Trapped In My Nightmare World

• Isabella Chau, Grade 7, Castle Hill High School
• Short Story
• 2022

Excellence Award in the 'Summertime Fun ONLINE' competition

I stared at the blank paper on my desk and rolled the metallic surface on my pen over my palm, getting ready to permanently immortalise the horrors of my nightmares on the piece of paper. I licked the corner of my mouth in anticipation and scribbled down the words that were already scrambling to escape onto the paper. I translated the way the monsters called Hoples stalked me across boggy green water, their black tongues flickering in and out of blood red teeth into words. My pen lifted off the paper and I smiled in satisfaction as I read my work. Not to brag, but I felt that I had perfectly captured the nightmarish qualities of the Hoples. Anyone reading my work would be able to feel the terror they emitted, the stench that oozes out from their grey bodies and the thumps of their lumbering walk.
Suddenly a piercing pain erupted in the back of my skull making a bright red flower blossom in my vision. I crumpled to the ground, my knees pressed up against my ears as the throbbing ache continued. Without warning a vacuum-like feeling pulled me forwards towards my desk, and I blacked out as grey figures seemed to leech out of my paper.
I awoke and found myself on a rock in the middle of a bog. Immediately I knew where I was. Somehow, I was in my own poem…which meant the Hoples were nearby. My blood froze when I felt the vibrations of their uneven walk, and as I got onto my feet, the paper I was writing my poem on drifted down from the sky and fell on my head along with the pen. I stared bemused at why those objects were sucked into my nightmare world with me, then I realised they were my way out. Scrambling for my pen I wrote the leading verses of a new stanza as the first Hople appeared.
‘The Hoples can be defeated by escaping their clutches’
‘Just be the creator of their world and their stories’
The Hoples were more scary than I expected, their odour more rancid than expired milk. They stalked menacingly towards me, their gaping mouths widening as they inhaled the scent of my fear. I glanced down towards my paper and quickly scribbled out the rest of the poem, hoping that it would be the lines that would transport me out.
‘Tap the creator’s pen on the ground three times’
‘And you will be safe for not one but many lifetimes’
I tapped my pen three times like I wrote, but nothing happened. The Hoples lumbered closer towards me, and bile rose in my throat. WHY WASN’T ANYTHING HAPPENING? I looked up again at where the monsters were and I saw with shock that their oozing face was right in front of mine, and I remembered too late that it wasn’t my own pen…but my friend’s…