“The Dream Catcher”

By Jonathan Lin, Grade 7

The old woman's last words still pressed in his mind. “Don’t ever let this break. It protects you from the curse. “ The dream catcher looked ordinary at the moment. No curses were killing him but he decided to ignore his late great grandmother’s words on the fact that she was going senile. She had mumbled nonsense at her own daughter as she said goodbye. He put it up next to his bed and crawled into bed. 

He found that in the morning that he dreamed none at all. He was confused as for the last month he had been having odd dreams. He had dreamed of birds with no feathers. Fish with legs walking around and more. He was glad that he was finally able to get some rest. He made himself breakfast while grandma was still asleep. He ate some eggs and read a book. He went about his day as usual but had an odd feeling that someone was watching him, someone or something. He went to bed and woke up the next day feeling better than he had ever. He walked over to the dream catcher and saw that a string had been pulled loose. He disregarded it as he thought it already had a hole when it was given. 

That night he had a very strange dream. He was in his bed but he saw things moving on the ceiling. Wait no he was on the ceiling. He was looking around when suddenly gravity seemed to return. He fell to the floor in his dream and the bed crashed above him. In the morning, he had strange bruises on his back and legs. 

The next night he dreamed he was running on the track of his college. He had just run a few laps when he got that odd feeling that he was being watched. He looked around and tripped and woke up in sweat. Stranger, he had a large cut on the kneecap of his right leg. The same thing happened the next few nights. He would have a strange dream and would wake up with minor injuries that weren’t much hassle to deal with but were still strange. All the more, he began to notice that the dream catcher began to have bigger holes in it.

One night, he had a very odd dream. He dreamt of a stage and he was on it. But in the middle of his performance, the back wall of the stage came crashing down. He didn’t wake up in fear, he woke up in pain. He tried to get out of bed but he couldn’t without a burst of pain. His grandmother burst in and said,”Oh no! It’s started!”

Before he could ask what she meant, she ran out of the room and called 911. In the waiting room, his grandmother finally  broke down. “The reason your great-grandmother gave you the dream catcher was to protect you. The dream catcher blocks a demon that has plagued our family for centuries. The demon attacks through dreams and doesn't stop until the target is dead. It killed your parents and gave your great grandmother her cancer. The dream catcher is the only thing that is keeping you alive. As long as it stays whole the demon can never break through. He is attempting to break through from the holes that were in the dreamcatcher. Tonight I will fix the catcher and give it to you. The more he breaks in the easier it gets for him to do more damage to you.”

He sat there trying to process the information that he had just been given. It was impossible to realize the power behind his grandma’s words. He knew that his grandmother was right. His grandma retrieved the dream catcher from the house and put it next to his bed while he slept. 

 He slept peacefully that night without anything attacking him. The next few nights were the same. He slept peacefully as long as the dream catcher was next to him. He thought that he had nothing to fear.  But one night, he was in a deep sleep and a person walked into his room and took the dream catcher off the wall next to him and put it down on the table. Instantly he woke up in extreme pain as he had broken his wrist. The dream catcher appeared to have fallen off the wall and fallen to the table where it sat with a tiny hole in it. His grandma fixed the hole, muttering about how the demon was ruining her retirement. That night he slept soundly as if he had never heard anything of the truth. 

In the morning, he had a thought. His grandmother said that the demon never stopped until its target was dead, so how had she escaped? He asked her this at dinner that night and a shadow passed behind her old eyes. “I’ll tell you in the morning dear,” she said with a cheerful little grin.

That night he saw his grandma in his dream, but she wasn’t a kindly old lady anymore. She was standing in a swirling red column with lightning flowing around her. She began to talk,” I am the voice of the demon that has been plaguing this family for centuries. The demon realized that it needed a way to drain more energy for us so it decided to possess me. It chose to do all the things to the family to get every generation’s children to die and I will be the last one of the family after tonight. I chose this so that I wouldn’t be plagued anymore by painful injuries. I sold my body to the demon in exchange for relief and freedom for my soul.” She lunged at him and he lost all feeling of his body, he only felt mind-searing pain.