Perception

XXXVII

Trigger warning: memory of abuse. Please skip the first paragraph if you don't need to read that <3

His leering smile told her everything she needed to know and she would have run, she would have tried to hide under the dirty bed with its rusted metal frame but she was frozen. She knew there was no escaping him when he leered like that. She saw his teeth between the chapped lips, crooked and yellow and she could smell his breath from here, the rotting smell that she was about to feel on her skin.
She would have screamed, but who was there to hear her? And even if they heard, who would help her? She gritted her teeth, backing up as far as she could on her bed and wrapping her arms firmly around her legs, as he came close.
"Don't be afraid, little girl." his sneering voice came from the entrance, just as he closed the door behind him. "We're just going to play a little game."
And she couldn't help herself as he came close, even though she was frozen against the coarse wall, she screamed on the inside, at the top of her lungs, but she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe....

Help! She screamed silently. Please, someone, help me!
Everything changed the second she said those words. The room dimmed around her, the dirty old bed and the broken mirror fading back into the darkness as she was pulled by soft hands, into the light. Suddenly she felt like she was carried by a million downy feathers and a sense of peace, a sense of belonging invaded her every sense.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't save you from that." a soft voice said in the distance. Anna looked that way, but she saw nothing, she just saw the feathers around her.
"Who are you?" she called into the white fluff, but there was silence all over now, not even an echo around, and it took ages for the voice to come back.
"Anna, I can't stay long." The voice sounded even further away now, and Anna strained to hear it. "But I'm always close. Please just follow your intuition, it will keep you safe."

Her eyes opened of their own accord now, and there was nothing she could do to hang on to the dream, or vision, or... she had no idea what it was. She blinked helplessly at the wooden ceiling above her with its white beams, just now becoming visible in the early morning gloom, and she felt the tears that were drying on her cheeks, her pillow still slightly moist with the cold sweat of fear.
She still felt that fear, somewhere at the periphery, but there was something else, too. There was that voice, that had been so far away, yet so familiar somehow, and the peace that it had brought.
She patted the bed around her, looking for her beads, trying to shake the last vestiges of the nightmare. She used to have dreams like this all the time, but she hadn't had one for years, and she had thought they were gone for good. But of course she knew full well what had triggered it again now.
That would be the kissing.
Her patting hand finally landed on the familiar string of round gem stones then, but she pulled it back in shock, because the beads were boiling hot.

Go back to sleep.

The words were loud in the silence of the night. She wasn't sure whether it was the remnants of that voice she heard, or if it was just a thought, but did it matter? Because whatever it was had a point, no? She shook her head resolutely, getting herself firmly back into the now.
It was the middle of the night: she should sleep.