Dream Catcher

     The things people dream these days can be very fascinating, but many are terrifying. Some of the dreams make people wake up with a smile on their face. Many of the ones I see would make people wake up screaming and crying. It's a good thing that they invented dream catchers.
     Dream catchers have caught bad dreams since the 70's. It's been my job to go around and collect the bad dreams from dream catchers since then.
     Some of the dreams I see make me scream and cry for my mother. It's amazing the things people think up and fear. I was once a human. I could feel full emotion. After years, I became increasingly emotionless. But then I started to remember old dreams. Dreams from times long gone.
     One dream in particular though made me feel emotion again more than others. Every time the dreams scared me.
     I specifically remember the child that dreamt them as well. Red hair and freckles. She always dreamt the worst dreams. Shootings, storms, apocalypses, the works. But the one I remember best was about the monsters under her bed.
     She had the same recurring dream multiple times, almost always the same. It started when her parents started fighting when she was about five. She barely understood what was happening, but heard screaming and went to her room to hide. She fell asleep and dreamt of monsters, the ones under the bed, grabbing her and taking her to their world. The one thing that was different each time was that the monsters would gather around her and tell her what would happen with her parents, or anything bad that would happen. It was terrifying, but very helpful.
     When she was five, the monsters explained that her parents wanted to leave each other. Mommy and daddy didn't love each other anymore. A few weeks later, mommy and daddy sat down the child and explained that they didn't love each other anymore, as the monsters had said.
     When she was 7, the monsters said that mommy had found a new daddy for her, but he would never love her. A month later, mommy sat the child down and introduced her new boyfriend, soon to be husband.
     When the child was 16, the monsters came back. They told her that mommy didn't love her anymore because she had other children to love. The child grew bitter. Her mother kicked her out of the house, so she went to live with her father.
     When the girl graduated, she stopped dreaming of the monsters for many years.
     One night when she was 24, the girl dreamt of the monsters one last time. They told her she would die that night. She wept for hours, then decided that she had to accept death. The monsters were always right after all.
     That night, she died of heart failure at the young age of 24. When she died, an odd man came to her. He asked if she wanted to be the one to empty dream catchers of bad dreams where no other child could go through the pain she experienced in her dreams. She accepted.
               That girl was me.