The Dream.

It was during our vacation that strange things started happening, things that I could not exactly explain. It first happened when I along with my mother and father reached the hotel where we were going to stay during our trip to the valley. I was fifteen. We entered the hotel and got the keys for the suite father had booked. It was all not very lush but I had not even wanted a very expensive one so I was happy. Then, as I was about to enter, following my parents someone grabbed my hand. I looked down and there was nobody. I could still feel the grasp of a hand, cold and hard, the grasp getting tighter and tighter. I tried to move my hand but I couldn't. I had only one option left. Scream. And the moment I did, my parents came running out followed by the manager who had heard my scream. The moment they came my hand went free and all was back to normal. Except when I looked at my hand. It was red and my palm bled. Mother instantly took me inside and wrapped a bandage around my palm after treating it with some first aid stuff. By this time my hand was swollen. Now mother asked, "what happened? how did you get your hand injured so bad?" father was standing beside her, looking at my hand. "I don't know mother, I was just following you when I felt someone grab my hand but I saw nobody. It wouldn't even move and it was so tight I could not bear it so I screamed but the moment you came it got loose but it still pained. After that, you know." Mother looked worried but father said, "you must have hit somewhere,it's alright. Get some rest and you'll be fine."

I went to sleep. That night I had a vexing dream that swept all the sleep away from me. In the dream, I was with my mother and father on a vacation and during a hike to the mountain, I got some distance behind my parents. They called to me and I said I'll be there. But then I saw something. Or someone. It stood behind a tree on which was carved something but I could not read it. On the foot of the tree there were pictures of me and my parents on our vacation six years ago but we had come home early than as planned because mother had fallen ill. Then the marks on the tree started to clear up. A name. Mother's. I put my hand over it and somebody grabbed it. It was a dream but I could feel the pain surging through my hand and travel all the way to my body. And I woke up. It was a dream.  But then I screamed, real loud which made my parents come running. As they came, they saw me pointing to the wall in front of me while blood dripped from my bandaged hand. Mother turned on the light. There was on the wall the exactly what I saw in my dream. Mother almost screamed on seeing my injured hand and father gazed at the wall, his face becoming pale. 

The next moment I was telling them what I saw in my dream. When I finished, mother said,"do you remember six years ago when we went on that vacation vacation and had to come home early because i was ill?"she paused, "well, I was not ill. You see, what you saw in your dream was actually part of the reasons we had come home. You see, what is happening with you was exactly what started happening to me when we came here. Someone, we do not know who, but someone was using dark spirits to hurt us really bad. This time, they are doing it through you. Someone is after us. We thought we could be safe after all these years, but we were wrong. And now they are trying to get to you, and through you, get to us." Just as mother stopped, father's phone rang. After putting it down he said, "Our house. The farms. The storehouse. Somebody's put it all on fire."