Wayward Child

It Begins

Cora lay in bed with her head under the covers. She held her tiny hand up and counted out loud. "1,2,3,4,5." Putting up each finger as she counted. Suddenly she froze. Something had touched her middle finger. It felt as though someone had held her finger between two of their own. Or between their teeth, she thought. Her heart pounding, she hurriedly crawled out from under her covers and without daring to look behind her she made a desperate run for her baby brothers room. She climbed over the side of his crib and cuddled close hoping she hadn't been followed. She calmed her breathing and before long she fell asleep. Now any normal person would wonder why she didn't run to her mom and dad's room as most children tended to do. Her parents were not the most loving and had she dared to ask them for help, she would have been punished and sent back to bed. So in her mind, her brother was the safer bet. Not too long after this incident, Cora would begin to have bad dreams on occasion. After each of these bad dreams, she would feel the sensation of falling and then a being  she identified as "Wall Men" would appear and from her perspective, bite her finger. Interestingly, it was always the same one that the first entity had grabbed or bitten during her first occurrence. Surprisingly only a year later, Cora cried out for her father after she had been visited. Her father grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and ran into Cora's room. He yelled out that whoever was bothering his daughter had better stop or else. This may have made Cora feel safe for that moment, but the visitations continued. As Cora got older, she began to realize that the Wall Men were not just random beings. They began to take on the likenesses of people she feared. Her drunk father, bad guys from movies. If she tried to run from them, they would chase her down until they completed their task. Soon the Wall Men began to appear as people she admired. Their approach to her began to be simply that they had a job to do. She would let them bite her just to get it over with. Then at the age of fifteen, everything changed. 

Cora found herself in an orphanage after choosing to leave her mother's custody and escape from the years of abuse she had suffered. She had begun dating a young man three years older than herself and it was his attempt to visit her and her mother's interference that led to the change in the relationship she had with the Wall Men. When her boyfriend came to visit her, he had walked over an hour to meet her. Instead, Cora's mother met him at the door and had threatened to have him killed if he ever came near her daughter again. Upon learning what her mother had done, Cora became hysterical and ran back to her room. The staff demanded that her mother leave and never return. Later that night after Cora had gone to bed. Her best friend had been given permission to sleep on the floor next to Cora's as a source of comfort. Her friend woke suddenly when she heard Cora talking to someone. When she looked up, Cora appeared to be leaning against someone and pouring out her heart and soul out to them. And yet there was no one there. After watching the conversation play out, Cora finally said thank you and good night and fell asleep. Her friend, out of a sense of worry, alerted staff to what happened, the counselor stated simply that Cora was allowed to use whatever coping mechanism she needed to deal with the trauma her mother had caused. Cora had been afraid the staff would think that she was crazy and thankfully this turned out to be untrue. 

Some weeks later Cora had a dream that a pair of Wall Men came for her. They led her to what could be best described as the central location for their kind. She was brought before the leader, who appeared to her as a familiar character from one of her favorite movies. During the meeting, she was told that their would be no more visitations from their kind. Cora breathed a sigh of relief. The leader continued however, her voice solemn. "What is coming next is far worse, be prepared." The following night, Cora dreamed that she was being chased by an unknown entity. Her fear kept her from looking behind her as she ran down the familiar halls of the orphanage to her room. This felt different. Even more menacing than what she had experienced as a child. When she had hit puberty at the age of thirteen, she had also learned that she was an intuitive and had experienced her first premonition through her dreams.