Echoes of Fear

It happened almost every night. She feels happy for a moment, but knows exactly what’s coming. Her heart pounds in her chest as she tries to prepare for the inevitable. Still, a sense of dread curls up from the pit of her stomach, and she can’t help feeling afraid. 

She watches helplessly as they break into her house, attacking her father. They had no identifiable features, completely covered in black. All she can see is them surrounding her father, hard thuds filling the air as they beat him senseless. He tries to fight, but they’re too prepared. He’s falling to the ground, and one of them is raising a gun at the rest of them. There are three shots, and her mother and brother are falling to the ground, but somehow one misses, somehow, she’s still alive, and she can’t think as a bag is shoved over her head and she can’t see. She thinks she’s shoved into a car, but she knows she hears her father. He calls for her and her mother and her brother before someone quickly shuts him up. The rest of the long trip is agonizing silence, each minute stretching into hours, until she feels crazy from the painful clench of anxiety spiking in her chest. She could never help it. 

There was nothing she could do for the rest of her family, but her dad was out there. She can save him - she can save them both. She just needed to get to him. 

She is suddenly pulled out of the car roughly and shoved forward. There’s a sudden bright light and she can see again, only to watch as they put them through some sort of processing with scalding water and flashing needles and forcing fluids down her throat before throwing her into a room with a pair of clothes, slamming the door, and sliding the lock into place. The room has a door on the other side, and upon further inspection, she finds that the simple lock, while engaged, is on her side of the door. 

She quickly gets dressed and pulls her hair back from her face before carefully approaching the door, undoing the lock, and stepping through, just hoping for the best. 

She sees her father, pacing nervously in a room similar to the one she had just walked out of. He looks up at her and visibly relaxes as they rush to each other. Never mind that none of it makes any sense, never mind that there are a thousand other things happening; what’s important is in front of her. Who she loves is with her again. 

His clean smell fills her senses all at once, his warmth seeps into her very bones, his voice soothes her soul and clears her mind. His dark scruff and hair brush up against her face as he sweeps her off her feet, holding her close before setting her down gently. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt this relieved. His presence is the security she needs to be able to do this. She could do this.

There is hugging and laughing and then crying as she tells him about her mother and brother. All the same, she feels a sense of peace now that she’s found him. She knew that together, they could do this. They could do anything. 

Suddenly the door on the opposite side of her father’s room swings open with a bang, and in comes a group of men, similar to before, dressed head to toe in black who rush at the two of them and pull them apart. Tears are streaming down her face, and she’s reaching for her father. He’s reaching for her too. It happened again.

They’re both pulled out the door and down the hallway in separate directions. She starts kicking and screaming, trying desperately to get away, to get back to the only person she has left. But she starts to feel terribly ill, and tired, and heavy, and is soon unable to do anything but droop limply in the guards’ arms. Something is terribly wrong. She knows it, she’s known it all along. But the fear is also so overwhelming, the panic so gripping, the loneliness and desperation slowly rising up her throat. 

She is thrown onto a crude cot and turned on her side and suddenly something else rises up in her throat, and everything comes hurling out of her, refusing to stop, the bile slowly turning red, and she knows she is dying. She closes her eyes and tears silently slip down her cheeks as she tries to remind herself it wasn't real. 

The child finally jolted awake from the nightmare. 

It had plagued her for as long as she could remember, and it was agony for the young girl. She sat up in her bed, chewing the inside of her cheek and looking nervously over at her door. She wasn’t scared of the dark, but she could still feel the fear from the dream, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep alone in the dark basement. She thought maybe she was getting too old to go to her parents' bed, but sometimes it was just a nice comfort. Her mother opened the sheets without hesitation and simply held her until she fell back into a peaceful sleep. 

.  .  .

I thought back on the dream that had haunted me as a kid while my roommate regaled me on the crazy adventures she had in her own dream last night. She loved to tell me about her dreams, and I loved to listen. She thought that her “psychological movies” were important to share with me, and I always found the stories entertaining, especially with the chaotically buoyant energy she had whenever she told a story. 

She was sitting on my bed, waiting for me to finish getting dressed. We were back at my childhood home for Thanksgiving break, about to head out for the day with my parents. 

We continued to chat as we walked up the stairs to my waiting parents, car keys already in hand - we were back at my childhood home for Thanksgiving break and were going to go out for the day. We all started talking and my roommate mentioned a comment from our earlier conversation that made me laugh. My mom asked me about it, and we were soon explaining that she told me about all of her dreams. 

“Because Maddi doesn’t dream,” my roommate explained. Surprise registered across both of my parents' faces as they turned to me.  

“Really? You don’t?” my mom asked. 

“I didn’t know that,” my dad added. 

I smiled and thought back to my earlier thoughts. 

“Nope. Haven’t since I was a kid.”