Flick...
Flick....
Flick....
Flick, flick, flick, flick, flick...
This is the sound that woke me up at 6:30am... like a piece of material being whipped around in the wind, it grew faster and faster... but what was it??
I opened my eyes... my walls were glowing softly, a flickering yellow light filled my room. I sat up in my bed to see several small lights, like golden fireflies shooting across my room, darting around rapidly then falling and disappearing before hitting the floor. There were hundreds of them, floating around magically, one after another appearing and disappearing... But something wasn't right.
It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening. The lights weren't hundreds of fireflies, they were coming from my heater. It turns itself on every few hours so my room doesn't get too cold. Only this time its centre was glowing, a scarlet, pea sized ball of light was producing these fireflies.
It was beautiful to watch, but before long I was overcome by panic... What if something catches on fire? ... But how could I turn it off? I couldn't get near it for all the fireflies, and I was too afraid to touch it, what if I was electrocuted? It was plugged into a power board under my desk, but I couldn't get to it without being hit by the golden beads of light floating around... I stood, confused for a moment... what do I do? O_o Still not fully sadar, I realized I could just unplug the entire power board... I threw my chair across the room and reefed the plug from the wall... the flicking sound immediately slowed, the fireflies stopped appearing and the scarlet ball inside the heater slowly faded... My room was suddenly filled with silence and darkness... I stood, still bewildered by what had just happened. I started to become more aware, smelling something burning I quickly turned on the light. Maybe the fireflies hadn't died before hitting the floor.. maybe they had caught something alight... but after searching, I found nothing.. I guess it was the heater that smelled burnt..
I went to the toilet, still confused about what had happened before returning to bed. It felt like a dream, maybe because I never fully woke up during all of this. But this morning, seeing my heater off, my chair across the room and the power board unplugged...
I realized it was very real.