Musings of a 22 year old

He always had the same dream. And it always left him breathless and terrified and sweating. And it always led to a series of sleepless nights. He didn’t quite remember when it had all started. The dreams, the chills, the fear of the unknown. But it somehow felt familiar. The fear. He felt he knew why he was the way he was. Yet he didn’t. There were times when he could almost catch hold of where it had all started from. And the next moment, it would be lost. Out of his grasp. There were times when he would just freeze at random moments. He could never figure out what it was that made him freeze.

But he knew one thing for sure. He was not a coward. Otherwise he wouldn’t be one of the finest commandos on the Joint Task Force of one of the most powerful countries in the world. His record spoke for itself. And there had never been a time when he’d frozen at any of his assignments. He was the person everyone could rely on. His whole Department knew that. He knew he had in him what it took to be the best at his job.

But that day was different. It was a case of mass kidnapping. They were in a workshop of some kind.  Everything was going smoothly. They almost had all the civilians safe. They had all of the assailants on their gunpoint.  And then something happened. One of the assailants they had missed got hold of an axe. And he thrust forward towards his fellow commando with incredible rage. It was either the axe or the expression on the assailant’s face or his scream that did it. He froze. He couldn’t move. And in spite of the pandemonium all around him, he couldn’t hear a thing.

He started sweating profusely. And that’s when he had the dream again. Only now, it wasn’t much of a dream. It was more of a recollection. A revisit to the scariest nightmare of one of the strongest men in the world. It was a lazy, warm afternoon. He was sitting in the corner of his dingy childhood apartment. His stepfather was hitting his Mom as usual. He had never really liked his stepfather. He was a drinking, abusing husband who didn’t let go of a single chance to hit his Mom. He hated him with all his guts. He wanted to do something for his Mom. But he was a helpless 8 year old.

And he was scared. Scared of his father. Scared of everything that happened around in his house. That’s when he saw his Mom. And for the first time in his life, he was scared of her. She had this apoplectic expression on her face. She picked up the garden axe that was lying there, let out a blood curdling scream and right there in front of his eyes butchered his stepfather to death. To pieces. He remembered the blood, his Mom’s face, the smell of death.

That’s when he realized that he had made the biggest mistake of his life. The assailant had realized what was happening and plunged towards the commando who had frozen. The dying commando’s last thought was the irony of life. He had been killed by the dream he had had all his life and had lived the nightmare until his dying breath.

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This post has been written for picture it & write by ermilia