Make Me a Monster

PROLOGUE

In the dream, I’m always sitting in the back seat.

Dad is driving and Mom is in the front passenger seat.

A song plays on the radio. I can’t make out the words.

Mom looks back at me. There is an expression on her face that I can’t place.

Then, there’s a flash, like a lightning bolt.

It tears through the car as an undulating orange haze surrounds me—panic sets in.

My father’s cries split the air and when the smoke clears and I finally see him, he is crouched over my mom’s lifeless body on the side of some rain-slick road.

This is usually where I wake up.

But not this time.

Now, for the first time in what feels like forever, there is something new in this hellscape between sleeping and waking. I’m outside on the ground, lying on my back, looking up at a starry night sky. I turn my head and pain rockets up my neck. I cry out in agony.

This is the dream I’ve been having for years. The same sequence. The same creeping dread. The all-encompassing terror. Always the same.

Now it has a horrifying new chapter. I have no idea what it means. All I know for sure is that watching my mother die in my dreams makes me feel like a hole is being punched directly through my chest. In the gaping wound, there is only despair.