Fear

• Aston Bailey, Grade 3, Immanuel Lutheran School
• Short Story
• 2017

Finalist in the 'Write Here Write Now 2017' competition

Drip, drip, drip, drip.
“Adam, why are we in the sewers at 3 in the mor-ARRRRGH!”
“Katie?” asked Adam. SLASH!
Adam woke in a cold sweat. “Ka-Katie?”
“What is it Adam? It’s 3 in the morning. You’ve been tossing and turning for hours, waking me up.”
“Forget it,” Adam grunted, glad to discover he was safe in bed all along.
“OK,” Katie said, rolling back over.
The next morning before university, Adam was packing his bag when he saw Katie suddenly morph in to a sort of demonic being.
“What?” Adam mumbled under his breath. Later at university, Adam saw his tutor for health/science morph in to the same demonic creature as Katie had. An 8 foot-tall, grey, wide-mouthed, horned, yellow eyed, something. Adam’s worst nightmare.
‘What’s going on?’ Adam thought. The same happened with all the other tutors throughout his day at university, each one turning in to the same demon.
“Man, I need a rest,” Adam said to himself as he was walking home from university.
As soon as Adam got home he went to bed but whenever he closed his eyes he saw clowns and dead people. Once he finally drifted off to a deep sleep, he had a flash of all his memories from birth to now. Like when he got his first bike, when he fell off a bike for the first time, when he saw a chipmunk eating a sandwich, his 7th birthday, and when he had his first car stolen.
He suddenly woke at 4 in the morning but...it was normal...no demons, no clowns, no one was dead...just normal.
Katie was still laying on her side, just how she was after he woke her following the sewer dream. “Was it still the same night? Did I even go to university? Is Katie a demon? Are my tutors demons? Am I really even awake?” Adam thought, “Which is a dream and which is real?”
As he closed his eyes to go to sleep again he thought “What’s real, what’s fake, should I even sleep?” It wasn’t demons Adam was afraid of now...it was going to sleep!
The End