Oftentimes when I sleep, I don't dream. I've had people tell me before that it's impossible not to dream, that I've simply forgotten what it was I dreamt upon waking. But in my experience, dreaming only leads to tossing, turning, and a night's worth of troubled sleep. My sleep is usually quite sound, and so, for the most part, I'm certain I rarely dream.

Last night, though, I experienced what most nighttime dreamers must experience on a regular basis, and I'm paying for it this early autumn morning with a dull, throbbing headache and two bleary eyes whose lids are quickly losing the battle against gravity. Last night, I had a very bizarre dream - a very vivid dream. One that I think bears repeating.

The dream began pleasantly enough. Well, "boring" might be a more apt descriptor, as the dream started with an average day at work. I performed my menial tasks, alongside my friends and coworkers, my bosses, and my clients. Everything was normal, and dull, and painfully average. That is, until I was suddenly directed by one of my bosses to murder a client in cold blood. As you can imagine, I was horrified beyond words. Kill an innocent man? Me? I would never do such a thing.

My boss held a gun out in front of me, the barrel gripped nonchalantly in his hand as the butt of the firearm dangled in front of my face - a hand-cannon if I ever saw one. Much to my horror, I found myself reaching out and taking the gun by the grip, holding it in my right hand with a certain confidence I did not actually feel. I wouldn't actually do such a thing... would I?

The dream shifted, as they often do, and I found myself at my client's home. It was as if I had no control over my own body, my legs carrying me forward of their own accord. I didn't want to enter that house. I knew the man quite well. He had a wife and a daughter, and I knew that if I crossed the threshold into their home, I would not be able to control myself. Their saffron carpeting would be stained a deep crimson, the bodies crumpled and lifeless in pools of their own clotting blood. Husband, wife, and daughter, all felled by a smoking gun, clenched tightly in my own two hands.

And so it was. I knocked on the door with the butt of the revolver three times - TAP TAP TAP. The wife answered the door, opening it with a smile, a look that froze on her face as I pressed the barrel to her forehead and pulled the trigger - BANG. Her head seemed to explode open, raining gore all over the welcome mat, and then her body fell, lifeless, to the floor. A scream - the daughter in front of the television, her back to its electrical glow as her terrified eyes stared up at me in shock. I swung the gun in her direction, and was about to fire when a man jumped up from his seat near the television and blocked my view of the young, curly-haired girl - the father. He shrieked something at me in some language I could not comprehend, probably some sort of dream-speak, but I stopped the sound dead in his throat with two well-placed shots - one in the neck and one between the eyes. BANG BANG. He gurgled for an instant, his eyes widened in horror, before crumpling to the ground just as his wife did. Only the girl remained, and while my mind reeled from this grotesque sport I could do nothing about, my arm twitched to aim the gun at the frightened daughter. BANG BANG BANG. The chamber emptied into the girl's chest, and she too collapsed, her blood seeping into the carpet, spreading far too quickly from her frail body towards my place near the door.

Control of my body suddenly returned to me, and I let out a strangled cry as I half-dropped, half-threw the revolver to the floor, like a piece of searing-hot metal that had burned my hand. I turned and ran, tears welling up in my eyes as I pumped my arms and legs with all my strength. I had killed three innocent people. An entire family lay dead, by my hand. How could I do such a thing?