Stained
Nightmares
Jade awoke screaming, her voice cutting through the silence until her throat burned.
Her fist throbbed—knuckle split and bruised from punching the wall as she slept.
The dream clung to her mind like smoke. Suffocating out in the open. The air felt colder than it should, her breath hanging in the room like fog on a dark lone road.
“Stop freaking yourself out, Jade,” she muttered, attempting to redirect herself.
“It was just a nightmare.”
But the questions kept on, unspoken yet relentless.
Why couldn’t my mother tell me what she needed?
What was that creature behind her—and how could it move so fast?
Her lips moved silently, too afraid to give the thoughts any life.
She rolled over, trying to shake the dread.
“Another day,” she says to herself while reaching for her phone.
She scrolled through meaningless messages. Email promotions galore.
“Boring. Not interested. No thank you.” She was about to toss the phone aside when she had to do a double take.
An impossibly small eye stared back at her through the camera lens.
She blinked and rubbed her eyes. “No way. That didn’t happen.”
A knock at the door jolted her upright.
“Just a minute!”
She swung her legs over the bed, stretching until pain shot through her wrist.
“Great. How am I going to explain this one?”
A smudge marked her thumb. She scrubbed at it, but it was as if it was stained.
“Callie,” she muttered. “Another dumb prank.”
“Ha-ha, real funny!” she shouted, acting nonchalant
But her heart pounded.
Just then the dream surged back. The figure behind her mother—small, disfigured, ancient yet childlike—its dead eyes radiating hate.
She remembered screaming “You’re the devil!” as she pressed her thumb to its forehead.
Her door swung open.
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