I woke from a nightmare.

I was in my childhood home. In it, there was a man who lived with his parents. He was both me and not me. Like I was riding in his head and knew what he was going to say but I couldn’t make any decisions.
He lived in the house and it was just him living his life. The whole time there was a vague unease. Like everything and everyone was subtley off. It seemed that this man’s parents flinched from him. Everyone he met seemed to interact kindly to him but all with a vague air of fear almost. And I feel it too. This vague pressing sense of dread fills every action, look or words.

He took his parents out for a drive. And he told them he wanted to show them a house he was going to buy. The father was in real estate and he knew there were no houses in the area up for sale and their fear ratcheted up. He told them not to worry, that he knows of a house about to be available.

He turns a corner in a street in my childhood neighborhood. And points out a large grey house. 2 stories with a covered carport. There are a couple of cars out front and a woman gets out of one. She is crying and has a bundle of red roses in her hand.
Someone from the house meets her on the driveway and they hold each other and cry. There are no ‘for sale’ signs on the house or any indication that it is or will be up for sale. It hits me and the parents at the same time. The only way to know that this house will be for sale soon is to arrange it. This guy who is me and not me has killed whomever is in the house. I’m shocked and incredulous. The parents are scared and less shocked. More resigned. Like this was something that they were hoping wouldn’t happen Again. Like they have been living with this secret monster for years. They drive home.

Then there is one of those jump cuts and the man who is me and not me is talking to someone on his porch. The parents are there but they seem like caricatures. I am no longer in the guys head. I’m watching in the third person and also feel trapped.
The guy who looks like me invites the guy in. He feeds him and paralyzes him. Informing him that his meal was his last guest and did he enjoy it. The parents seem to waver then like they aren’t there. Like I’m in this me/not me’s mind and he sees the parents but they aren’t really there.

He invites in people and kills over and over again. And I’m trapped watching him. I can’t wake up. One of his victims gets away. I, somehow, am then seeing through the victims eyes. I nudge the person to certain places in the house. Places he can barricade. Me/not me hunts him. And victim/me starts to panic. We close a door but it won’t latch and we put a small metal step ladder in front of a door, under the handle but the serial killer hits the door in such a way that it pops it open. We slam the door shut on his hand and he howls in agony. The victim opens the door and pulls the killer halfway in. He pounds the killers skull in with the door pinching the skull like semi hard candy until a part of it breaks away and there is a little boy version of me/not me. There is also a apparition of this person’s mother who talks to the boy. Telling him what to do.

I/victim run and we get away. As we run I, but not the victim, hear the ghost mother telling the boy to eat up. That he needs to heal and eating this brain (his adult brain) will heal him. Like he’s some kind of immortal monster trapped in some pocket dimension reliving his life and death over and over again.

The victim gets far enough away and I wake. Heart pounding. Full blown panic attack. From a nightmare.