A Nightmare

For whatever reason, when I was around eight years old, I had a lot of trouble with nightmares. Usually they were about robbers breaking in the house and I had to hide from them. Sometimes they would find me and then I'd have to try and escape. They were pretty distressing...and I usually would not want to go back to sleep...afraid they would come back. I would grab a small stack of comic books to read, sit on the bathroom floor and do my best to stay awake until morning.
There were two nightmares that were particularly upsetting to me. This is the story of one of those...

I was a child...just like any other child. Almost. I knew that I had a special power. It was an unusual power...and I could only use it once in my lifetime. It wasn't like x-ray vision or super human strength...it was something else altogether. It was something that, if and when I chose to use it...my life, as well as someone else's life would be changed forever. Now that's a super special power! One not to be wasted on just anything.
One beautiful afternoon, I was playing Prison Tag (a very popular form of tag in my youth) in the front yard of my Camp Fire Leader's house. We were having a great time. I was stuck in prison...waiting for someone to come free me. As I waited, I was watching the traffic pass by on the street just beyond the yard. This house was on one of the busier streets in town...so we always had to be extra careful playing in the front yard. All of the sudden, this car came barreling down the road. The driver was apparently not paying any attention to what was ahead...he appeared to be deep in conversation with his passenger. The car was veering off to the side and was just about ready to slam into a tree...which would certainly mean they would both be killed. I felt sure that if I were driving the car, I'd be able to slow down and swerve in time to miss the tree. I knew the tree was there...he did not. I had such great compassion for those people...I decided to use my super power to save them. As they sped past me I yelled "I'll trade places with you!" At that moment, the driver's head spun around and our eyes locked. It was then that I noticed that the driver was actually a mannequin. His body fell apart...and I woke up. I was really sorry I had traded places with a mannequin. For many years I avoided eye contact with all mannequins. It's not such a big issue for me anymore...but they still do kind of creep me out.