I just woke up from the strangest dream...

I don't remember most of it, like most of my dreams, even though I wasn't fully asleep, more like I was half daydreaming.

Anyway, it involved these creatures.. these tiny baby creatures, just born on a farm. The farmers put them in those little dirt packs that you plant seeds into, but the skinny ones not the fat ones. These animals.. I could call them ducks.. but they were.. "deformed".. and for some reason I want to call them adorable. They had these grey, skinny, long legs with tiny webbed feet. And they had fluffy middles, just like ducks. The heads.. they were so small, black feathers puffed out everywhere, and their bills were thinner and more flattened than a duck's. You couldn't see their eyes, I think they were too newborn-ish to be able to open them. And their necks were impossibly skinny for an animal.. it was slightly skinnier than a rose's stem and probably about half a rose stem long, and... just as fragile. I saw a few of them snap, the poor things.

But... there was this one, they came out of the barn with this baby "duck", it was all by itself... not in a group, like the others had been brought out. You heard the farmers talking as they brought it out... all of it's brothers and sisters died during birth. They set it in it's own seedling pot and left to go back into the barn. Immediately, you could hear it wailing and the tears just poured down. Two of the other baby "ducks" climbed out of their pots and into the crying one's pot, and huddled next to it, as their necks wrapped around it's neck to offer comfort. It kept saying, "They're gone, they're all gone," and weeping.

That's the last I remember, before I woke up. But I woke up with tears on my face.

It's not uncommon for my dreams to wake me up. I'm even used to the occasional waking up screaming or shaking so badly that I feel like I'm having a panic attack. But there's only been two other times in my life that I've woken up crying. That kind of waking up... it unnerves me more than anything.

And that little duck who's brothers and sisters were all gone? I have a sinking feeling that it was supposed to be me. And now I have this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that won't go away.