On a regular, old night, I lay in my bed, asleep, dreaming. I was dreaming of trees and green hummingbirds, and red, juicy apples and a river of flowing honey. It was a nice dream, very nice indeed. But on some strange off-chance, I woke up.

All at once, my eyes were trying to adjust to a foreign light, one that fought the dark in rebellion. I turned my head to my left, towards the light, and found that this rebel was just an electric alarm clock. The red numbers glowed in a crimson radiance across a quarter of the room, creating shadows only to my right; all else was dark.

In the eerie, blood-red light, I took a glance towards the shadows, and looked at my own, docile, lying on a shadowy bed.

What appeared to me was strange: around my stomach, in the shadowpiece upon the wall, a small, trembling vibration occurred. I felt my own stomach, but nothing rumbled or shook like what I saw.

There was a small lump, jumping up and down, over and over again, writhing in disgusting rhythm. That lump was inside my stomach, trying, struggling, practically screaming to get out.

Worried, I felt my own stomach once again; and still, there was nothing.

I gazed at the shadow, now wondering what was happening. Were my eyes deceiving me? Was something terribly wrong about to happen? To my underestimated apprehensions, an even worse sight was beheld.

Out of my shadow-stomach, a shadowy creature violently burst out. The thing had only formed a small lump before, but now it had drastically grown to a seismic girth. It had tentacles, slithering about, and huge lumps about its front body which, I assumed, in those dire moments of fear and paranoia, were either enormous boils, or eyeballs.

In a paralyzed state, I could only watch as the thing crawled out of my shadow stomach. Quickly, without thinking, I jumped up and turned on the savor bedroom light, twitching vehemently, lifting up my shirt to rid this—

Terrified, I found that there only existed pulsating flesh where there should have been an open, bleeding stomach. Nothing was there, to my good fortunes, but even so, I was sweating. My eyes were wide with fear, with thoughts of this aberrational entity crawling—bursting!—from within me.

For minutes, my hands scrambled back and forth, for I had to make sure nothing was there at all. And, as my eyes did not deceive in this enlightened situation, neither did my hands. I let out a sigh of relief. Nothing at all.

As I turned the bedroom light off, I crept back into bed, still dazed over what had happened. However, as my eyes became adjusted to the crimson light of the alarm clock, my stomach felt—better. Like a great pressure had been released.

It was a nice feeling.

I was in pure bliss, for no apparent reason at all. That night—and every night thereafter—I had the most terrific, heavenly dreams. I dreamed of trees and green hummingbirds, and red, juicy apples and a river of flowing honey.

Every dream is a nice dream, now… very nice indeed.