The Nightmare
My body felt pressed into the sheets, and yet I couldn’t shake the sense of cold crawling under my skin. I shifted restlessly, tugging the blanket higher, but the warmth didn’t soothe me. It was heavy, suffocating, like arms that wouldn’t let go.
Then I heard Athena’s laughter.
I froze. No. That wasn’t possible. I was an adult now, wasn’t I? This only happened when I was still a child.. But yet, the laugh trailed down the corridors of my mind like smoke.
“You’re in big trouble today,” his voice sing-songed.
My breath caught. Suddenly the sheets felt rough, the mattress hard beneath my back. When I blinked, the room had shifted. It was no longer the dim, unfamiliar safety of where I had fallen asleep.
I was twelve again.
The tiles under my bare feet stretched on, endless and cold. I looked down and saw my legs, thin, scratched, trembling. My nightdress was too big for me, the fabric clinging with sweat. I was walking, though I didn’t remember choosing to. Each step carried me closer to the open door at the end of the corridor.
The light spilling out was yellow, harsh, and flickering. My heart thudded so loudly it drowned out my breathing. I wanted to turn back, to run, but my body refused.
The closer I got, the clearer the shapes became. The walls inside gleamed faintly with iron. Blades hung in neat rows, polished, waiting. Chains dangled from hooks, rattling softly in the stale air. A coil of whip lay across a wooden table, and I knew the sound it would make before it even touched me.
And then I saw Anna.
My stepmother stood in the middle of the room as if it were her throne. She wore a simple silk dress, not a speck of dust on her shoes, not a hair out of place. She smiled when she saw me, her expression warm in the way a candle is warm right before it burns you.
“Lie down,” she said.
Her voice was smooth, practiced, the kind people used at feasts or court. But I knew the steel beneath it.
I froze in the doorway. “Please, Stepmother, I didn’t do it… ”
“Lie. Down. You need to be disciplined.
Her tone cut through my words like a knife.
Athena’s hand slammed into my back. I stumbled forward, catching myself against the table. My palms pressed against the wood, and I felt the indentations, grooves where I used to beg for her to stop.
“Do it now,” Athena whispered in my ear. She was grinning, her breath hot and sour. “Or it’ll be worse.”
My throat tightened. I climbed up, my knees shaking, and lowered myself onto the bench. The leather straps brushed my arms, waiting, and though she didn’t fasten them tonight, I could feel their weight. The memory of being bound was enough.
Anna’s heels clicked as she approached. Each step was calm. In her hand she held a rod, black and smooth, its end tipped with cruel leather. She tapped it against her palm, testing it.
“You never learn,” she said quietly. “Ungrateful little girl. Do you think disobedience will get you love? Respect? You think pain isn’t the only language you understand?”
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head.
“Louder.”
“No, Stepmother.”
But she wasn’t listening. She never listened.
The first strike landed across my back.
The sound split the air, it was a crack like thunder and fire lit across my skin. My scream tore out before I could stop it.
Athena clapped, laughing. “Again, again!”
The second blow came harder. My body jerked, nails scratching against the wood as I tried to hold still. The sting traveled down my spine, blooming hot and wet. I bit my lip until blood filled my mouth.
“Stay still,” Anna snapped. “You won’t move until I allow it.”
I tried. I really tried. But the third strike broke me. The rod licked my shoulder blade and I cried out, sobbing, my voice echoing off the weapon-lined walls.
“You’ll thank me one day,” Anna said, her voice almost tender. “I’m teaching you discipline. I’m shaping you into something worthy.”
Worthy of what? My mind screamed. Of pain? Of cruelty? Of being less than her daughter, less than everyone?
The rod came down again, and this time it split my dream.
The room shifted. The walls melted, iron dripping like wax. The chains slithered across the floor like snakes, coiling around my ankles, biting into my flesh. Anna’s face blurred, stretched, her smile twisting too wide, her eyes blackening until her whole face became a mask of shadow.
“You’ll never escape,” the thing wearing her voice hissed. “No one will ever save you.”
I struggled, thrashing against the chains, but they only tightened, crushing bone, cutting off breath. Athens’s laughter grew louder, bouncing off the walls until it filled my ears, my head, my chest.
The rod turned into fire in her hand. She raised it high, and for one impossible heartbeat, the flame reflected in my own eyes.
The strike fell again and I jolted awake.
My body arched off the bed, lungs burning as if I’d been underwater. Sweat drenched me, clinging to my skin. My chest heaved, my back seared with unreal pain, so vivid I swore the whip had followed me into waking.
“Not again!” I gasped, still half-caught in the dream. “Not again, please!”
“Lana.. hey, hey.” A voice cut through the terror. Strong arms wrapped around me, holding me down before I could thrash. “It’s me. It’s Luca. You’re safe. Breathe, baby. Just breathe.”
I blinked wildly, the outlines of the room sharpening, the curtains swaying faintly, the muted city lights seeping in. And him. Luca, his face tight with worry, his chest rising against my cheek as he held me close.
I couldn’t stop trembling. My body remembered what my mind tried to deny.
He stroked my hair, his voice low and steady. “It was a dream. Just a dream. You’re here with me.”
But the words still stuck to my throat, choking me. Not again. Not again. The nightmare still clung to me, as real as the sheets tangled in my fists.
I pressed my face against him, desperate to anchor myself, to remember that Anna wasn’t here, that Athena wasn’t laughing, that I wasn’t twelve anymore and she couldn’t hurt me again.
He didn’t ask what I saw. He didn’t demand answers. He just held me tighter and I appreciated that a lot.