I couldn’t say what awoke me that night. Why I didn’t wake my parents, I couldn’t say. When mum asked me why I had snuck into their bed the following morning – before they found out, I couldn’t say. And when my sister vanished forever that night, I couldn’t say. Only in my mind could I replay that night, relive the horror. Alone, I knew the truth.
It had happened before, the night terror, but this time it had been different; it had been real. The deafening crash of a fallen tree resonated around my room, jolting me awake. I sat up and felt my heart beating wildly; I feared it would betray me. My breathing matched the pace of my heart, filling my ears and dampening all other sounds. I placed a foot, tentatively, on the soft, freshly laid carpet and, taking a moment to find inner strength, I flung the covers back, ran to the window and drew the curtain a little.
My ragged breath fogged up the window, but I could see the outline of the monstrous creature from my nightmares before, standing in the deep trenches of the front garden below. Its unclothed body was covered in grey, matted fur; its clawed hands reached its rear-bending knees, and its snout, within its withered face, was pulled back to reveal dank, razor-sharp teeth.
The wind howled and raindrops, the size of my eight-year-old hands, pounded against the cool window. A blinding flash of lightning crashed across the sky and, when my eyes recovered from the brightness, my sister had replaced the monster. The leaves of the trees could barely hold onto their lifeline in the storm, and yet my sister’s long, ebony hair and white, flowing, nightshirt remained as still as if she were standing in my room before me.
The sky lit up once more and there was my sister, closer to the house than just moments before. Her hair was wet and clung to her face now, and her floral nightshirt, covered in rust-like mud, stuck to her lithe body exposing breast buds that had only recently developed. With closed eyes, she raised her head, cocked slightly to the left, to the moon. For a moment she seemed at peace.
Lightning struck again, and there, directly outside my window, was my sister. I couldn’t understand how she could be standing in mid-air, but as I looked at her, I saw that her once oceanic-blue, eyes had lost all colour and warmth. White eyes stared down at me and a sneer, as cold as the icicles that had hung from the gutter outside my bedroom window last winter, rose upon her face.
I staggered back and tripped over something. I quickly recovered and found my footing again but now she was there, inside my room. She was shivering and I wanted to go to her and wrap her in my arms, but those dead eyes found mine and I was paralysed. I noticed a muted, dripping sound and dropped my eyes to the floor; a red ring was spreading on the carpet around my sister. Thick, wine-like globules were falling from the hem of her nightshirt. My chest tightened and, as my gaze rose back up to her face, I saw my sister’s mane was glistening with the same globules. In that moment, I realised that what I had taken as mud on her nightshirt, was actually her blood.
Her face contorted into an ugly smile to reveal insects writhing inside her mouth. Their deathly stench filled my throat. I inhaled to scream but I could summon no sound; instead, the bile from my stomach rose and I retched, again and again. I fell to my hands and knees and breathed deeply trying to gain control of myself. When I lifted my head once more to face my sister, I found the room empty, the carpet was dry and clean, and the sound of the wind and rain had died away.
I ran to the window once more, but there was nothing to see. My sister was gone.
With tears streaming down my face, I raced to my sister’s room. It was empty. My sister was gone.
I staggered into my parents’ room, as I had done so many times before, and climbed over mum to lay between her and dad. I left them to their dreams, I didn’t want them to share in the nightmare. Their lives were forever changed as they would find out in the morning.
I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t sleep much at all ever again. None of us did. I knew what I would find in my dreams. I knew the terror that awaited me there. I knew that even if I returned to that night, that moment, nothing would change. My sister was gone forever, and still, I couldn’t say.