The red numbers on my alarm clock blurred and faded as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.  

“Mommy?” The warm bed enveloped me in a soft hug and I recoiled at the thought of getting up at 1 AM once again.

“Mommy?”. I tossed and turned but try as I might the voice wouldn’t go away. With a sigh, I broke away from my half dreaming state and into the cold reality once again.

“Mommy?”, my daughter, Anna impatiently repeated. I sat up and looked at her slim form outlined in the doorway. Her face, paler than it should have been stared back at me.

“What’s wrong, honey”, I asked, though I already knew the answer. Gingerly, she crept into the room and with a sudden movement was huddled up next me.

“I had a bad dream”, she whimpered. While she was giving me an vividly descriptive version of her nightmare, my mind went to the school I had to go to in a few hours. As a single mother, it was a lot handling work AND college, trying to pay the rent on this stupid apartment and yes, sometimes even my own daughter. I loved her to death, but these constant nighttime visits were not improving my stress level at all.  

However, just as I was about to tell her to go back to bed for the the fourth time in a row, Anna abruptly broke into tears.

“ I’m scared, mommy”, she sobbed. “ I want to stay with you here”.

    At this point I had had it. All I wanted to dive back under the fleecy covers and forget this entire situation happened. Struggling to keep my voice level, I commanded her to go back to bed and to stop making so much noise. Talk about a bad idea. It was like a switch had been flipped and all of a sudden, hundreds of sirens were discordantly blaring inside of this very room- except the hysterical toddler bellowed even louder. I’m shocked we didn’t get some angry calls from the neighbors below. She became a whirlwind of arms and legs, but through the blur, I got a glimpse at her tear stricken face.

    I was being a meanie case of a mother right there, as she would say. Despite how tired I was, all of that melted away when I saw how hurt she was. I scooped her up and gave her a big, cuddly hug. I got kicked in the face a few times, but even a 4 year old understands the universal apology that lies in a hug. She calmed down and buried her face into my shoulder.

“Do you want me to lie you back down in bed?”, I gently asked. With a gasp, she squirmed down from my arms and turned to look at me, face white as a sheet.

    “You can’t,” she hoarsely whispered. I guess all that screaming had finally taken a toll. Still the oddness of the her reaction left a chilly feeling inside of my lungs, like I had just inhaled pure ice.

    “Why not”, I replied, also whispering because she was.

“Because that’s when he came in”

“Who?”

“The man”

“When?”

“In my dream”

I instantly felt a wave of relief come upon me. “ It’s just a dream”, I told her.

I finally convinced her to let me take a look around and holding her hand, walked across the hall to her room. The floorboards creaked and groaned with every step. It was pitch black in her room. A black seemingly too dark for place full of windows with the moon up. I could almost feel Anna’s hand get colder. I groped along the wall for a lightswitch.

“Where’s the light switch, sweetie?”, I asked. Just as quickly, I found it. The lights flashed on and I struggled to accustom my eyes to the sudden brightness. Then, something thick and wet dribbled down my other arm. Possibilities were floating through my head, but nothing would ever prepare me for the sight I saw next. My daughter’s severed hand was still clasped in my own.

A deep voice spoke in front of me but I couldn’t bear to turn and see what else faith was in store for me. “You should have listened”, echoed from the walls of the room and seemed to have reached the very depths of my soul. Frozen with fear, I was still staring at where Anna once was, when a high pitched scream shattered the air and the darkness consumed me once again.