Nightmare

I had a terrifying dream.

I was in a house, in bed with the light turned on.  I was living there with a bunch of people, an older man, a woman and her child...like we were refugees, moving from one place to the next.  It was Christmas time, because there was a tree with glittering purple and crystal ornaments, plus ones I remembered from childhood.

There was also a grand piano, and from the moment I laid eyes on it, I was terrified.  Something was IN it.  Something evil.  Something that has scaring the child.  We never saw it (maybe a dark shadow here or there) but we knew where it was coming from and hearing the child scream was the worst sound.

I got out of bed and told the old man what we had to do.  We had to leave.  And we had to destroy the piano.  We poured gasoline all over it and then I started undecorating the tree.  The tree would burn, but we'd save the ornaments, and take them with us.  The fire would spread quickly and the entire house would be engulfed with flame.

We lit the gasoline but the piano seemed to absorb it and the fire was slow-starting.  So slow that there were just tiny flames here and there, and it looked like it was dying.  We set it on fire again, and this time, it took.  It spread, slowly, over the grand piano and licked up a bit of the tree.  We stepped away and let it burn.

We sat on the bed and watched it -- I tried to tell the little girl a story but she just wanted to watch the piano burn.

I woke up before it was done, and I was scared because it hadn't finished burning.