It was 03:10 a.m in the morning when I suddenly woke up screaming. I had a nightmare again, the same recurring dream about someone sitting on my bed and smiling at me. I have always had this issue of waking up after having such a dream after the clock passed the 3 a.m mark. Half awake I tried to grab my phone that was by the side of the pillow. It was 03:10 a.m. and my phone's battery was on it's last leg. It was raining outside. The sound of the ever falling rain drops was quite evident through the unclosed window that was on the left side of the bed. I didn't had the habit of closing the window as my room had no cut out for ventilations and keeping the window open was a good way of getting some fresh air inside the compact room. Without giving anything else much of a thought, I got up; slipped my slippers in and plugged my phone into the charger; I had to pee. But before that, I decided to close the windows as the air was too cold to be good.
My room was a room away from the washroom. I got out of my room and entered the living room- the room in between. I turned the lights on. It was a far larger room compared to mine. I looked at the wall clock that was hanging on the red colored wall. It was strange. The hour hand of the clock was still not completely at 3 and the minute hand was at 10. It was 02:50 a.m. I thought the clock was broken, or it's battery was running out of juice. I opened the main door of the room. There was a small open space that I had to pass before reaching the restroom.
It was raining quite heavily outside. On reaching the washroom, I noticed that someone was already inside as the water tap was running and it seemed as if someone was washing up. The lights were not turned on though. I was sure that it was my dad. He had this habit of not feeling the need of turning the lights on even if it was three in the morning! I waited there impatiently for a minute or two, before turning the lights on to let him know that someone was waiting. The water tap stopped running, but the door didn't open yet. Getting worked up by all the waiting, I knocked at the door. To my amusement, the door opened on its own at my knocking and there was no one inside. The water tap was closed properly but the floor beneath it seemed wet. I thought that I might had interpreted the sound of the rain to be that of the running water tap. I didn't think much about it as I wanted to get back to sleeping ASAP!
After some time, I was back in the living room. And having closed the door, I was about to turn the lights off when I heard a strange noise. I couldn't recognize what sound it was. But it was loud, quite loud. It was as if someone was screaming out of pain. I opened the door and looked as far as I could to see what it was. But there was nothing, expect for the downpour. Still perplexed by the noise, I went back to the room and locked the door again. But before I could do anything else, there was a sudden knock at the door. It dreaded me. I couldn't understand what was happening. To ease my fear, I thought that all these weird stuffs were happening just because I wasn't fully awake- that it was all a part of my imagination. But before I could believe what I thought, there was another knock, harder than the previous one. The knob of the lock was rotating on its own this time as if someone was trying to get in. I grabbed the knob with all my might to stop the unlocking of the door. The attempts went on for a few seconds until it finally stopped. I was still holding the knob when a sound came from right behind the door. The sound was distinct this time. It was a voice. It was my voice.
"Do you believe it all to be just a dream?", questioned the voice. It shocked me. I was frightened to the core. I moved back as fast as I could only to fall on the floor. The door opened at once and the lights went out.
The very next thing I remember was that I was lying on my bed. I realized that I had another nightmare, a really scary one! I looked on my left, it was raining but the window was closed. I tried to reach out for my phone, but I couldn't find it. I got up, rubbing my eyes. It was then when I saw my phone. It was connected to the charger. I unplugged it and saw the time. It was 03:10 a.m. A strange feeling ran down my spine. I had goosebumps all over. It felt as if I wasn't alone in the room. I slowly moved my eyes to the right. I was breathing heavily but I couldn't scream. It was as if my whole body was paralyzed. I saw someone. Someone else was sitting on my bed right next to me. I looked at it. It was smiling at me. I finally screamed.