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Nightfall Crypt
  • 6/30/2025
After a desperate prayer for clarity, a woman falls into a dream so vivid it lingers like smoke. In it, her neighbor hurls a skeleton in rage, a man appears with promises of love, and symbols of death, anger, and longing blur together in one terrifying procession. The woman wakes, her heart pounding, her mind reeling with the lingering echoes of the dream. But what if it wasn't just a dream? What if something was listening?
Transcript
00:00I asked for a sign. Not for fortune. Not for revenge. Just clarity. A direction in the fog.
00:10That's what I whispered before I dozed off, curling into the afternoon warmth on my couch.
00:15My mouth still formed the words,
00:18Give me a dream that shows me what I need to know.
00:21I remember looking out the window one last time. Clouds like old cotton drifted past the sun.
00:27I must have fallen asleep around 2 p.m. What followed wasn't sleep. It was a descent.
00:37I found myself walking along a stretch of dry, cracked pavement that somehow resembled the
00:42alley behind my apartment, only longer and older. My feet made no sound against the ground.
00:49I knew it was a dream the way you know when something is burning. But it didn't feel like
00:54a dream. It felt like being shown. Something like a hand was holding my face towards something I
01:02didn't want to see. That's when I heard her. My neighbor, Mrs. Elaine from two doors down,
01:09appeared from a side entrance I'd never seen before. She looked distorted, like someone walking
01:15behind rippling heat. In her arms, she held something pale, long, and crumbling.
01:23I thought it was driftwood, until it hit the concrete with a sharp, brittle clack.
01:30It was a skeleton. She threw it so hard that the bones scattered in every direction.
01:36And then she screamed at me, face twisted, mouth stretched unnaturally wide.
01:44Why did you do this to me?
01:47The air folded. The sky seemed to tremble. I could feel her words inside my chest cavity
01:53like a second heartbeat. I tried to say something, anything, but my mouth wouldn't open. My hands felt
02:00wet. When I looked down, they were covered in soot and blood. I turned and ran. No. Glided.
02:11Like my feet weren't even touching the ground anymore. I passed by rusted mailboxes and doors
02:17with no numbers on them. When I reached a rusted red lawn chair in the middle of the road, I sat.
02:24It felt like I had no choice but to sit there, as if it was part of the story,
02:29and I was just a character in it. Then he appeared. My boyfriend. The one I had been doubting lately.
02:38The one whose texts had gone dry. He stepped into the frame of the dream like an actor hitting his
02:44mark. No expression. No words. Just a kiss. He leaned down and kissed me. It felt warm. Familiar.
02:55The way the ocean feels when it touches your toes. Pulling at something inside you. But there was
03:01something off. His eyes never blinked. His body never moved except for his lips. And then I noticed it.
03:11Behind him, just past the distance of reason, stood the skeleton. Fully formed again.
03:18This time, it wasn't on the ground. It was standing upright. Watching us.
03:29Its hollow sockets didn't blink. Didn't move. But I could feel its stare. The longer I looked,
03:36the more I realized it wasn't a stranger's bones. It wore something. Small trinkets. Familiar to me.
03:44A necklace I lost years ago. A ring I buried in the woods during a breakup. Pieces of my past draped
03:51on bones like ornaments. The skeleton was me. I woke with a gasp. Afternoon sunlight still spilled
03:59across the room. But it had lost all warmth. My mouth was dry. My palms were still damp with sweat.
04:07And someone was outside. I heard the rustle of leaves. I stood, heart thudding, and walked toward
04:17the window. Mrs. Elaine stood across the street, still as stone, looking up at my window. We didn't
04:26move. Neither of us waved. She just watched me like she had heard everything. The screaming. The kiss.
04:34The whisper. Why did you do this to me? Still echoed in my skull like a drumbeat.
