I was falling and I was falling fast, I was falling deep. Something really bad was going to happen and I could feel it. It was the same feeling I had when we moved into that new house on Sankt Street; the goosebumps, the sudden drop in temperature, the increased heartbeat, the sweaty palms and the weak stomach that comes from anxiety. I could smell it too, it smelt like open wound, bleach and antiseptic.

I was feeling those same feelings and I was certain I was in my childhood bedroom but I knew I wasn’t. I could remember the gruesome image in the closet; brains on the wall, eyes rolled to the back, blood everywhere. It was real, yet it wasn’t.

I was feeling my way through, I needed to get out of here quickly. I was using the walls as a guide.

Then I touched it. It was squishy, it was like flesh softened by decay, it felt like it was falling off a bone and it was wet. I didn’t want to think about it but I knew what was happening somehow. I was touching her and it was so horrible. I didn’t know her, no, not in a way you know a living person; but I knew her like a memory. I understood her and I wish I didn’t.

Even as a child I understood her like an adult would. I didn’t understand the memory then, but I do now.

Why is she coming back after all these years of heavy drinking and expensive therapy sessions.

I realized it was just a dream when I woke up drenched. I looked around and all I felt was relief. I was in my own apartment. I was safe, I wasn’t that little child anymore, I wasn’t feeling dead bodies and I definitely wasn’t in my childhood home.

Was I safe though?

If she’s standing at the corner of my own apartment smiling sinisterly, maybe I’m not really safe.

I wanted to run, I wanted to scream but I couldn’t run and I couldn’t find my voice. What was she doing to me.

But she wasn’t doing anything, just standing.

I just wasn’t awake yet for this was a dream inside a dream.