PTSD
It was the dark that she dreaded. At night when she drifted off to sleep she saw the woods, she smelled the leaves and the moss, heard the birds’ singing, felt the dappled sun warm her face, heard her mother’s kind but stern voice telling her not to stray from the path, remembered skipping along to her grandmother’s house to visit. And then she’d wake with a start, in a cold sweat, and she would cry out because in her dream she couldn’t see her grandmother’s sweet round face with the kind eyes peering from behind round glasses any more, she could just see teeth, and a jaw wide enough to swallow her whole, and a black snout glistening, the tongue lolling and drooling, she could smell the rancid smell of rotten flesh, and feel the spray of spittle as the long face loomed closer, feel the brush of the whiskers that quivered with equal parts rage and excitement, and hear the words rasping “All the better to eat you with!” before the blackness came.
