I wasn't asleep the night she came out of my wall.

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I felt wide awake as I watched the crack begin to form across the wallpaper, slowly stretching wider. A dark substance trickled out and bled to the floor as a hand emerged, then another. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't make a sound. I could only stare in petrified disbelief as a woman crawled through the opening in the wallpaper. Damp hair clung to her makeup smeared face, her skin and clothing dripped a deep crimson that pooled beneath her. Her desperate eyes found mine as she dragged herself toward me.

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And then I screamed. So loud and for so long that it made my ears ring and brought my mother rushing in. The moment she flipped on the lights, the woman was gone.

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There was no blood, there was no hole in the wall. Mother spent a long while calming me, assuring me that it was just a dream.

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"Everything is okay," she whispered, rocking me in her arms.

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"Just don't leave me… I don't want to have another bad dream!"

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"Listen, I'm always with you. If things get scary, come find me in dreamland and I'll help you wake up."

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A few years later, my mother passed away. I tried a lot of things to numb myself- drinking and snorting and shooting and loveless relationships- but they only staved off the despair long enough to trap me with them before dragging me down even further. After a while, the things I used to imagine crawling toward me in the dark seemed preferable to the darkness spreading inside of me. I felt utterly alone and helpless, like I was that screaming little girl again, only now there was no one to wake me from this living nightmare.

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And so I found myself in a bathtub. Razor blade resting on the edge. Red water. Heavy head. Empty pill bottle on the bathmat. I pulled my arm from the water and gazed deep into the wound.

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I was inside. I was swimming in my veins. Blood flowed so warm over my frigid skin. I closed my eyes, letting it wash over me. I could have stayed forever, I could have let everything fade…

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A distant voice.

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"…Sweet dreams, dear…"

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No… Mother. Please. Help me.

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I struggled toward her voice, slipping in gore. Drowning, suffocating. I could see an opening ahead, a laceration large enough to fit through. And then I was free, writhing and gasping on the floor. The girl didn't understand, only now do I. I stared back at myself and awaited the scream that would bring mother to her. Everything happened as it did before. I watched mother embrace her, brush the hair from her face and soothe her.

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"…I'm always with you…"

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Her eyes found mine, and I realized she'd also been addressing me that night.

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"…I'll help you wake up," she said with a sad smile, and I felt myself returning.