Do you think we're just going to let you go?"

"

A year ago, my parents left home for a few days at the dacha (a fairly rare occurrence). They were supposed to return on Tuesday. On Sunday night, I stayed up late at the computer until three or four o'clock. Just when my eyes were starting to droop, I bolted the gate, put the cat in bed next to me, and fell asleep.

Suddenly, I was awakened by some vague sounds coming from the hallway. I assumed it was our second cat acting up. I opened my eyes to complete darkness—the only window was covered by an opaque curtain. I flicked the switch on the bedside lamp, but it didn't come on. I made a mental note to put in a new one and carefully got up, trying not to disturb the cat. To my surprise, the overhead light didn't turn on either. I assumed there was a power outage, but then the light in the hallway came on (we have a motion detector).

 I opened the door to the hallway—it was packed. All my parents' friends, who gather at our place for holidays, were home, and so were my parents. My mother was sitting in the kitchen with a friend. I asked her why all these people were home and why they'd returned a day earlier than expected. She answered something vague, something like, "They decided to get together for no reason, and to do it, they had to arrive early."

And then it dawned on me—I asked how they'd gotten in the house, past the bolted gate. At that moment, I woke up in complete darkness in my bed. I immediately flicked the switch, but the light, just like in the dream, didn't come on. Then I got seriously scared. I sat up on the bed and shook the cat awake. I started pinching myself—it hurt, I started slapping myself—I could feel it, I examined everything carefully—it was all completely real, down to the smallest detail. After confirming I wasn't dreaming, I headed to the kitchen for a drink of water. But when I opened the door to the hallway, I saw my mother standing there. I immediately started screaming, "You couldn't get past the gate, so it must be a dream!" but she just smiled silently. Then I started to wake up—I tried to move my limbs, to feel myself lying on the bed. Everything before my eyes began to blur, and finally, I woke up in a cold sweat. I immediately turned on the light bulb (successfully) and relaxed on the bed, trying to figure out what had happened, and how I couldn't tell I was dreaming—neither pinching nor any other methods helped. Meanwhile, I giggled nervously, trying to calm myself. The cat looked at me, squinting in the light from the bedside lamp. I grinned and said, "What are you staring at? I was just having a nightmare, it happens."

To which she responded in a human voice, "Are you sure it's over? "You think we're just going to let you go?" Then I was overcome with some unimaginable, irrational, primal terror. Hysterically, I tried to scream, move my limbs, fall out of bed—anything. After half a minute of fighting sleep that felt like an eternity, I finally opened my eyes, jerking and making an inarticulate sound. I immediately jumped out of bed, ran through the house, turning on all the lights, called someone (it was four-thirty in the morning, but I didn't care), turned on some music, and sat at the computer until dawn.

Around eight o'clock, I finally went to bed with the curtains open and the light shining in my eyes. I wondered if "they" would let me go this time. But this time I slept without dreams, and the other nightmares I had later were still unrelated to that dream—I woke up and forgot about it 10 minutes later. But since then I have been afraid of the continuation of that dream.