Nightmares

She wakes in the middle of the night, afraid and alone. Shivers creep repetitively down her spine.

"A dream… It was just a dream…" she tells herself. How is she so childish as to be terrified of her own imagination?

"I’m not a child… 16 is not a child…" she thinks, steadying her rapid breathing as she attempts to regain a sense of normality.

Laying her head back down on the stiff pillow, she tries to sleep again; hoping, praying that sweeter dreams will crowd out grimmer ones that linger darkly in her mind.

Sleep comes, but pleasant dreams do not. Awful howlings penetrate her restless sleep. They are coming; for her and for her family. She doesn’t know why, she only knows that they will come. They will be here soon.

"Not tonight," her dream-self ponders cautiously. "Tonight is not the full moon- It was last night I was afraid…doesn’t that keep me safe?" But safe or not this night, the twisted nightmares continue, until her mind can take no more; she returns to reality.

She is bathed in a cold sweat. The perspiration runs endlessly down her neck and back, and she trembles.

The cry of a distant animal pierces the night, and she runs to the window. Beside her belief, the moon is not waning. Perhaps the moon is a little rounder than it was the night before.

She paces back and forth by her curtains, anxiety filling her heart. There are no solutions. She sighs, almost resigned to her fate. She can’t put up a fight, nor can she hide for long.

Looking again out the window, she gazes into the deep sky. The full moon stares back at her; a brilliant, unblinking eye. More howls roll through the distance.

They are coming.