That dark animal of sleep
The first time Liam had that nightmare, he woke up panting and sweating. Kami, his twenty-something girlfriend, much younger than him, who slept next to him, was startled to see him in that state:
"What's wrong with you?" -she asked, turning on the light.
"I had a nightmare! And even though I don't remember it, I have the feeling that it was horrible,” Liam answered, upset.
But there was no need to remember anything because the nightmare came back again and again every night, like a movie that repeats itself over and over again.
Liam's skin was scratched by branches covered with thorns and his feet began to fill with blood, however, Liam kept running frantically because he knew it was the only way to save himself from the man who was chasing him.
Sometimes that nightmare was mixed with other nightmares and in the dream, the man who was chasing him turned into a ferocious animal that roared after him. At other times, as he ran desperately, the sun would go down and the moon would appear and Liam would have to run in the dark, feeling his legs tearing apart.
What always remained the same was the state of apprehension and suffocation with which he woke up. His body sweaty as if he had really run a marathon and with impenitent eyes,fixed, looking towards the corners of the room and the edge of the bed, as if a ghost was there, watching him.
"We can't go on like this!" -but poor Liam did not know how to change that.
Some time later, on Kami's recommendation, he went to therapy, he also tried hypnosis, but it was all in vain. The nightmare came back every night: a creature running after him and threatening to swallow him.
It was not known if it was because of his insomnia, because of that nightmare or because Liam became an unrepentant shadow, frightened when the night came, that Kami left him:
"I can't stand you anymore. You're older than before,” he said before leaving.
One morning, when Liam woke up and went to the bathroom to wash up, he looked in the mirror and what he saw in that shiny sheet, made him jump with fear: it was the man of his nightmares. Then, he tried to calm down, and he looked at himself again and detailed: the face he saw was the face of him, only older. Liam shook his head in defeat, he no longer had to keep running: time had caught up with him.
All images are free of charge and the text is my own, translated in Deepl
Thank you for reading and commenting. Until a future reading, friends
Click here to read in spanish
Ese oscuro animal del sueño
La primera vez que Liam tuvo aquella pesadilla, se despertó jadeante y sudoroso. Kami, su novia veinteañera, y mucho menor que él, quien dormía a su lado, al verlo en aquel estado, se asustó:
_¿Qué te pasa? -preguntó encendiendo la luz.
_¡Tuve una pesadilla! Y aunque no la recuerdo, tengo la sensación de que fue horrible -respondió Liam contrariado.
Pero no hizo falta recordar nada porque la pesadilla regresó una y otra vez cada noche, como una película que se repite una y otra vez.
En la pesadilla Liam se miraba en un río y en la clara agua se reflejaba su rostro y al lado de su rostro, un rostro desconocido, irreal, marchito, que lo miraba a los ojos. Luego, Liam comenzaba a correr, mientras que detrás de él corría el hombre. El camino, excesivamente largo, cubierto de piedras y escombros, era empinado, por lo que el esfuerzo que hacía Liam era mayor y más trabajoso. Liam llevaba algo en las manos, que sujetaba con fuerza. En el sueño no sabía de qué se trataba, pero según era eso lo que buscaba el hombre.
La piel de Liam era arañada por ramas cubiertas de espinas y los pies comenzaban a llenarse de sangre, sin embargo, Liam seguía corriendo frenéticamente porque sabía que era la única forma de salvarse de aquel hombre que lo perseguía.
Algunas veces aquella pesadilla se mezclaba con otras pesadillas y en el sueño, el hombre que lo perseguía se convertía en un animal feroz que rugía detrás de él. Otra veces, mientras corría desesperadamente, el sol se ocultaba y aparecía la luna y Liam debía correr en mitad de la oscuridad sintiendo que se le desgarraba las piernas.
Lo que siempre quedaba igual era el estado de aprencion y sofoco con el que se despertaba. Su cuerpo sudoroso como si realmente hubiese corrido un maratón y con los ojos impenitentes, mirando hacia las esquinas de la habitación y la orilla de la cama, como si un fantasma estuviera allí, observándolo.
Kami ya no le preguntaba, solo se despertaba y decía, cansada de tanta angustia:
_¡No podemos seguir así! -pero el pobre de Liam no sabía cómo cambiar aquello.
En algún tiempo, por recomendación de Kami, fue a terapia, también intentó con hipnosis, pero todo fue en vano. La pesadilla, volvía cada noche: una criatura que corría detrás de él y amenazaba con engullirlo.
No se supo si fue por su insomnio, por aquella pesadilla o porque Liam se convirtió en una sombra impenitente, atemorizada cuando llegaba la noche, que Kami lo abandonó:
_Ya no te soporto. Estás más viejo que antes -dijo antes de marcharse.
Extrañamente, luego de aquella separación, la pesadilla se fue. El miedo con el que se despertaba, fue sustituido por una tranquilidad y un alivio, y aunque Liam extrañaba la frescura del cuerpo de Kami, debía aceptar que después de su partida, los días eran más tranquilos.
Una mañana, cuando Liam se despertó y fue al baño a asearse, se miró al espejo y lo que vio en aquella lámina brillante, lo hizo saltar de miedo: era el hombre de sus pesadillas. Luego, intentó calmarse, y volvió a verse y detalló: el rostro que veía, era el rostro de él, pero más envejecido.. Liam movió la cabeza en señal de derrota, ya no tenía por qué seguir corriendo: el tiempo lo había alcanzado.
Time one of the greatest treasures. Let me say Liam obstacle was Kemi and when she is gone he feels more calm and peaceful but then was Liam fulfilled too.
