“Please follow us to the hot spring, Dilly!” one brightly colored nag with an ivory horn jutting from its head shouted to me. Oh no, not this shit again.

Every night, ever since my older sister forced me to watch that stupid cartoon, these dreams have haunted me routinely.  

“For god’s sake, leave my dreams already!” I shouted back in the non physical realm I was trapped in. The nag, more commonly referred to as a unicorn, ignored my requests and continued to pester me, as always.

“Oh please Dilly, I’ll lead you to salvation…” the ghastly thing said.

“Wait a second, this isn’t what you usually say… what’s going on?”

Near instantly, I sprang awake.

I jutted upright in my bed covered in a cold sweat, surrounded by the dark comfort of my room. Antiquities and pop culture artifacts lined my surroundings.

What was that voice, if felt so real, too out of character…

I looked around in the blackened room, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, my posters were untouched, my collectibles were in their same places.

Even my prized rock pet, Johnson, was in the same place.

There was nothing to be scared of, no intruder hiding in the dark.

I guess I dreamed it… Oh well, back to hell.

With those sad thoughts, I let out a long yawn, letting my eyes shut.

“Hey dumbo, wake the heck up!” a voice spoke from the night.

Immediately I jumped awake from my bed, stood straight up, and adopted a mock karate like stance.

“OK, WHO THE LIVID HEK IS HERE!” I shouted through an adrenaline charged moment of bravery. I immediately grew short of breath.  

“Hey yo, Jackie Chan, check your rock.” the mystery voice instructed.

Through gasps I tried to identify the threat.

“Who (huff) is (huff) there (huff)?”

“Its the rock, stupid!” the voice stated.

I dropped to the ground in front of the bed, hitting my head on the way.

“He he, nice one, dufus.”

I sat on the floor (more like I collapsed), huffing voraciously for a few moments, all of the time the voice claiming to be Johnson cracked asthma jokes. It became quite apparent that I wanted to cry on the spot or hurt the speaker.

Suddenly the shudder of thunderous footsteps echoed through the house. The bedroom door burst open with the force of a nuclear bomb. A gigantic and fat silhouette stood in the frame.

“Robert, I heard voices, is there problem?” said the owner of the house, a fellow named Alexi, a man who just invited me to live with him for some reason, but on the condition that I call him (internally retching) the Sugar Daddy.

“A little help, please?” I said from the ground.

“I’m sorry, a little help ‘who’?” he responded.

I sighed, “A little help, sugar daddy?”

A gleam of his smile was reflected in the dim moonlit room.

“Yeah, sure Ronald” The big Russian man approached me and picked up my light frame with a lone hand.

He placed me gently on the bed and approached the door again.

“I heard two voices, comrade, were you practicing your stupid voices again?” Alexi the Sugar Daddy asked.

I looked queerly at him through the darkness, he heard the voice as well. So am I crazy as Alexi or am I sane as anyone else? I didn’t even know where the voice was coming from, was this truly a prank?

“Yeah,” I decided quickly, “what do you think?” I lied through my teeth.

The Russian guy looked amused.

“I would like it a lot better if you didn’t fall whilst doing it. Go back to sleep.” He said, shutting the door behind him as he exited.

I folded the blankets back onto my body and closed my eyes.

“Hey buddy, ya going to sleep already?” The disembodied voice announced.

My eyes shot open,

aw, c’mon, not this shit again.

I sat up to speak to this, whatever it was.

“Let me sleep, dammit.” I responded to the voice.

“Don’t ‘cha wanna see me? I’ve been hanging around you for about four years, c’mon Robbie, look at the rock!” The voice commanded.

If I get up, I’ll end this dumb joke soon enough.
I threw the covers off of me and marched up to the rock placed on my desk.

“Ok! Now what? Do I pick you up and cradle you like a baby, like your mother did frickin’ Alexi?”

The voice retorted, now sounding a lot closer.
“First off, I didn’t have a mother, unless you count that sow, Mt. Saint Helens. Second off, don’t I sound closer, in your direct proximity, Ahem, like right in front of you?”

The voice now sounded like it came right from the rock, wait… The voice…
All forms of self control I had went right out the window.
“HOLY CRAP, MY ROCK CAN TALK! ROCK JOHNSON CAN TALK!” I shouted in the ungodly hours of the night in a foreigners apartment. My life has seriously gone down the drain.

“For fuck’s sake ginger, keep it down!” Alexi shouted from below the apartment.

“Hey, buddy, keep it down, I have ears ya’know.” The voice, confirmed to be the rock, said.

“Oh, sorry, my bad, I meet a talking rock everyday.” I snapped back in a whisper.

“Speaking of, sorry for the pun, I have revealed myself to you for a reason.” Johnson continues.

I threw my hands up into the air. A million questions filled my head at once.

“Why haven’t you talked to me before? How long have you been alive? How do you live? Can you move? Are rocks people, too? How did you gain sentience?” The blurb flew from my mouth in less than a second.

“HEY, slow down!” the rock said, “Sigh, here, I’ll give you one question to have an answer to, one answer to one question. Choose wisely.”

I had to ponder this for a moment… then the perfect question came to be…

“Do you cause my nightmares?” I blurted out without thinking.

The rock laughed after letting out a huge raspberry.

If it was possible, I would grow even more red than I was.

The rock was laughing maniacally, hooting like a maniac, losing control like a clown.

“Ok, you know, what? Just tell me why you just suddenly revealed yourself to me or I’ll, I’ll… I will melt you down.”

After a few moments of inhalation (who knew rocks could breath) and recovery, the rock calmed down.

“Ok, Robbie. Yes, I have business to attend to and I need your assistance. Ya see, only once a year do I actually come to life. So does a whole bunch of other stuff, but that’s not important right now. What I need you to do is take me and destroy my physical presence here so I can return to my true body. Or, I’ll die when you destroy me. Either way, I just want to get out of here.”

“Oh, thanks for the input. Yeah, sure, I’ll totally destroy the shit out of you.” I said without mercy.

“Whoa, chill dude, I just want to leave this mortal realm, don’t need to be a little psycho.” Johnson said.

“Hey, I don’t want to destroy you, I got you from my father before he left.”

“I know, I was alive that night, man, he hated you. Also, make sure you destroy my core complet- AHHH”

I swung down on the surprisingly soft material with a stapler that was next to the rock. He broke into five pieces with one central piece still alive.

“OW FUCK, WHAT THE HELL YOU GINGER? AHHHH, SHIT, HELP ME, HELP ME!”

Johnson roared, somehow I missed. I readjusted my stapler and slammed down again.

The swing missed completely and instead hit a stray chunk.

“DAMMIT KID, KILL ME ALREADY, WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU? END ME!”

An anger rose from within me that never arose before, not even from my constant years of being downtrodden and bullied, It flowed through me and weighed the stapler in my hand. With the fury of a thousand nukes I slammed the stapler on the rock’s core once, twice, again. Screaming arose but the thud of my heartbeat drowned out the noises of Johnson suffering.

Eventually blackness found me. What felt like moments later I woke up to the sound of Alexi cursing out someone in his native tongue.

I looked around to find myself in the deck chair, in the room I dwelled in, and in front of me was the rock, shattered to smithereens.

“Johnson? You awake? Hello?” I asked in a whisper. Silence only met me.

To this day I still live with Alexi, and to this day I do not know if that was a dream or not. But one thing I have noticed is that after that night I never had the dreams about homosexual unicorns ever again.