Dreams Still Touch

Being an adult, she discovered, didn't mean she didn't have nightmares.

Her friend was there, somehow larger and stockier than she thought he'd be, holding a pair of sharp scissors, and something in his demeanor, said he planned to use them on someone, maybe even himself. Worried, she wrestled them away from him and he went off with his wife quietly.

But he didn't stay there...he came back, and pulled her into the kitchen, shoving her down to her knees. His hands weren't rough but they were like iron and she couldn't move, couldn't stop him from trying to hurt her.

But then he was gone.

And in her hand she held a dream catcher, some kind of mystical device that frightened more than it soothed. Her mother tried to convince her to go online to use it, but with each sentence her voice got worse, and yet worse, so unnatural it was no longer human.

She went upstairs in the old house, only to see her mother was there too, still in bed, but awake. Her mother said, it wasn't natural, but the *thing* was causing it, but it couldn't be destroyed.


She awoke with a shudder, a creepy scared feeling that filled her empty apartment. She rolled over and looked at her computer, sitting there, and tapped out a few keys...

In a few minutes, he was there, his tiny letters scrolling across her screen. She spoke to him of her dream, still shaking. He didn't say much, save that she worried too much. He just emoted that he morphed her into a small kitten and held her on his lap as he went back to work.

and her shield fell in place. Her eyes drifted closed and her breathing slowed. She slept alone hundreds of miles away, but where it counted most, she was shielded from the darkness and slept without dreams.