Certainly, time is one of our great treasures and indeed, Kami's youth may prove to be a burden for Liam. Regards
A deep mind engaging story that leaves us caught in between two worlds: reality and fantasy. I wondered at some point, if the dreams had a toll on him real life asides his incessant writhing and sleep struggles, but then at the end, I get a glimpse, a shocking revelation, one that draws the curtain to a conclusion.
Great story!!
Thank you for your generous words, my friend
Your story is very interesting. Maybe in Liam's subconscious he refused to grow old, the source of those nightmares was his young girlfriend and the nightmares were the product of that denial. In the end he accepted his condition and found peace.
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
Excellent Saturday.
Exactly! Unconsciously, having a young girlfriend, I was afraid of growing old. Old age had become his nightmare. Thanks for your very apt comment, my friend. A good start to the month.
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Thank you very much for your support, friends!
This is a great concept. I love how you maintained the suspense in the first halve, leaving us open to the many possibilities. The end was a great spin. Love how he looked at himself in the mirror, his heart aligning with his spirit—A nice touch I must say.
Sometimes things are not as they seem. Thanks for your comment. Regards
hello @nancybriti1. This story flagged for AI influence and we need to ask you what editing tools you are using and to what extent so that we can try to understand why it is flagging.
What? I don't use A. I. I don't even know how to use them. I don't know why they look like those signs. Maybe it's because of the translator. I use Deepl. In fact, I make my Spanish version, which was attached to the post and then I translate it.
The software that we use is highly respected and flagged the original Spanish version. We are well aware of the issues that are faced with translations into English and this is why we test the original language version for AI and then also compare the Deepl translation against the published translation to ensure that AI has not then been applied to the translation. Lengthy pieces of descriptive prose/narrative can often be flagged as having potential AI influence by our detection software as they sometimes lack balance. We are not saying that you did use AI, we simply asked what editing tools you used and to what extent. Editing software that is used for anything but correcting spelling, punctuation, and basic grammar (basic grammar correction includes eg: correcting the form/tense of a verb) is considered AI influence. Many of our writers do not appreciate that when they accept Grammarly's suggestions relating to sentence structure,rephrasing, or improving fluency, that they are allowing AI to creep into their work. You are a respected member of The Ink Well but we do need to try to understand why the software flags when it does. The flag was not very high but was did creep above our threshold for what we allow to pass without question, and we therefore have to address it on every occasion with each writer concerned. We trust you understand the need to keep the community above board 🤗. Perhaps you need to consider what it may be about this particular piece of writing (style, balance, editing etc) that may be causing this. The piece was also relatively short compared to the guidelines of the community and this does not leave much for story development. This likely offset the balance and completeness of this piece.
Can you confirm what editing tools you used in preparing your Spanish draft, and to what extent, so that we may curate this piece?
I understand your position because I am also a content curator at HIVE and I know the work we are doing to counteract the use and abuse of A. I.
As you have rightly said, I am a loyal community writer. My work has been recognized by you and I have a style, which many of you already recognize. The only thing I use to make my texts, and that because I have to publish them in English, is the translator Deepl. Nothing else
Thank you for clarifying this. We shall curate your piece on this occasion :-)
Thank you very much
In fact, I am a teacher and one of the things I try to correct in my students is the use of A. I. It would be absurd of me to do what I crit
Testing of the draft on my e-mail
I have done this for this story...We in the Silver Bloggers community have had some AI recently with deepl translations into English from Spanish. We used https://www.zerogpt.com/es to check the original Spanish text.
Which came up with 0% AI. Some translators really put far too many commas into an English translation which can set off alarm bells.
Hope this helps as @nancybriti1 is one our respected members at Silver Bloggers.
Thank you very much for providing this tool and for your words of support, @tengolotodo. Hugs
You are welcome Nancy. AI is a tricky subjective and making sure it stays off our blockchain is the responsibility of everyone.
hello @tengolotodo Thank you for providing some insights and support to us and @nancybriti1. 🙂 We appreciate it when other members of the community share their experience and wisdom. You are both respected writers here in The Ink Well.
We do need to ask the question of any writer though, whose individual submissions breach the AI thresholds set within our community. It does not mean that they have used AI to generate their post from scratch. They could unknowingly be including AI during the editing process and this is an area where we seek to guide writers and encourage them to improve their writing more organically. We ask all of our writers to stick to Grammarly or Google Docs for editing and then refrain from using their more advanced features.
In this case, the original Spanish version flagged at 50% in our detection software and in all situations like this, we are obliged to ask the question to clarify whether the writer has inadvertently benefited from AI or whether it is simply that their submission may lack some of the signs of human writing, (viz: emotion, balance, development, the ratio of narrative to action and dialogue), or whether a false positive has been registered by the software.
I appreciate the need to further investigate all threshold breaches. It is a tricky situation especially when you throw in a number of languages into the mix.
Am just glad it has been resolved.
I love this. I could be Liam sometimes in the morning. I am who the fluff is that looking at me in the mirror!
Hahahahaha. I could be Liam too, but in the end: accepting that she was defeated by time. Hugs and thank you very much, Ed!!!
Well as long as time does defeat what is inside us! Big hugs Nancy and keep stirring up your imagination as I love it.
Laim's source of the nightmare was Kemi. He needed to let go of his inner fear around Kemi. Maybe his afraid of Kemi and how young she was and how old he was getting
¡Felicitaciones!
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La idea de que un fantasma lo estuviera mirando es terrorífica.
Mind blowing write up! Many times the things we see in our dreams and may believe is surreal, is our reality about to manifest.