Thread & Needle

It had been four years since Coraline's run-in with the Beldam. Four years, and she was still haunted by her after nightfall in her dreams, plagued by foggy, dark images of a flag made from a faded friend's clothes, children trying to tear out charcoal button eyes, and spiders with cracks like broken porcelain everywhere, crawling towards her. She was unable to move in these nightmares, frozen painfully as she was forced to watch them creep over to her. With every passing day they crept closer and closer to her, metallic legs becoming sharper with every inch they gained, before she would wake up in cold sweat.

It was always with a heavy sigh of relief that she woke up, reminding herself that they were just dreams. Because even though her eye bags kept on growing darker and her emotions more turbulent, at least it was all just a dream.

Or was it?