nightmare, since I haven't had a dream like it, or a premonition.
I wake up one morning to the sound of my alarm going off, the constant mechanical beeping drilling its way through my eardrums and into my brain. I reach over and slap the top of the alarm clock, just barely hitting the massive "Snooze" button. My old alarm clock was set so that when the alarm was shut off, the radio started playing a rock station. This time, though, it started playing something else. It sounded like a classical song, like Mozart, except it was slow, almost deliberately so. I don't know many classic-era composers, but I didn't recognize that song from any of them.
I slowly sit up and stretch my arms out, relishing in the popping sound I hear from the air escaping my joints. I step out of my bed and walk over to my sink, going about my morning routine, when I notice that the music is growing steadily louder. With my toothbrush in my mouth, I walk over to the radio and turn the volume down, dulling the music. I walk back to the sink and continue with my routine, when all of a sudden, my ears are bombarded by a cacophony of noise, seemingly coming from all directions.
I scream (or, at least, I thought I screamed, it was too loud for me to know) and cover my ears, falling to the floor and curling up into the fetal position. After what feels like an eternity, the noise stops abruptly, granting my reprieve from my suffering. I pant heavily and look around me, scanning the room for the source of the torturous noise.
But I don't see anything.
I slowly make my way to my feet and, noticing that the radio wasn't playing music anymore, make my way over to it. I pick it up and examine it, noticing that it had shut itself off completely. No music, no time, no date, nothing. Figuring it must have shorted out, I set it down and scan the room once more, still finding nothing.
Maybe my mom heard it.
I quickly make my way out of my room, passing by my brother's old room, and down the stairs to the front room. I walk to the back, past the kitchen, and to my mother's door, opening it and speaking.
"Hey, mom, did you-"
I'm stopped dead in my tracks when I notice my mother lying on the floor, motionless. Fearing the worst, I rush over to her side and grab her, feeling her skin as cold as ice. "Mom," I say, shaking her fervently, "Mom, wake up!" But she still lies there, not responding to my pleas. I scoot my hands under her, struggling to flip her over, but when I do, I'm greeted with an image that still haunts me to this day.
Her eyes are dull and lifeless, the ocean blue of her irises changed to a dull grey. Her skin is pale, and I can see the blood vessels in her face are swollen, almost to the point of bursting. And her expression... God, her expression... I can scarcely put into words what I saw in her expression, but I'll try.
In one short description, her expression conveyed something I have only felt twice since that day. Horror. True horror. Her eyes were wide, so much so that I can see the edges of her eyelids had split apart slightly. Her mouth was curled into a silent scream, one so wide that I could see her molars. Speechless, I scoot back against the wall, staring at her expression, still not able to come to terms with what I've just seen.
Then, without warning, the noise comes back in force, driving me to tears as I screamed my head off. I tried to count the seconds, and to understand what I was even hearing, but I could barely even think. Finally, when I feel like I can't take any more, the noise immediately subsides, granting me, possibly temporary, respite from it's onslaught. I look up at my mother once more, then shoot to my feet and run out of the room.
I run to my room and grab my cell phone, quickly dialing 911 and holding it to my ear. After a brief moment, the dispatcher comes on the phone.
"911, what is the state of your emergency," she says. I respond quickly.
"Hello, police? My... M-My mom isn't moving, and I think she might be dead. My address is-"
"It's your fault."
The statement hits me like a cement truck. It's my fault? How could she say that?! How could it be my fault?! As if reading my mind, she immediately responds.
"You weren't there to save her."
Before I can even try to speak, she hangs up and the line goes dead. I stare at the phone for a moment, then, as if on a timer, the onslaught resumes. Noise fills my head, driving me into the wall as I cover my ears. As I try to endure it's assault, I begin to hear patterns in the noise. Rhythms and beats. Then, it hits me.
It's the same song I heard on the radio.
Then, it stops. The song stops, I stop, the world around me stops. I can see the dust hanging in the air in front of me. For the longest time, nothing happens. Then...
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.
It's coming from the front door. I wait for a moment, then it returns. Three hard knocks, in rapid succession. I slowly make my way to my feet, then walk over to the front door. I reach for the handle, my hand shaking violently, and grasp it, slowly turning it and opening the door. In front of me was the most horrific thing I had ever seen.
A gangly man stood in front of me. He had no shirt, showing off his malformed torso and crooked bones. His face, plastered onto a misshapen mass of a head, conveyed an expression of dread, one that I could barely place. He reached out to me, making me take a few steps back, then he opened his crooked jaw and uttered two words.
"Your fault."
Then, the door slammed shut by itself. For a moment, I simply stood there, trying to understand what I had just witnessed. When I could move again, I opened the door, only to find nothing there. I walked outside and scanned the area around me, only to find a crow pecking at some roadkill. I walked back inside and slammed the door shut, then ran upstairs to my brother's old room. He was something of a weapon connoisseur, and, likewise, collected many weapons. I grabbed a knife from one of his racks and turned back, only to find something I never would have expected.
My mother was standing in the middle of the room, the same horrified expression plastered on her face. She was staring at me, her arm raised and her finger extended towards me. I slowly walked around her, facing her direction until I could no longer see her, then ran downstairs and out of the house. I ran as fast and as far as my teenage legs could carry me all the way into town. I grabbed the first person I saw and hurriedly explained the situation to them as best as I understood it. As I went on, his expression turned from one of confusion into one of horror. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, rubbing my back to comfort me. He spoke to me in a quiet manner.
"There, there, it'll be alright. Here, come with me. I'll take you to the police."
I began to walk with him, then the song came again, blaring into my ears and dropping me to the floor. I closed my eyes and screamed, holding my head in my hands. It continued for a long time, longer than it ever had before, until I eventually passed out.
I woke up with a start, screaming at the top of my lungs and looking around. For some reason, I was back in my room, sitting in my bed. It took me a few minutes to calm down, but once I did, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that it had all been a dream. I got out of bed and walked downstairs, ready to tell my mom all about the dream I'd had. And then I walked into her room.
She was lying on the ground, in the exact same position I saw her in my dream. My eyes widened and I backed away slowly, fearing that I was still in this nightmarish scenario. I ran upstairs to my room and slammed the door shut, grabbing my phone and dialing the police again.
"911, what is the state of your emergency?"
I relayed all of the information to her, then put the phone down when she said that she would send a patrol car to my house. I peered outside my window until the car drove up to the apartment building, stopping and letting two officers out onto the pavement. I ran downstairs and outside, running straight into one of them and hugging them tightly, sobbing and ranting like a madman about what I had dreamed about.
That's the story of how I dreamed about my mother's death, then it became a reality. I have no idea if this was just a terrifying coincidence, or a harrowing premonition, but it doesn't matter to me right now. Remember when I told you that I had only felt true terror twice in my life? The first time was when I saw my mother dead on the ground.
The second time was this morning, when I heard that strange song again.
Category:Dreams/Sleep
Category:Music
Category:Reality