Panicked and immediately no longer aroused, I sat up to drag him out of there, only to have him hiss as more light touched him, scuttling back farther into the blankets. I opened my mouth to tell him to stop being stupid and let me see, but found that I had no voice, vocal cords straining with no results.

Plenty of my nightmares in the past had involved me screaming with no voice. Utter terror holding me hostage without the ability to call for help. I always felt that if I could just make one sound, I’d be safe from whatever torment my mind had conjured for me, but nothing other than dry wheezing ever left my throat. It was maddening.

But this was the first time that had happened with Idris in one of those dreams. Usually, the dreams I had involving him were light and fluffy or sexy.

They were never haunting in quite the way this dream was turning out to be.

I reached for Idris again, but he scrambled so far back, he fell off the end of the bed, and when I looked over the edge after him, there was nothing there but the blanket. I paused, stomach clenching.

Where did he go? I needed to find him and figure out what was going on. He was hurt, clearly. He needed me.

Given the layout of the room, there was really only one place he could have gone.

Under the bed.

I’d never had a childhood in the strictest sense, so I’d never had the quintessential experience of believing there were monsters under my bed. No, all the monsters I knew of hid in broad daylight.

But now I was getting an echo of what that fear must feel like for a child. I was puzzled about why I was scared at all. It was just Idris, and he was hurt. What was stopping me?

I remained frozen, perched on the end of the bed, peering down at the clumped-up blanket. It was so still and quiet. I couldn’t even hear myself breathing.

Finally, after what felt like hours, I moved, forcing back every instinct within me that was telling me to stay on the bed, curl up under the sheets, close my eyes, and wait for morning.

Slowly, I hung over the edge of the bed, and peeked my head down to look underneath.

I didn’t even have a chance to gasp.

All I saw was a blur rushing towards me, and then something grabbed me by the hair, yanking me down fully off the bed. I hit the floor with a grunt and was quickly dragged into the darkness under the bed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see if it was Idris who’d dragged me down there or some sort of monster, because the dream shifted. One moment I was utterly terrified for myself, for Idris, blind as shit with no clue what was going on, and the next I was standing on the balcony outside the living room, a cup of hot coffee in my hands, the warm summer breeze caressing my cheeks, tangling in my hair.

My heart was still racing, but in the dream, I couldn’t quite remember why. I rubbed my chest, unsettled, and then twitched at the sound of the door unlatching behind me.

I whipped around to see Idris coming out with a mug of tea in his hands, hair mussed from sleep and still in his pajamas. He’d woken up before I had to make me my coffee, then shooed me out to the balcony to feel the fresh air and wake up a little. I don’t know how I knew that, but in the dream, that sequence of events made sense to me.

Idris leaned on the railing next to me, and for a moment we simply stood there and enjoyed the sounds of Esen waking up below. It was peaceful, normal. We’d had several mornings just like this after we’d gotten married, enjoying each other’s presence and the world around us.

“I like this,” I murmured suddenly. “I like being with you.”

And that was true. But my awake self would never have admitted it.

Idris smiled softly. “I like it too.” He leaned in to kiss the side of my head, placing an arm around my waist. He didn’t withdraw immediately, and I turned my head curiously to see if he was sniffing me again – which I couldn’t judge him for since I sniffed him all the time – but his mouth met my ear before I could say anything, breath hot on my neck.

“Who’s inside?” he whispered.

I went still. “…What?”

Idris leaned back, his expression placid and unconcerned, a little playful, even, as though I had invited a friend over without telling him. He tilted his head toward the balcony doors, and I followed his gaze, peering through the glass.

My breath caught.

Inside was a shadowy figure who had been standing in our living room for gods know how long. But it looked… wrong.

It was tall, taller than Idris and me. Its hands were held out to its sides, each finger half a foot long, curved at the ends like claws. Its body was facing the kitchen, perpendicular to the doors, but its head…

Its head was turned right towards us, twisted at an unnatural angle. I couldn’t make out any features, just a shadowy blur, but the figure wasn’t what really had my attention, because there was something far more interesting going on.

My reflection.

I was caught in a daze, staring at the glass, my own shocked red eyes looking back at me.

Everyone always told me I was beautiful.

So what the hell was this?

In my reflection, I was pale and drawn, mouth twisted and ugly. My eyes were small and sharp and, oddly, without pupil. It was just red, the whites of my eyes scattered with not red veins, but black ones. I had way too many teeth, and all of them were pointed.

My hands came up without my permission, touching my own cheeks to see if they really dipped like that, to see if my mouth was really that misshapen. But it was like my hands were made of ice. I could feel nothing.

I stumbled back in a panic, having drifted closer to the doors in my daze, and finally realized that without my noticing, the creature in the living room had somehow ended up pressed right against the doors, fog forming against the glass from its hot breath right above my head, but I didn’t have a chance to register what it looked like up close, because the dream shifted again. The last thing I saw before it faded away was a glimpse of Idris from the corner of my eye, still smiling gently as he sipped his tea, completely unconcerned.

And it went on like that for the whole night. When morning finally came, I remained still and quiet in bed, unsure if I was still trapped in the nightmares, waiting for Idris’s sleeping figure next to me to do something fucked up again.

Thankfully, after about half an hour, he shifted, groaned quietly, and sat up in bed to stretch. His head turned toward me a moment later and I closed my eyes, feigning sleep.

I felt him coming closer, the heat of his sleep-warmed body brushing against me. I was tensed up, waiting for the other shoe to drop. At any moment, a fucking monster was going to start licking my face or – or drops of blood would start rolling down my skin from Idris’s tears.

But none of that happened. Idris just kissed my forehead and rolled out of bed to start his day.

I waited until he’d left completely to get out of bed, pinching myself and even touching the blue barrier on the door a couple times, the shock from the spell repeatedly telling me that I was finally, blissfully, fully awake.

And still trapped.

Fuck.

I shook off the weird dreams and told myself it was just stress. The fucked-up deer creature attacking me and then being captured by my own husband had probably just freaked me out so bad it was manifesting as absolutely batshit dreams. That was it.

So that left me to try my second method of attaining freedom: the guilt trip.

When I brought up my kids before, Idris hadn’t been moved much, but now that a little more time had passed, hopefully Peace and Wisdom were getting a little anxious and were pressing him to visit me. Peace’s puppy eyes were lethal, and if I pushed him from my end with my own pitiful looks, maybe it would break him. I could only hope that the darkness consuming him hadn’t fully taken root yet.

So an hour later, when Idris came back into the room with breakfast, I picked at my food despondently, letting out sad little sighs every now and then to really sell how miserable I was.

Truthfully, I didn’t have to fake it very much.

Idris, of course, took the bait.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly, eyeing the uneaten food on my plate with a worried expression.

I almost scoffed at the question.

What’s wrong? Gee, I wonder. A real genius, this one.