Nightmare

A sound wakes me. My lips are so dry they have cracked, and are bleeding, my throat is parched, my heart racing. I lay there, still paralyzed from the nightmare...

I was walking with my family. My parents were a little in front, and I was walking behind them, with my brother. He was teasing me, and I could not shake the feeling that something was not right here. Suddenly I remember. I had told them. He shouldn't be here. I run to catch up to my parents, and tell them to make him go away. They tell me to calm down, he's not doing anything wrong. I'm so stunned I stop moving, and he catches up to me.

He wraps his arms around me, pinning my arms to my side and lifting my feet from the ground. I yell for my parents. Surely they can see he shouldn't be doing this, especially after what I've told them. They again brush aside my complaints, he's only trying to give me a hug, because he loves me, I'm being ungrateful.

He starts to move in, like he's going to kiss me. I'm fighting as hard as I can, crying, and screaming. My parents keep walking, as though nothing is happening. My fighting has no effect, I can't get away, I can't make him let me go. I scream louder and louder, hoping this will make my parents realize something is wrong.

I try so hard to scream as loudly as I can, that finally a sound escapes my throat. That is the sound that wakes me. Wakes me to the taste of blood from dry lips stretched wide to scream, to a racing heart, and tears. They didn't do anything to stop him. They didn't help me when I needed it.