It was dark. Encroaching, all reaching inky blackness. I squinted my eyes in a vain attempt to see anything. I could hear my own breathing, raspy and frantic. 

“Run!” my mind screamed. I wanted to escape from the darkness, but it was there, everywhere I turned. A suffocating blanket of disorienting obscurity.

There was a clattering, the sound of a glass bottle rolling across the pavement. I jumped, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Could it be? It had to be. 

But no. 

It didn’t make sense. 

He was. 

He was…

“Hello?” I called, not sure I wanted an answer. 

“Oh Callie, Sweet Callie. What are you doing here all alone,” his voice was sickly-sweet, sending chills of ice to my gut, nausea welling inside me. 

I took a frantic step back, colliding with a wall, and then he was there. Right in front of me, pressing into me. I could see every detail of his face, even in the darkness. The face that haunted me, sending me into spasms of terror. 

“Jeffrey,” I whispered, “How did you find me?”

“I will always find you, Callie. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will find you.”

He was pressing me into the wall, crushing me under his weight. I could feel his hands wrapping around my throat, squeezing the life out of me. 

“It’s a shame to destroy this exquisite voice, Callie, but if I can’t have it, well, I’m certainly not going to be sharing.”

I could feel my eyes bulging as I choked and struggled to breathe, his fingers crushing the life out of me, his body pressing so hard against mine, leaving me unable to fight him. Smothering, suffocating.

“Please,” I mouthed at him, my hands fighting in vain to pull his fingers from my throat. 

“You’re going to be with me forever, Callie,” he said. “My Sweet siren. We’ll return to the depths together.”

No. 

No it can’t end like this. 

His piercing blue eyes glared into mine, a manic grin on his face as he drained the life from me. 

“No matter how much you beg and plead, I will never let you go. You are mine, Callie, mine forever!”

Let me go! 

Let me go!

Let me-

I sucked in a deep breath and managed to jolt myself awake. I could still see his horrible face as reality set in, and the nightmare began to fade. 

It was just a dream. A terrible dream. 

I was fine. I was safe. I was lying in my own bed, in my own apartment, at an address he had never been to. He was still locked up in prison, locked up for years to come. 

It took me a moment to stop shivering. I covered my face with my hands and let out a sob. Relief, terror, whatever you call it, the tears were good. They were necessary to remove the excess cortisol from my body. It was good to cry, my therapist always said.  Your body needs it. 

Another nightmare. 

What I wouldn’t have given to stop dreaming altogether.