I Hate This Part

Have you ever had a nightmare that made you wake up paranoid, delusional? Left you crying and scared? Alert but incredibly tired?
I have.
Unlike my other perfectly normal dreams which I can not remember when I wake up; this nightmare I could remember with vivid acuity.
For me, for one whole day, it was like having schizophrenia, and being unable to do anything.

Before I went to sleep, I didn't listen to the calming music I always did. I wasn't particularly melancholy that day. It was just a nightmare that happened. Maybe because I don't get enough REM (rapid-eye movement) sleep; I do have all the symptoms after all...
I went to sleep around 11pm.
This nightmare seemed to drag on forever. I was being stalked by a psychotic killer. I know, how cliche.
But to me, it was the most life-like nightmare I have ever had. I was in my school's toilet, and the person entered it as well. My toilet cubicle was the only one with someone inside. The door was locked, my back facing the door. He would walk around, and then out of nowhere, grip my shoulder. He looked from above - the space between the door and the ceiling, meaning he was taller than the door. His face was Asian - possible Chinese, with some baby fat on his cheeks; he looked just like a normal person.
"Oh. You're not her." He would say, with a voice that seemed incredibly normal.
For some reason unknown, I talked back. I wasn't scared. I had no idea what was about to happen. "Yeah. I'm not. Why're you in the girls toilet?"
He would shrug and smile. "I'm just looking for her." And then he would eye me - "But you look just like her."
And that's when the horror began.

My mind then flashed quickly to another scene. The toilets were filled with blood. There was blood everywhere, no matter where you looked. The walls were blood red, the disposal bins filled with sanitary pads that were all opened and every inch was bloody. The toilets had piles of toilet paper stuck inside it, preventing it to be flushed. There was blood there too. There were faeces littering the toilet, all with speckles of blood. There was rotting cabbage with blood, as if someone had poured a cup of blood over it. The blood seemed to flow constantly. Fresh blood flowed over dried blood.

Then it flashed to another scene. We were on Yale Campus. I have never been to Yale, but I have always wanted to be a student there. I learnt that he was a Yale student, he majored in engineering. Then on the same day, he would come towards me and show me a knife. A long knife, somewhat reminiscent of a butcher's knife. "I will kill you with this." He would say. And then he looked at me, and I could remember myself screaming and running.
In the next scene, he would knock at my door. Constantly. He would say things like, "I promise I won't hurt you. I just want to apologize." I would stay inside my room.
The next scene, I was running along the Yale Campus lawn. There I saw him. He didn't react. He was talking to two professors. A male and a female. The male had a brown beard, and he was bald. The female was blonde. Then he would point at me. And then I would be running for my life.
I didn't scream. I just ran. I ran across what seemed like three football fields. There were people everywhere, they were all talking to each other and all so happy. They were oblivious to the torment that I was in. Every now and then I would glance back. I would catch a small sight of him, he would disappear, and I would turn back around and ran. I have never been good at running, but when I ran then, it seemed like I would defeat Olympic records. In front of me, there was a bunch of teenage boys that were playing football. I had to swerve around them, as they kicked the ball to and fro. And then I would make it... I arrived at a bus depot that didn't even seem adjacent to the field.
I ran onto the bus, and I looked around. I looked around for people I knew. The bus was incredibly long, and it was similar to a coach. I saw Linda* and Indigo*; they sat together. I quickly moved to sit behind them. I looked outside and saw that he was coming towards my bus. There were still people filing on, and I realized that he could see through the window and see me. The only way I could escape him was to sit with someone else. I quickly told Linda* and Indigo* about what was happening to me. They nodded sympathetically and allowed me to wedge myself in between them, so that I couldn't directly be seen from the aisle or the window.
He would walk past my seat, and I would breathe a sigh of relief. But then, he seemed to notice, and he sat behind us. He would, just like the beginning, grip my shoulder and said, "I've found you."

My nightmare ended then. But not really. When I awoke, the sky was still dark. I estimated it to be around 2 or 3am. My heart was racing in fear. I was sweaty. I had been crying. I tried to go back to sleep, but the nightmare constantly replayed itself inside my head.

Throughout the day I heard noises that weren't there. Noises from the nightmare. Whenever I closed my eyes for longer than a second, I would be revisited with scenes from the nightmare. In the mirror, it seemed as if he was behind me and poised to kill me. It was all like a horror movie. But real, yet not quite.
In the shower, it seemed as if his hands were closed around my neck. I hated closing my eyes, because I knew that scenes of the nightmare would revisit me.
Sometimes it felt like there was hardly enough air. I would feel like I was drowning. I would see things - blood from the blood toilet scene that wasn't even there. It was so surreal.

Even a few days after the nightmare, I would have some flashbacks.
For me, the nightmare was like a premonition: To stay away from Yale and to not linger too long in toilets.
I hope that I will never have a nightmare like that again.
I know I will be wrong.