I Still Have Nothing

This one was simply titled, "Dream." I think it was for a writing practice in my creative writing class or something...

He was in the house again. He was alone, but he was not really alone. It was there too, somewhere, hiding in a womb of shadow. Everything in the house seemed old and reeked of mildew. Each step he took chased the inch thick dust to take flight from the floor. In the darkness something skittered across the floor. Claws clicked against the ancient wooden boards of the floor.
“It always begins this way,” He thought to himself sadly as he stared at the bare walls of the room. “A gentle noise, then I go look behind the old torn up couch.”
From somewhere a couch came into being in the center of the room. Like everything else in the house it radiated an aura of age. A slight figure was lying on the ground on the other side of the cracked green vinyl, only a dark-skinned back showed from behind the sofa.
Something in the back of his mind told him, “I am for looking at,” as though it was a museum curator labeling a piece of art.
Events were going as they always did in his dream, but something seemed different. Everything seemed more real, as though someone had gone through the house and filled in the empty spaces with matter. He could feel the wood clicking underneath his heels and his nose burned from the dust filling the air. A heavy musk permeated the air. It was the creature’s strange perfume. The stench peaked as he rounded the corner. He didn’t want to, but the siren’s call of the beast pulled him on. His feet marched to a slow, pulsing rhythm of the monster’s death-call.
Every part of him knew this was in fact a dream, yet every piece of his being screamed in terror of the thing. His stomach clenched painfully and he was nearly crying as he rounded the final part of the green wall that shielded him from the thing. He murmured a final plea for help and for an end to the echoing walls of the house, but there was no one there to hear it.
Behind the couch the beast sat, doglike. It seemed to be made of congealed shadows, an ectoplasmic horror of darkness and sin. It gibbered and bubbled a lunatic giggle as it slowly grew fangs and a pair of shining ochre eyes for which to stair at him. Bits of its inky skin fell off in quivering lumps as it grew spines from its hide. He knew he knew he should be running now, before it could chase him, but his dream held him in place.
The tarry black mastiff stood up and stared at him, but again the dream had changed. It did not lunge towards him and begin their nightly chase; instead it merely glared at him and smirked with gelatinous jowls.
Its heavy black lips curled back and began to speak. Its horrible mouth moved without the consent of the rest of its face, twisting and curling upon the thing like a pile of worms. It stated, “Tonight this ends. Come to me childe.”
The hidden hand of the dream unclenched from his legs as he stood back from it. He stared for a moment, struck. It does not speak. It never speaks. He glanced at the door he had run to many times before. He wanted to scream as he charged at the old oak door. He flung it wide and ran to the next door he saw. The handle refused to move as he frantically clawed at the door. This was the part he hated the most. He hated the helplessness of nowhere to run and no one to help him. All he could do was run down an infinite hallway of unopening doors. Each door was the portal to salvation, and every door refused him. Every knob that refused to turn was another step the thing gained on him. He could feel its slick breath run down his neck.
He shouted at the doors to let him pass. He begged for someone to open them to him. No one would save him. He looked behind him as he ran down the endless corridor, ignoring the hateful doors. The creature was slowly prowling behind him. It seemed to effortlessly trot behind him, always gaining and in no rush to catch him. It panted sticky foam from its face as it began to rush after him, it was scared now.
The old wood of the house creaked as a door folded out in front of him. Light blazed from behind it. Somewhere far off he was sure he could hear the slow voice of a woman singing. He lunged at the door, barely catching silver form of a lily etched upon it in his peripheral vision. The creature leapt through the door in pursuit.
They were in a room of light. Cool white marble had replaced the old wood of the house, and the monsters oily feet skittered on the smooth floor. The bright light emanated from a sword resting in the middle of the room. It was not just any sword, it was the sword, and it was every sword. It was Excalibur, it was Durandal, Naegling, Kusanagi, and Balmung. He ran to the blade and lifted it, and the beast stopped.
Somewhere he could hear the soft hush of running water as he hefted the axiomatic sword. Now he could see the fear in its eyes, and he felt a rush of hate within himself. He screeched and lunged at the thing. Every muscle tensed with the pain and rage of the continual fear the thing had trapped him in with their nightly ritual as he brought the weapon down into its filthy body. The creature vomited black blood-pulp of its innards from its abomination mouth and the man’s lips grew into a smile of spite.
“I win you bastard.” He grunted as he brought the sword down upon its body over and over. Each stroke came faster and harder as the thing’s bile stained deep into the immaculate marble of the room. Then it was done, and he felt dizzy from the exertion.
He looked down as the creature melted away. Its pitchy skin slid away to reveal a human figure underneath. It was a naked man, covered with deep wounds. He realized that the man on the floor was himself.
The man on the floor looked up and told him, “I am a portent.” Then he faded to dust.
Again, he was alone. He looked around the bright room, and now it seemed to have a layer of unclean matter beneath it. It was lurking underneath the suddenly dingy marble. He dropped the sword, and its luminescent blade bit deep into the rock. Somewhere the woman’s voice still sang and the thin stream still murmured. But there were no doors to this room, and he wondered how he would get out.
The alarm screeched at him and he awoke confused and drenched with sweat. Far away the woman still sang in his head, slowly growing dimmer as the dream faded away from his consciousness.
“Today is not gonna be a good day.” Hazen said to himself as he put on his faded jeans.