The avenged

Worst nightmares: Dickinson

Your fear goes away when you find joy in your life. Then you fear how and when you will lose that joy. I hear her scream from time to time in her sleep, I always shake her awake, I always try to comfort her and she does the same for me. Nightmares are something you fear mostly when you were a child, but nightmares about losing the only joy you can find in the never ending tunnel is terrifying.

The echo of her words shoot through my mind as my feet touch the cold floor. I race after her, inches behind her down an endless passage. For once in my life I will admit I'm afraid. Afraid of what she'll do to herself. Afraid of how selfish my motives for saving her are.

Is my joy worth her eternal suffering?

I pause for less than a second before racing after her once again. I catch her screaming and squirming.

"LET ME GO!" She begs, her tears puddling on the ground. "I want my mother back!"

I hold on to her, my last shred of hope in this world. I can't live without her, it's just dead silence and white noise. She's miserable, yet I keep her here. Never to escape the horrors she whispers about in her sleep, never to see the mother who cared for her, never to break the soul of the man who abused her for months.

I sometimes wonder if she would rather break my soul. If there would be a soul for her to break. Or if I'm that man...