Recollection of my first nightmare....(writing assignment 750+ words)

I remember my first nightmare.  I was about five years old.  I know this, because my grandfather was still alive and he didn't yet have cancer.  I was always afraid of the attic at my grandparents house.  If I was still able to go back to the house, I probably would still fear it today.  There was a darkness - an energy so dark and thick you could feel it - that emanated from the attic.  As a child, I never wanted to follow asleep up there by myself.

I believe that this darkness contributed to my nightmare, for the things I dreamed about were not something that would come to a five year old's mind - at least not on it's own.  I wasn't exposed to scary movies or dark and ugly things at this age, so the only place it could come from is the darkness that lived in the attic.

I don't remember all of the details of the dream just the overall theme and the darkness of it and how I woke up screaming and threw up rainbow popsicles (I had eaten several).  In the dream, some bad men had taken my family - all of them - my parents and brothers, my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and they were feeding them into a machine that ground them up and made them into sausages, all while I was forced to watch - restrained and helpless and terrified.

Later, when I was older and my grandfather had passed away from colon cancer, my uncle took over that house.  We often spent whole summers there in Ohio while my stepdad sold sweet corn from his mom's house, and us kids would make some extra money selling home grown produce in front of the farm.  After my grandfather had passed away there were numerous experiences where people claimed to have seen him or spoken to him - some not knowing he had passed.  The summer I was fourteen, my whole family, and my best friend at the time, Heather stayed at the farm house. 

One day, while we were selling produce, sitting on the porch playing games and waiting for customers to come, my youngest brother, Brian, yelled out "there's grandpa."  I jumped up and the two of us ran into the house and proceeded to follow "my grandpa" up the stairs.  It - whatever was impersonating my grandfather - went into the attic.  I did not pursue it further.  I knew because it went into the attic that it was not my grandfather.  No, the things that we pursed was pretending to be my grandfather - or took on it's form for some nefarious reason.  I know this because it went into the attic - a place that I knew in my very being was dark and evil.

My cousin, Val, had a crazy experience in that house as well.  She and her family had to live there on the farm with my uncle while their house was being built.  She was usually afraid there, though, as I found out recently, she was more afraid of the basement, and she informed me that someone died down there before we were born.  Anyway, she was home by herself after school and she was on the phone with her friend, Joy.  She said that she had this intense feeling of being watched and it was not a positive feeling at all.  She said it became so intense that she went and locked herself in the bathroom.  While she was in there, my uncles cat started to scream and something rattled the door knob.  Joy heard all of this through the phone.  My cousin, now terrified, went out the bathroom window and remained outside until her parents came home.

When I was about fifteen I had another terrible nightmare and it was about the farm - specifically the basement.  In my dream, I was outside and was looking for my family.  I couldn't find them, and I went inside the house.  I still couldn't find them and was calling out for them.  After searching the house I started to descend the stairs to the basement.  I had to stop suddenly when the stairs disappeared.  The basement was gone and instead there was a cavern with a river of flesh running through it.  I was terrified and horrified.  I looked further and melted faces were stuck along the walls of the cavern including those of my family.  I again woke up screaming.