My eyes slowly fluttered open to the chilliness around. As I wide-opened my eyes, I discovered that I was not in my room. I pulled up myself together and sat firmly on my bed with my fists closed tightly. My heart was thumping at a rate that it could anytime fall out of my chest.           Somehow, I mustered up all my courage to get down the bed and felt the cold sand under my feet. I took the blanket in my hands and wrapped it all around my body to feel safe and warm. As soon as I stepped down from my bed, I took my each step carefully walking forward. My mind went numb, I was wondering where in the world did I suddenly land up and how did I fall into a place that is so dark, creepy, mysterious and scary more than hell.            It was only getting colder and colder but there was no sight of any form of life visible up-to miles away. Few minutes later, after a long walk in the dark cold night, I halted as I began to feel a strong rotten dead smell, and when I went a little further, there, were the dirty masses of flesh and blood all over. In a hurry to get out of the place, I literally stepped over something that seemed as if some juicy decomposing corpse. The feeling of something dirty shook my spine and I immediately stepped back.           I decided to run away from that place as fast as I can. But when I turned back, there stood a man with dropping body and skin, eyes as that of the ghost shown in the movies, and thick blood dried on some parts of his body with malodorous dirty clothes. Within a split moment, he came so near to me that his face was just 4-5 inches away from mine. What shook me to my core though was, he staring unwaveringly into my eyes. And there was nothing more scary than having an eye contact with a blood thirsty zombie.           For a moment everything went blank, my body shuddered involuntarily. I stood still without making a sound nor moving an inch. I thought he would definitely kill me.           But all of a sudden, just a few steps away, on my right, I saw a bright light scattering from between the curvy edges of some cloth hanging on to something in the dark. I began to quiver less and somewhere within, hope filled me completely.           But before I could reach out to the light he grabbed me in both of his hands and reached up to my throat to insert his canines to suck in my blood. I was struggling to release myself from his grip, but was of no use.           The light grew stronger and stronger, had spread all over the place, it engulfed the darkness and destroyed the dirty corpses, which then burned this zombie to ashes.           I am safe. But I was not able to open my eyes to see the light as it was so bright. After sometime, the brightness had diminished .         And then I gradually opened my eyes to see if I am okay and in a safe place. When I saw the surroundings I realized that I was lying on the same bed facing the window in my room. The fresh breeze and the warm light caressed my face as the curtain on it was swept to the corner edge of the window. And this could definitely be the act of my mom to wake me up from my sleep. She does this very often and this time it helped me come out of that ugly dream. - E. Rachana