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Inside, there was nothing luxurious: a brown sofa, an old fireplace, and large windows that let in the moonlight. The house had been cleaned before my arrival, and the air still smelled of cleaning products. I put my bag in the safe; it was what had convinced me to choose this house in the first place, then checked the other rooms. Again, no cameras, nothing, this place is also safe. Then I hit the road again to return to campus.

Tomorrow is a new day, and a huge amount of work awaits me.

8

Unknown

Play - Feral Love by Chelsea Wolfe

Before She Knew

Sweet angry and broken girl.

The house is filled with silence as I walk down the hall; the lighting in the home feels sad, just like the look in her eyes.

I stop outside her door and listen to her uneven breathing, the sound of her body in full effervescence as if she were plunged into her worst nightmare, and the calm of the rooms next door that tells me everything is safe tonight.

I know she is never asleep for long; an hour after dozing off, she wakes up lost, sweating as if she had drowned and couldn't find the shore for hours.

When she was little, it was easy: her door was always open, her mom drunk and passed out in another room. It was as if she almost waited for me, terrified and lost.

It was so easy back then, to put her to sleep for as long as I wanted her to be.

She never knew what I felt then, the thrill of watching her edges dissolve completely. But she grew up, and her routine changed. She started smoking, hiding a pack of cigarettes under her blue cushion. I had to adapt because of that.

Now I watch her get ready for bed, smoke after putting her brother to sleep, and I wait for that same fragile thread of sleep to carry her away.

In about fifteen minutes, she will wake up, unable to fall back asleep, frightened, convinced that the gaze fixed on her was only a nightmare, that the hands she sometimes feels roaming her body; those so-familiar hands and that voice she knows so well, were nothing but the product of her sadistic imagination.

I peep through the gap in her bedroom door, watching her chest rise and fall in her sleep. A cat is asleep next to her this time… That’s new.

I wonder if she ever thinks of me? Does she ever dream of me? Does she remember how well she behaved back then?

Her mother used to dream about me. I remember her whispering how scared she was in the dark.

Sometimes I think I still hear her voice. I wonder if she inherited her mother's voice. If that angelic tone she had back then was now ruined with years of smoking and screaming for help.

Does she know the truth? Does she know that she is mine?

I won’t be able to visit her often this year, but I’ll always keep an eye on my favorite toy.

9

Mireya

Play - Wings by Birdy

Sadistic Consciousness

It's often said that nightmares reflect our fears and traumas, that the brain buries them in the unconscious to protect us. A fictional reality where everything that hurt your soul is deeply hidden.

When you’re not conscious, it’s easier for your body to go through it all over again.

I read that somewhere when I started having trouble sleeping through the night.

My dreams, though, don't last long. They're short, fragmented, and in those few seconds, everything feels real. The fear, the fall, the burn, the violence, everything is more intense than when I'm awake.

They seem endless while I'm in them, and when I wake, each memory lingers, like a bruise left as a legacy on my body.