Dale Baldwin turned off the lamp on his nightstand and lay down in bed in the pitch black bedroom. The window above his twin size bed showed streaks caused by the rain that was currently and constantly running down it. The demonic slashes that the streaks caused reflected against the bedroom door on the opposite wall that was directly in front of Dale's bed, haunting his dreams with its bloody slits. To the left of the door stood the dresser where his clothes hung out of the half closed drawers.
Lying back in bed and closing his eyes, Dale desperately tried to drift off into much needed sleep. But sleep didn't come as peacefully as it once had. After endless minutes of tossing and turning, he finally fell asleep but the dreams were not as peaceful as he had hoped.

Dale didn't know how long it had been since his eyelids slid closed, quickly allowing the darkness to devour him alive, but when he opened them again it was still dark and he guessed around three maybe four in the morning. The rain still hadn't stopped and it pounded on his roof in violent thuds as if it were ready to take his house down.
Sitting up, he reached over and switched on the desk lamp. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. Taking his hands away from his eyes, with his short black hair in disarray, he gasped in terror and nearly jumped out of bed screaming.
Standing opposite him in the closed doorway of his bedroom was a figure of a thirteen-year-old girl. She stood among the rain slashes as if they were attempting to rip her apart, which only illuminated her appearance. She was a standing grayish-black blur with her face blurry and invisible to him. All her could see was the long grayish hair hanging over her shoulders and following to her chest. It seemed as if a gray pencil sketch was standing a couple yards away from him.
"Who are you?" Dale asked, frantically trying to push the covers off so he could stand up but it wasn't working. His legs had gotten tangled in the sheets at awkward angles and it only hurt more to pull on the covers. Soon he was sitting up in bed in a panic with cold sweat covering his body.
His right hand desperately searched for anything solid on the nightstand with his eyes never leaving the little girl. Fear overwhelmed his mind. Finally wrapping his hand around an unsharpened pencil he tossed it at the figure. To his horror, the pencil went right through her and bounced off the door. "What are you?"
"I'm a dream shadow, a nightmare," the girl hissed in a cracked voice. She never moved but began to sway back and forth. "I'll be there soon." With that she was gone and darkness quickly flooded over him.

Opening his eyes again, Dale stared around the empty sunlit bedroom and felt the cold sweat forcing the white t-shirt to cling to his skin. "Ah," he sighed heavily. "Just a bad dream."
Showering, dressing, and quickly eating, Dale drove to work with confusion and fear still shadowing him. I'll be there soon. The words echoed in his mind. What did she mean He thought, laughing to himself. Nothing at all, it was just a bad dream. A nightmare.
He pulled into the parking lot and hastily made his way to the tenth floor where he worked. "Are you feeling okay?" Josh, a friend of his at work, asked during lunch. "You seem a little shaky." He laughed and pointed to the coffee pot. "Look at that man, you're shaking."
"Oh, it's nothing really," Dale answered, quickly pouring his coffee and putting the pot back down with a smile. "Just a nightmare I had." That's all it was, a nightmare. He tried to reassure himself weakly.
"Oh," Josh replied, leaving Dale to his trouble thoughts.
The day went by quickly and before he knew it, Dale once again found himself lying in bed not sure if he wanted to go to sleep. He knew it was foolish to think anything off it, he was a grown man. He didn't need to get scared but he couldn't help it. It felt . Only a dream, he reassured himself as he turned off the light. The cold outside air pushed into the windows and walls and the rain had started up again leaving its slits across from him. It wasn't long before darkness consumed him.

This time his eyes shot open and his right hand had no problem finding the lamp switch and soon the dim light filled the room. As first glance he relaxed, thinking that no one was there but then his eyes fell upon the pencil sketched girl now standing at the foot of his bed. Still swaying back and forth, Dale noticed in fear that she was a couple feet closer to him then the night before.
"You look scared," came the hissing voice from inside the blurry face. Once again in made the cold sweat begin to pour out of Dale's pores and cover his body. Dale couldn't find his voice, he merely gasped in terror, completely unable to believe that he had had the same nightmare two nights in a row. Surely it was nothing.
"Why are you doing this?" Dale asked in a shaky, whispered voice. The gray figure kept swaying and took a few steps towards him. "What do you want with me?" The figure started to giggle as it took another step towards him.
"I'm getting closer." The cracked hissing voice sounded like that of a little girls but with a dead presence to it. And now it sounded amused.
In his anger and fear, Dale threw the covers at the "nightmare" and watched as they fell through it and landed on the floor. Seconds later he jumped to his feet. The little girl was gone and he stood in the bedroom alone with darkness cloaking him. He had finally woken up with his heart pounding and his face glistening with sweat. He couldn't get back to sleep.

The next morning he woke with bags under his eyes and a tired mind in his heart. His thoughts with focused on the pencil sketched figure that was haunting him at night. And the worst part was that he didn't know what it was. Only a nightmare; nothing uncommon. He made it through his day doing his best to compress his fear. What does it mean? What does it want from me? He couldn't answer any of his own questions.
That night Dale braved it again and lay down with the sweat already covering his body before he even fell asleep. The fear was hiding under his skin and clawing to get to the surface. The lamp was already off and it was the first night out of the three that in hadn't rained. Dale guessed that it was a good sign but what could be certain at this point? He waited for the darkness to slowly creep over him as the sweat on his body turned to icy lakes.

His eyes opened but he didn't reach for the lamp, knowing what he was going to see; afraid to even glance up. His blankets had covered half his head during the night. Slightly poking his head out, he peeked over them and saw the little girl's shadowed, pencil sketched figure standing over him a foot or two away with her body rocking from left to right with more force then usual.
"What do you want with me?" Dale almost sobbed from the edge of the blankets, still hiding half his face.
"I'm here," the girl giggled in her hissing voice. Dale thought he saw a small smirk curl up from the depths of that gray-sketched figure. He gasped in fear at the lightness of her crackled voice. What is this thing up too?
Unable to take a second longer of this torment, Dale threw the blankets back and jumped towards the figure with his hand outstretched in a claw shape, wanting to grab her neck.
As his hand met the solid surface of her upper arm, girl's icy, cold gray, dead hand wrapped around his wrist in a tight grip. He released the loudest and most bone-chilling scream ever heard in the town of Augusta. His eyes turned wide and glassy.
"You're not dreaming now!" The little girl laughed as her other icy hand found his neck as another scream escaped his throat. 's only a nightmare! Only a nightmare! The cold October air outside Dale Baldwin's house didn't press into a house of the living any longer.