I’m running. I feel as if my legs are holding the weight of the world and my skin feels as if it’s being clawed open as I race through the pavement. I’m still running. My breath is coming out short and ragged. My lungs feel as if they’re burning and yet I have no recollection of fire. I feel the prickling  sense of danger that makes my skin start to crawl. Nineteen years of holding back, biting my tongue and shedding tears in the dark that always felt like a burning trail of miseries.

I hear steps in the background, the lazy slur of his voice and the stagger of his shoes against the pavement. It’s dark, but I can still see his piercing eyes in the back of my head. Those same eyes that once saw me with love and affection, were now filled with hate and an unrelenting desire for chaos that somehow danced gracefully in the back of his skull. Those dead eyes that meant compassion and safety were the same eyes that now represented instability and true gut- wrenching horror. I hear him getting closer.

I feel as if my legs are about to give out right from underneath me. I keep running and I scream for help. Begging for someone to hear me. For someone to help me. But there’s no one. I keep running and yet I can feel his breath at the back of my neck. I can feel him. He’s close. I scream but no sound escapes my chapped lips from the lack of water. I feel a tug. I’m falling.

I wake up with a jolt and gasping for air. Wishing it a dream. A hand around my throat, a voice whispering in my ear, “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”