04:43That night, I didn't sleep. And the next day, when I tried to visit her apartment to see if maybe she
04:51needed something, she needed something. It was empty. She'd moved out two months ago. Her son said she
04:59passed away during a nap at 2pm. In that chair, she always sat near her window. She died with her eyes
05:07open. And now, when I sleep, I feel the kiss again. Not from love, but from something wearing his shape.
05:18I wake every night with the faint taste of soil on my tongue. Something about that dream crossed over.
05:24I asked for a dream that would reveal the truth to me. And I got it. Now all I can ask is,
05:34what part of me died to make it real? I started writing down everything I could remember. The
05:40sidewalk. The chair. The blood on my hands. Every detail burned into me like a brand.
05:47But even as I wrote, my handwriting began to change. Halfway down the page, the loops and lines
05:54didn't look like mine anymore. Three nights later, I heard a knock. It was soft, deliberate. Three
06:02slow taps. I checked the door. No one. But when I looked down, a small pile of bones sat on the mat,
06:10tiny and bird-like, strung together with twine. No note. Just a whisper that drifted through the hall
06:18as I shut the door. Forgive me. I didn't tell anyone. Because that's when the dreams returned.
06:28Only now, I wasn't asleep. I would slip. For seconds. Sometimes minutes. I'd be cooking, brushing my teeth,
06:38scrolling on my phone. And suddenly I was back there. On the cracked pavement. In that impossible
06:44alley. But now there were more skeletons. Watching me from rooftops. Peeking from sewer
06:51drains and sitting in the red lawn chair that had once been mine. Always staring. Silent. Waiting.
07:01Then my boyfriend changed. He started sleep talking and murdering things I couldn't understand.
07:08Names I didn't know. Some nights, he'd sit up, eyes closed, and smile at the window.
07:16She's closer now, he said one night. The bones are almost here.
07:23When I asked him the next morning, he swore he remembered nothing. Laughed it off. But there was dirt
07:30under his fingernails. Fresh scratches on his palms. Then, one night, I woke up. And he wasn't in bed.
07:40I found him outside. In the backyard. Barefoot. Digging. He didn't turn when I called his name.
07:48He just kept scooping soil with his hands. I knelt beside him. Trembling.
07:54What are you doing? His voice was flat. Hollow. She told me where it was buried.
08:04What was? He stopped. Looked at me. And smiled.
08:11You. I screamed and ran back inside. Locked every door. He didn't try to get in. When morning came,
08:21he was asleep on the couch. Dirty. Shivering. And when I showed him the hole in the backyard,
08:28he claimed he'd been with his brother all night. Said I was dreaming again and losing it. Maybe I was.
08:36Maybe I still am. But I kept the bones from the mat. I sealed them in a box beneath the floorboards,
08:44beneath the rug where that first nightmare began. Last night, the box was open. Nothing inside.
08:52The dreams aren't dreams anymore. They're visits. Warnings. Or maybe invitations.
09:04Today I saw the red chair again. Not in the dream. In real life. On the corner of fifth and older,
09:12it is placed precisely as it was in the vision. Empty. Facing east. As if waiting for me.
09:19I didn't sit. Not yet. But I know it's only a matter of time. Something was awakened when I asked for that
09:28dream. Some part of me died. And something else stepped in. I can feel her. The neighbour. The anger.
09:40The bones. They follow me now. Waiting for me to sit again. Waiting for me to finish what I
09:48started. So I'll ask you now. When you pray, do you know who's listening? Because I don't think
09:56it was God who answered me. And I don't think he can hear me anymore.
10:02One night long.
10:06One night.
10:10One night.
10:12One day.
10:14That matter, you had to alwayspu have ever heard.
10:16Four times.
10:17Two times.
10:18Two times.
10:19Two every one month.
10:21Two times.
10:21One day.
10:22Three times.
10:23Seven.
10:23Two times.
10:24Two times.
10:24Two times.
10:25Two times.
10:27Two.
10:27Two.
10:28Three times.
10:28Two.