Adam’s eyes shot open and he began to pant heavily, copious amounts of sweat covering his entire body. He had just had a bad dream, a nightmare in fact. One so bad, that it had given him goosebumps and chills despite being covered in a thick blanket in the middle of July.
“What the hell was that!?”
Adam sat up in his bed and tried to calm his pounding heartbeat. Like most people, he had had plenty of nightmares throughout his life, but this dream was different. Something about it almost felt real and life-changing. The worst part was that he couldn’t remember a single detail, exacerbating the fear he currently felt.
Adam glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand to see it was five in the morning. It was quite early for him since he usually enjoyed staying up late and sleeping in throughout summer vacation. However, Adam didn’t even feel the faintest bit sleepy at the moment. He felt wide awake.
A small breeze made itself known as it pushed Adam’s straight and dark brown hair to the side, alerting Adam to the window he had opened the night prior. Adam instantly jumped out of bed and scrambled over to the window, making sure to lock it after he finished closing it.
There was something about hearing the sounds of nature from outside that helped lull Adam to sleep and, because he lived on the second story, Adam had the luxury of sleeping comfortably with his window open in the nighttime. But right now, something in his brain was telling him to close the window and never leave it open at night again.
Adam groaned and rubbed his eyes. He wished he could just go back to bed and forget everything he was experiencing at the moment, but there was absolutely no way he was falling asleep again with how alert and terrified he felt. Annoyed, Adam smacked his tongue to the roof of his mouth and tasted an odd flavor, his morning breath tasting much stranger than it usually did. Adam decided that since he was already awake, he might as well get rid of it.
“Maybe brushing my teeth will help me clear my mind,” Adam thought to himself as he walked to the bathroom connected to his bedroom and made his way to the sink.
Adam stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. A 16 year old teenage boy stared back at him. He had fair skin, short brown hair, gray eyes, and stood at an average height of 5’11”. At the moment, nothing particularly stood out from him. Besides the bags under his eyes from his unhealthy sleep schedule.
Moving his focus from his reflection, Adam uncapped the toothpaste and placed a glob of it on his toothbrush before beginning to brush his teeth. Attempting to push everything about his nightmare to the back of his mind, Adam suddenly felt his toothbrush grind an abnormal amount and pulled it out of his mouth.
The toothbrush looked perfectly fine, yet the bristles looked to have been grounded down immensely for some reason. Alex rubbed his tongue against his teeth and noticed they felt a bit sharper than he remembered them being the day prior. However, he chalked it up to him being so distracted from his bad dream and merely finished brushing his teeth but more gently.
Once he finished, Adam walked back to his bed and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. Perhaps watching a video would help relax him.
Picking the first YouTube video on his feed, Adam laid back on his bed and covered himself with his blanket. He glued his eyes to the screen, trying to make sure he only focused on the contents of the video and nothing else. But it didn’t help much. Adam still felt too unsettled from his dream.
Adam only let out a few annoyed huffs as he continued to watch the video.