11 p.m

Kate Marsh climbs into bed after her nightly routine. She turns off the lamp beside her and kisses her fingertip before touching it gently against the dream catcher above her bed like she does every night. Like her mom used to so she wouldn’t get bad dreams. She pulls the blankets up to her chin and feels herself drift to sleep only seconds later, the weight off the day melting off of her. She shifts onto her side and tugs her stuffed giraffe closer to her body. Something clatters to the floor below her head and she thinks briefly of picking it up before sleeps sweeps her away.

12 a.m.

The nightmares come. Kate spins around in a dark room, panicking and looking for an escape. She turns and sees a tall man in an all black suit with a face completely white and featureless, a large black hat sitting on top of his head. Kate feels the overwhelming sensation of fear wash throughout her entire body and she tries to scream as the man creeps closer and closer. She turns once more and the room as lined floor to ceiling with mirrors and she sees the man in every one of them. She can see the tears running down her face from her reflecting and she chokes out an inaudible sob as the man is only inches away from her. He reaches out, his hands just milky white bone, and covers her eyes.

12:30 a.m. 

Kate's father has just gotten home. He takes extra time toeing off his clunky work boots in the coat closet so he doesn't wake up Kate and then tiptoes down her hallway, opening her door just a crack and smiling at her sleeping body before closing the door once again. What he doesn’t see is that Kate’s entire body is drenched in sweat and shaking. Her face is covered in salty tears and her giraffe is somewhere on the ground next to her, discarded in the thrashing of her nightmares.

1 a.m.

Kate sits up in her bed. For a fleeting moment, she thinks she’s awake. But soon the periwinkle walls of her bedroom lined with boy band posters erupts in flames. Kate gasps and gets out of bed, rushing to the door as she coughs through the smoke encasing her. She can hear the familiar screams of her mother that she hasn’t heard in years, and tears run through the layer of ash that is now settled on her pale face. The doorknob is hot under her hand and she pushes against her door, trying to get to her mother that is locked in the room across the hall. Her mother’s cries for help fade into darkness as consciousness begins to take over. “NO!” Kate screams, running at the burning door in hopes that maybe she’ll save her mom this time.

3:30 a.m.

Kate is shaken awake by her father. She blinks a few times to adjust to the light from her lamp and realizes she’s been crying. Her father places a steady hand on her shoulder and looks as if he has tears of his own in his tired brown eyes. “Kate? Are you alright? You’re shaking.”

Kate nods immediately before a wave of sadness hits her and she begins to shake her head. Her father wraps his arms around her and lets Kate sob into his chest for a few minutes, stroking her damp hair and assuring her that everything will be okay.

“When did you take down your dream catcher?” Her father asks.

Kate jolts up from where she was beginning to fall asleep once again in the safety of her father's arms and looks at the wall above her bed. The nail that once hung her dreamcatcher was now abandoned. Kate got up from the bed and got onto her knees beside it. She bent down and could see the feathered dream catcher in the dusty, dark underneath of her bed. She reaches out for it and feels that the border is cracked in half, only held together by its strings. She sits up and holds the two pieces in her hand, looking curiously at it with furrowed brows.

“Maybe that’s why you were having such bad dreams,” Her father jokes from above her.