His back was drenched with sweat. His heart was racing so fast that it felt like it was going to break though his rib cage. He was gasping for air like someone had punched him in his chest. David Knox had another nightmare.

"Damn", David cursed out loud to himself as he sat on the edge of his bed. He looked over his dark room and felt around on his nightstand for his cell phone. The bright light of the phone practically blinded his eyes as 3:17 a.m flashed on his phone screen.

His one bedroom apartment was no more than 250 square feet. The room was also very quiet except for the humming of the air conditioning unit. That quiet was one of the reasons he had settled for this hellhole of a building nine months ago when he moved to Three Rivers City. What had surprised him was the silence. Usually in the movies, the cheap places in big cities are located by the train tracks or airport. He hadn't expected to find a cheap quiet place when he moved here.

This city was one of the largest in the country. David had moved here to work at a small architecture and engineering firm that specialized in the design of wildlife habitats and zoo exhibits. The three rooms in his apartment consisted of his bedroom, a small bathroom and one open room that included a small kitchen and a lounge area. He had a table in the lounge area by the kitchen that served as an eating place, hangout, or a work desk for his take home architecture work.

"Do I stay awake and go get some work done at the table in the other room or do I try to go back to sleep?", he questioned himself. Sitting there staring into the dark room, he chuckled at himself for thinking of such a stupid question. The real question was if he wanted to be tired at work or subject himself to possibility of another nightmare.

These vivid dreams have been tormenting him since he was a child. His life's struggle was to properly deal with these dreams. The horrid dreams affected his sleep which in turn affected everything else in his life. He had figured this recent move to the big city was going to be his chance at breaking out of the rut he was in back in his small hometown.

He knew one thing for sure. The move hadn't made his dreams any better or any worse. Tonight, he had lived out a dream with an ending that he knew wouldn't be pleasant. David has had this one particular dream multiple times before tonight.

In tonight's dream, David was still around 12 years old. David was playing outside his grandma's house in the front yard. The sky was free of clouds and the sun was shining brightly. He could even smell the fresh cut grass. Looking at this dream, it would have been absolutely perfect if it wasn't for what happened next.

While he was running around the yard and having a good time, a doglike beast appeared in the neighbor's yard a few houses down. The beast looked his way and fear and panic struck David all over as he instinctively knew that the monster will be coming after him in a few seconds. To keep the vicious beast from getting a hold of him, he sprinted to the front door of his grandma's house but the door is locked. He decided to try his mom's car parked at the curb on the street.

"It shouldn't be able to get me if I hide in the car," he had thought to himself in the dream.

He decided to make a run for it and dashed across the perfectly mowed lawn towards the street. At this point, he could hear the dog-like beast galloping toward him making the loud panting and growling sounds of threat. He just knows that the dog will rip his body to pieces and kill him in a brutal manner. His hand stretches to reach the handle of the car door. The car door is locked. He turns around and the monster hits him hard with teeth latching on to his face. Then, he had woken up.

He had that dream over a hundred times now over the years. Every time was the same. Starting off running in absolute fear then ending with a beast dog's jaws swallowing his face. He would have the same internal thoughts, try the same things, and have the same results. The crazy thing is that the more times he had the dream then the more realistic it seemed. Tonight he could swear that he actually smelled the dog's saliva and felt the teeth painfully dig into his face before he awoke.

There are about thirty other dreams that run themselves in repetition to ruin his nightly slumber. Those are the special "repeaters", as David calls them. If it is not a repeat dream then it is something new. Those new dreams can go both good or bad. Usually bad.

An odd thing for David was that each time one of the dreams was repeated something special seems to happen. The repeat dreams gets more detailed and in depth but the outcome always remains the same: death in a violent manner. They have even progressed to a point that he actually feels the pain the moment something bad happens as he starts to wake up. Although the terror of a nightmare is unequaled when in such dramatic detail, the dreams always end shortly after the pain starts. And they always seem to wake him up between 2:30 and 3:30 am.

At this point in his life, he has been through being mauled by just about every creature imaginable and died in all the worse ways imaginable. Beaten, burned drowned, crushed, chopped, eaten. If you can name it then he has probably experienced it in a dream at some point.

Still sitting there on the edge of his little bed, he realized just how mentally exhausted he was feeling after being startled awake.

"Work is going to suck today if I don't try to get a few more hours of sleep", he thought to himself.

He stood up from the bed, picked up his glasses off the nightstand and walked straight ahead into his apartment's bathroom. He always had this weird residual feeling lingering around in his body as a side effect from the intense nightmare. David had always thought that this must be the adrenaline from the scare. He didn't like it. It made it hard to go back to sleep.

Putting his glasses on, he walked up to the door of his bathroom. He hesitantly switched on the light in the bathroom before entering. The only reason for hesitation was because he has another regular nightmare that takes place in the bathroom. No ghosts appeared and locked him in as they creeped out the walls. He was actually thankful for being awake and not going through another nightmare tonight.

"Thank you", he said to himself. He was glad this wasn't just another dream and is actually reality. Sometimes just after he woke up from a nightmare, he would have trouble judging if he was in a dream or reality. Tonight wasn't one of those nights thankfully.

"Maybe a piss and a sip of water will help get me back to sleep", he had thought to himself while entering the bathroom to do his business.

After washing his face off with some warm water, he proceeded head back into the bedroom and climb back into bed. Disappointingly, he went on to lay in a semi-awake state for about 3 hours before his morning alarm blasted from his phone at 6:30 a.m.

"Guess I made the wrong decision.", he thought realizing he had just wasted time he could have been working. He could of went ahead and gotten started on the new exhibit building design for the Three Rivers City Zoo. This project was a big local attention grabber that needed the utmost care in design. A few extra hours in reviewing the proposal notes and the client's background would be helpful in the project kickoff meeting on Thursday of this week.

"Damn, today is going to suck," he thought again, "A stereotypical Monday."

After begrudgingly climbing out of bed, David jumped in the shower to try to wake himself up. The shower was freezing cold in an attempt to startle his body awake. After years of unfortunate sleep, he has developed a few methods to help himself get through the work day. An ice cold shower will get him up and going until around 10:00 am. It was one of the only easy fixes available to help him get out of the house after a nightmare filled night.

After the shower, David got dressed in his usual work attire: khakis and a dress shirt. The stereotypical uniform of an architect. Looking at himself in the mirror, he couldn't help but frown. No matter how nice he dressed he still looked like the definition of a sleep deprived human. Slightly pale skin, heavy eyes, muted facial expressions, a yawn that pops out of nowhere, and a tired posture. David looked pretty rough. Good thing he didn't have any client meetings today.

After the quick peek at himself in the mirror, he walked to the kitchen and made himself breakfast. He always felt so worn out after having one of those intense nightmares. He quickly inhaled a cream cheese laden bagel and packed up another for his commute to work. He also decided to bring in his lunch today in order to free up a few extra minutes of work time. It is always a lot quicker to just bring a lunch then waste the hour and a half needed to go grab something from a restaurant in the heart of the city. He just didn't have the time today so he quickly made three sandwiches. One more sandwich than usual. He was hungry when he woke up and was expecting to carry that hunger throughout the day.

He packed his lunch and few notebooks he had left out into his backpack. For the hike to work, he uses the backpack to keep his stuff together journeying to and from work. After walking to the door and flipping off the lights, he locked up his apartment and left for the long walk to work.