I dreamed of darkness and of the silver of stars. I dreamed of the coldness of sodden grass beneath my back. I dreamed of the heat of another body, of hands on my skin, lips against my throat, of pain, sharp and dizzying. I dreamed of the storm crashing over my head, as I lay on the ground.
In my dreams there was a man, there was the storm, there was pleasure so deep I thought I might become lost in it, adrift in the tempest.
And at the same time, there was someone screaming.
For a long time I was confused, until I came to understand the screaming was my own, my voice, screaming at me to get up, to run away, to stop this.
I awoke with a start in Martha’s room. The dawn was blue and gold outside the window, and I was fully clothed and covered with a blanket. The journal lay on the floor at my feet. I had evidently dropped it whilst sleeping.
I sat up and ran hands over my clothes, and then to my neck, where I shakily felt over all the skin over all my throat, feeling for punctures or wounds. I was sure in the dream, he had bitten me. Was it a dream? I didn’t know. It felt so real.
I looked at my hands, slippery with sweat, not blood. There was nothing there, but the feeling of the dream had been so real that I got up and went to the kitchen on trembling legs. The back door was closed, the box still up against it where Martha had placed it the night before. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief, trying to assure myself that I’d dreamt what had happened the night before. I was obviously allowing my imagination to get the better of me once more. Then I stopped and stared.
The blind over the window was open, and there was a single glass standing in a pool of water on the drain. I had closed that blind the night before, and the only time I had seen it opened was before the eyes appeared at the window, just before the voice had called me outside.
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