Figures on my lids take shape. Menacing, limping bodies come closer, reaching out while I scramble away, my balance suddenly restored. They crawl toward me when they stumble, their limbs catching on rocks and crevices as the earth cracks and fissures, tearing feet and elbows from their sockets. They crawl forward anyway, using their chests, their foreheads, sloughing parts and tracts of skin. When heavy lead fills my core, a body catches up and reaches for me. I pull my ankles forward an inch with my hands, kicking and screaming internally, but no external struggle shows; it’s not enough; it’s never enough. One body extends its remaining fingertips, its hollow skull grinning with a shift of light, as its cold bones grasp my own.

I come to, standing beside Angela’s desk. Pitch-black surrounds me. I pat around for the reading lamp and flinch when its click slices the middle-of-the-night quiet. The whiteboard is toppled to the ground, Angela’s message to me in our twin language smeared and indiscernible even to my fluent eyes. The room is empty. No monsters. The door is locked, too. Bedsheets are rumpled in a pile on the floor, and when I reach for them, a rush of blood makes me dizzy all over again. Our hieroglyphics—Greek letters, even planes, careful dots—ruined. I want to curl into a ball and claw the whiteboard, break it in two, howl into a pillow again. Angela’s one incontrovertible clue to me, gone—or at the very least affected and tainted by my sleep terror jumping up and away from monsters that weren’t there.

Numbness seeps straight through my organs, staring at this visual of my carelessness. Poisoning me the way I deserve.

Something moves outside below—a pair of policemen. They’re removing the homeless man who sleeps beside the front entry with his cane. He argues with them, then stands, rises with no wavering, and walks away like it’s the most natural act in the world. The cane is under his arm. I rub my eyes. When I look up, he’s gone. The two police officers confer alone. I touch the back of my palm to my forehead. Still warm. Did that just happen? I try to recall if I’ve ever seen the man walk before. Whether I’ve seen him carry his cane instead of using it to stand.

With both hands on the windowsill, I take slow breaths until my equilibrium stabilizes. This crusty, sick feeling is better than expecting my head to implode at any moment, but not by much. I make my way to the bathroom to splash water onto my face. Red veins spiderweb from each of my irises in the oval mirror. Freckles across my nose are amplified against pale skin. Behind me in the reflection, an image on Angela’s corkboard stands stark against the notes to self and knickknacks she’s collected.