I used to have this dream that something was following me. I don’t know what it was, but I know it wanted to hurt me. I never did look back to see what the something looked like. But I know it was dark. Sort of indistinct. I think it was a person, but it was something worse too. Something more leeching. Like you could feel it reaching right into you to take what it wanted. I don’t think I’d ever choose to turn and see it. I think you’d have to be willing to give yourself up to do that. You would. I won’t ever turn to meet it.

The dream didn’t make sense, in the way dreams don’t. Sometimes the thing found me outside and followed me home at a distance. Sometimes it was at a store or at the library. Once it found me at school, but mostly it came to my bedroom at night. It waited by the side of my bed till I woke. Even in the dark, you can’t help but feel it. You can’t hide. And you can’t get away. I know, because I’d try.

Always, it follows.

If you’re afraid, it’ll know. It’ll know in a heartbeat. And then it follows faster. I think you can’t let it catch you. And I won’t let it. I never will. If you do, it will be too late.

Here is what happens.

Every time.

I start running. Down the street or across a park. Into a store. Anywhere. It follows. Other people might be there, in the dream, but no one else sees it. It wants me. Nobody else. I feel that. I run hard, but the something never gets farther away. It follows. I don’t know what to do, and I get tired, so tired, until, at the end, I always run to my house. Because you should be safe at your house.

I run through the rooms. To the stairs. I run up the stairs. It follows. One set of stairs ends, and then another set appears. Weird stairs that turn and twist. I tear up them. Higher and higher. Until the stairs get narrower. More rickety. They creak. I can feel the something behind me. Closing in. I push faster. Racing, stumbling. It follows. I go up until I get to the very top, and suddenly I’m outside and the stairs just end on this ledge overlooking the night. Black sky. Stars. And it’s high up. I jerk myself back from the ledge and just freeze there, swaying and looking out at all that dark—until I feel it there, right behind me. Until it’s breathing right into my soul. And that’s the moment I jump.

And then

I wake up.

I know this: Somewhere out there is a dark thing chasing us all.