“It will be okay,” Dad said.
The man yanked another chair into place across from him and shoved my mom down. He knelt down and bound her hands, too. She cried quietly now.
He placed a folded piece of paper on my dad’s thighs.
Then he stepped closer, the knife sliding up until it rested against my dad’s neck.
“Read it.”
I still couldn’t see his face. All I could see were my parents staring at each other.
Dad lowered his gaze to the paper.
“Your voice was a candle I pinched out the flame,” he read, his voice shaking. “Now silence remembers what breath could not name. Read this in stillness; we end the same.”
The knife moved.
Blood burst forward, spraying across my mom’s face and chest.
She screamed.
I screamed at her.
My hands flew to my mouth, my whole body shaking as I pressed myself harder into the doorframe. The sound ripped through the house, making the man turn his head.
His eyes met mine.
I screamed again and tried to run.
But he caught me.
I woke drenched in sweat, lying in my bedroom, trying to piece together which nightmare dragged me out of sleep. My chest rises too fast as I look around, making sure I’m back in the present and not reliving it all again.
The balcony light next door switches on, and I hear the door slide open. A dull thud follows, then footsteps approach.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Carmen says. “I’m trying to sleep.”
I push myself up and sit in the middle of the bed. My fingers find the switch on the wall, and the overhead light floods the room. I’m shirtless, still in my boxers. Sweat drops are on my skin. My hair is soaked, and two stubborn strands are falling into my forehead.
She looks at me, really looks at me this time. My breathing is uneven. As she steps closer, her voice drops.
“Are you okay?”
I nod. My hand reaches for the nightstand, grabbing my phone. My fingers slide against the screen, damp from sweat, but I manage to type.
Just nightmares.
I hold the phone up for her to read.
She sits on the bed beside me. “I have them too,” she says.
Anything that helps?
I type.
She shakes her head.
“Try to think of happy thoughts,” she says.
