Mad Sounds ∞ Harry Styles ∞

"You're a very strong girl, Millie."

Millie’s POV-         

I’m running.

I pass a thorn bush, then a huge oak tree, and then this mud hole. I slid and fell passing it but I don’t know why I never hit the ground, because I’m still running.

Suddenly I’m home, the smell of cinnamon and pumpkin spice fills my nostrils. It feels safe, almost secure enough for me to feel relaxed but I don’t know why I still feel scared.

Jump back to me running in the green and brown forest. I reach the road and see a car coming my way. I throw my arms into the air and wave them like a maniac but the car still doesn’t stop. It keeps going, accelerating even, and when I take one step to the side, I feel it colliding.

Then I’m back home, the taste of my mother’s sweet apple pie still in my mouth. It must be Saturday, I think. She always made this meal on Saturdays. Although I’m not in my bed or in the dining room where we always ate it, I’m somewhere dark and alone.

I feel so suffocated and when I move to open the door in front of me, I see my mother’s face. She’s on the floor, turned my way and begging for her life. There’s someone on top of her, though. He resembles a hobo so much and when I stand up to get out of wherever I was, I see a knife in his hand. All of a sudden my name falls out of his lips and I freeze.

“I don’t know where she is please!” my mother says and places her hands on top of his which are around her neck.

“I know you know where she is, you’re her mother,” the hobo look-a-like says then inches closer to my mother’s face “She belongs to me, now where is she?”

“No… she’s at a sleepover, please!” my mother screams, her eyes still focused on me. She knows I’m there but for some reason she’s lying to this person.

The hobo look-a-like screams in frustration then brings his arm down and jabs something into my mother’s chest. It takes me a while to register what he did but when I realize he just stabbed her; I cover my mouth to conceal my scream. He does it again and again and again and when he sees my mother no longer responding, he gets off her and runs away.

Suddenly, I’m running again, out the closet I was hiding in, down the hallway, and out the door. But instead of seeing my neighborhood- the cream houses, the rose bushes, and the pointy rooftops- I’m lying on the road, broken and half conscious.

“Millie,” I hear him whisper and when I open my eyes his face is all I see. “I did it for us.” He says before taking something out of his coat and stabbing me with it.

***

“And then what happens?” she asked and looked at me intently.

I took a breath in “And then I wake up,” I answered “Just like I always did.”

She gave me sympathetic look “Well like I told you before, the nightmare is an associate form of reliving the real experience. It’s to be expected.”

I nodded my head “I know, I just…” I looked down at my hands and played with the loose string on my sweater “They went away for such a long time I… I just can’t believe they’re back.”

“Millie, it’s going to take more than three years. You’re doing exceptionally well and you can’t expect them to just disappear like that,” she snapped her fingers softly. “It’s going to take time.”

“I know that I just…” I trailed off and pulled the string harder. “Why are they mixing in with the experiences from a month ago?” the string came off and rested in my hand “I mean I’d expect them to be separate but now they’re together?”