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I bolted up from my deep sleep with a pain in my chest and hazy vapors of fear still wavering in periphery. The details of the dream were quickly escaping my mind, leaving only the overwhelming terror that had just gripped me. Shaken, I wiped my long bangs away from my sweat soaked face and deeply exhaled while focusing on the illuminated green numbers on the alarm clock across the darkened room. 3:33 AM.

"Of course..." Always at three thirty-three. At least the nightmares were consistent. I peeled the drenched sheet back from my legs, swung my feet to the cold hardwood floor and sighed again. "This is getting old." Navigating the darkness and making my way to the decorated bathroom. I relieved myself then washed the sweat from my face in the sink. Looking into my own reflective gaze, I found the expression that was so familiar now. Every third night at three thirty-three for as far back as I could remember I would wake in the grip of terror. I was a realist, however, years of therapy combined with my own common sense told me that it could be much worse. There were never any memory from the night terrors that plagued me. Nothing that stayed with me through the day or filled me with enough dread that I would avoid sleeping every third night.

I head downstairs for a drink, my mouth is dry. After a glass of milk and a short internal debate, I found myself climbing back into the, now somewhat dryer sheets and settling back into slumber. My pillow, of course, was perfectly dry. The pillow, which I fondly dubbed Ye Old Pillow, was always perfectly dry and perfectly cradled my head. I'd taken the pillow as a memento from my grandmother's house after her passing, around four years ago and hadn't slept a night without it since. Some familial research with my mother, aunts and uncle led to a complete story which included Gammy sleeping with it every night of her life since it had been bestowed to her by her grandmother.

Heated days in Grammy's attic spent searching boxes and chests saw the pillow with its distinctive stitching and embroidered garnishments in photos and paintings going back several generations. I honestly had no idea how old the pillow actually was but she liked to fantasize that it was stitched together in earnest love by the great King Arthur, blessed by Merlin and gifted to his true love Guinevere. All these factors lent themselves to an even larger degree of amazement at just how perfect the pillow still was. It rarely seemed to need to be cleaned as I could only remember having done so a couple times and even that had somehow added to the pillow's lore.

When I first took possession of it I had it cleaned at a local dry-cleaners and all though they said nothing about the process it was the last item they cleaned before closing their doors forever. Two years later I had my boyfriend at the time take it to the place where he had his suits cleaned. The following day the business burned to the ground (the police suspected arson) and while I was sure it was to be my pillow a couple days after it was found in the rubble and returned to me; completely clean and unsigned in the least.

I didn't know if it was stuffed with cotton or down for even old clothes, but it always remained dry and comfortable. It predated memory foam by a large margin but seemed to hug the head better than any memory foam ever could. When instances arose that I was thinking about it I never ceased to amaze at my fortune to still have it as 'her' pillow.

I was having one such moment 15 days later, as I leaned back into its warm embrace I knew full well that this was to be a nightmare night and had, for the first time, taken an Ambien I'd been given by my friend Laura at school the previous day. I've never been much of a cheerleader for using medication, whenever I'm sick I don't take medicine, when I have a booming headache I still don't take medicine. I never did when I was younger, but I decided I could change it up a bit knowing these nightmares were going to most likely go on for the rest of my life every third day at three thirty-three. I couldn't see the harm of at least trying it once. Laura had warned me of the possibility of sleepwalking but since I had never done that in my life I didn't give the warning too much thought.