(Short Story) The Blur Between Night and Day

If you think nightmares are exclusive to human-oriented creatures, here’s proof that you’re wrong:

I was still a Khando-larva when I had my first. The euphoric feeling of complete solitude and unawareness in a dream-state turned into a desolate fear and a desire to feel free from the shackles of slumber. But escape could not be found near. Instead of intense gore, my nightmares were psychological horror-fests filled with staring faces and unsettling demons that relayed my every thought. I approached my mother after a week of continuous nightmares only for temporary comfort found in a deep, warm hug. Our society doesn’t believe much in positive mental well-being. To be honest, they only know how to hunt and sleep. I say “they” because clearly, I can’t do the ladder.

As I grew into my full Khando form, I realized I could avoid my nightmares by simply avoiding sleep. Well, simply isn’t the right word to use. Insomnia created new horrors in my conscious reality. The inability to functionally hunt caused me to become the resident social pariah of our colony. I fell into a deep depression, which only made the conscious moments worse. My family did the best they could to love me unconditionally, but I needed more than love to save my conscious and unconscious soul from being enveloped in the horrors of my sleep.

The next year, on my birthday, my mother came down with an odd grass fever that soon spread rapidly throughout the colony. I took care of her the best I could, but my lack of energy meant I could only offer so much before she passed away. After her death, there was nothing else left in life for me. I felt like a nightmare born into reality. That night when the Viziki came to spray the grass with Khandocides, I decided to take a sniff. The world turned around me and gave me a deep, warm hug. I saw my demons in a new light, dancing around me as I gleefully smiled in a state of semi-conscious bliss. Every night for the next month I would go to the edge of the garden wall and take sniffs of the Khandocides. It wasn’t long before I went to bed peacefully, and my nightmares became joyful images narrated by unconscious thoughts. I even met friends who also sniffed the pesticides. I got really close with two Khandos named Jesper and Anya. The three of us were inseparable at night. No matter how hard our days got, a sniff could always take the pain away, at least temporarily. And temporarily was enough for us three Khandos to live in peace.

On the day of my mother’s death, my birthday, I celebrated all day with Jesper and Anya. We mainly talked about where we see each other in five years, and how all of our answers were lacking a whole lot of hope. I was just happy to live another year to honor my mother’s grave. I don’t think I’ll ever be over her death, but Jesper and Anya helped numb the pain. The Khandocides helped numb the pain. But when we went to sniff that night, I was immediately hesitant. The aura of the nighttime made me feel as if I was about to make a regrettable decision. The eyes of my mother were watching over me, waiting for me to make the wrong decision and turn away from me for the rest of her life in the cosmos. Jesper and Anya tried to understand, but couldn’t.

“If you’re not gonna sniff, then I’m gonna take yours, bud!” Jesper said with unbridled confidence. I wasn’t going to stop him. At least not yet. But Anya was more hesitant to see Jesper act so irrationally.

“I know you do this all the time, but never this much, Jesper.” She paused to see if he would react, but Jesper was too high to notice. “Seriously. You need to chill out.”

The word “chill” truly resonated with Jesper’s soul as he fell unconscious onto the semi-permeable pavement, greased with sticky Khandocide. Bathing in the one thing that gave him life, all that was left was an absence of it. The claws on his tarsi curled up, as if they were praying for a place in the cosmos above. This was the second time I saw someone perish before me, and I knew then, that it had to be my last.

Later that night I laid awake next to Anya in my bed.

“I’m afraid to fall asleep.” I said. I didn’t want to talk about anybody. I just wanted to feel real, and heard. I was afraid of going back to the terrifying nightmares I used to have.

“You know, I used to have terrible nightmares like you. That’s why I sniff. Like you.” Anya paused to turn towards me. She clearly had something important to say.

“I don’t think it’s possible to avoid nightmares. Instead, I just try to enjoy them. It sounds sick and twisted, but it works. Think about what your demons become when you sniff. When you dream, turn your demons into those same creatures, and they aren’t so scary after all.”

Those words have left a mark on my body ever since. I still have terrible nightmares, but the more I dream them, the less terrifying they become. I like to think of them as short films in my head. Maybe one day I’ll have a creative outlet to use the stories my mind creates. I’m not sure who’ll take a high Khando seriously, though, so maybe it’s time to start working on letting go of the one thing that gave me life.