Serenity - Nightmares come

It was dark in the kitchen. The only light was from the moon shining through the high window. In front of him was a large steel pot of milk sitting on a hob with the heat on full blast. To his left stood ten mugs of hot chocolate, all freshly made and steaming. How could he possibly be expected to drink all of these drinks? He looked around frantically for someone else to help him with this task but the house seemed empty. There was no one else to be found and still the milk heated in the huge pot. It was then that it dawned on him. If there were only ten mugs that were already full of hot drink and a pot brimming with milk that would need to be emptied soon, how was he going to empty the pot?

Panic rose in him as he darted across the kitchen to find spare mugs for the milk. He opened the first cupboard to find it full to the top with plates and forks. He couldn’t use that, slamming the cupboard door shut he started on the next one along, it was the same, plates and forks. Cupboard after cupboard Sam searched in vain but there were no cups just the same contents as the one before. As he closed the last cupboard in despair he heard the noise he had been dreading. It was the sound of a heat bubble rising to the surface and popping. The popping noise seemed to resonate against the walls like a warning bell telling him he had very little time left.

He ran to hob again and saw the once peaceful surface of the milk start to fizzle around the edges. A single bead of sweat ran down his forehead as he realised what he had to do. Turning to the steaming hot drinks he lifted the first to his mouth. He could feel the steam rising on his upper lip as he took the first gulp. It was like fire was soaring down his throat, he could feel blisters forming around the back of his tongue but he couldn’t stop. He gulped the drink down, ignoring the searing pain and moved to the next mug along, scorching his throat once more. He continued in this pattern until the ten mugs had been emptied. With his throat on fire but yet his mission completed he turned with a self satisfied smile to the pot of now boiling milk. As he reached to pull the pot off the hob however he noticed the first mug was no longer empty, its steamy chocolate content was once again full to the brim. He let out a little yelp of protest as he saw the nine other mugs in exactly the same state. He had drunk them all, he could still feel the after affects of the drinking but there they stood, seemingly untouched.

Sam’s eyes darted to the boiling milk again, it was starting to rise, he didn’t have much time before it would spill over. He reached for the first mug again and started to gulp once more. This time the drink was even hotter than before; each gulp seemed to open up the sores created from the time before and grow new blisters on top of the old ones.

After the third drink Sam couldn’t take any more of the pain, he fell back onto the counter behind him and wretched uncontrollably. Bile rose to his throat and the acid poured into the already throbbing blisters, it was too much pain for one man to take.

Wiping away the tears that threatened to block his vision his eyes fell on the giant pot. It moved to and fro with the ferocity of the boiling liquid inside it and he watched helplessly as the content spilt over the sides and sizzled onto the hob. The smell of burnt milk hit him quicker than he thought. Sam stared in frozen terror as it scorched and stained the hob and the rest of the cooker while it dripped off the surface onto the floor.

He had failed, all he had to do was to stop that milk from taking over and he couldn’t do it, now it spread across the floor infesting every centimetre it touched and leaving a dark brown stain in its wake.

A figure appeared in the doorway as he watched on helplessly. She was small, her red wavy hair motionless down her back and her face expressionless and still.

“Amy!” He screamed, his voice hoarse and sore, “I tried, I’m sorry!”

The figure didn’t move, she just stood there looking on with her judgemental stare. Something warm trickled down Sam’s chin, he realised it had come from his mouth, was he dribbling? He caught the congealed liquid with his finger and recognised it as thick red blood. Confused, he looked at it; it made no sense to him, why was he bleeding?

A scream filled his head, forcing him to drag his eyes away from his blood and back to where Amy had been standing. The milk had made its way to her and now she was looking on at it in terror as it crept over her feet. She let out another scream; this one had so much pain in it that Sam felt he would explode.

Running straight through the milk he felt the pain she must be feeling, it was scorching his feet. He could feel holes forming at his soles and he clenched his jaw tight in an attempt to block out the pain. He ran towards her as fast as he could but he couldn’t get any closer and she continued to scream as the milk crept up her legs, making their way to her torso. Over the top of her painful screams Sam started to hear another noise, it sounded like laughter, deep and gleeful. Was someone watching this and finding it funny? The laugh seemed familiar to him but he couldn’t place it, all he knew was that with that sound came a deep terrifying feeling that he had only felt once.

He pushed on harder against the current of the milk to try and reach Amy and stop her pain but he couldn’t seem to make any progress, the laughter became louder and more taunting the harder he tried. He couldn’t stand this much longer.

“Amy!” He cried out again, tears of frustration now streaming down his face.

She looked at him then as the liquid reached her neck and crawled up her chin. In one final horrifying moment she opened her mouth again and as the milk entered in she let out her biggest scream of all.