Every night it haunts me; the same nightmare over and over. The minute my eyes close for sleep they open again in my mind. It’s as though I’m living a double life. During the day, I’m a normal fifteen-year-old going through school and life just like any other kid my age, at night I’m a helpless bystander trapped in a glass cage. Unable to lift a finger or move a muscle I stand like a statue as a scene is played out before my eyes. Straining my ears I hear a girl’s scream from a distance, I hear the loud pounding of footsteps. A girl comes into the clearing before me; she is running for her life, all the while looking back with big eyes. I see she is terrified but I do not see what it is she is running from. I want to go help her so much; every fibre of my being is struggling with all its might to free itself from this trap. Just as the girl reaches me I call out but she doesn’t notice. Everything begins to move in slow motion, the girl screams again and tries to speed up but she can’t. Exhaustion pulls her back, weighing her down. There are tears running down my face, the girl is screaming, tearing into my soul with grief and terror. My heart feels as though it’s about to burst from the pressure. I look back to what the girl is running from and see a figure begin to emerge from the trees. A sudden burst of white light shields him. After a moment loud cries of anguish and a thudding squelch are followed by a low gurgling moan. When sight returns to me the girl is lying at my feet with a dagger hilt protruding from her chest. A small trickle of blood escapes her lips as she takes her last breath. Her eyes still holding the fear she felt as they gaze at me unseeing. Strength courses through my body, I can move again. I try to take a step but my knees give out sending me crashing to the ground. I kneel beside the body. I don’t know how long I’m there for, minutes, maybe hours. Time does not seem to matter. I stand up. My foot falls on firm ground, but in a split second the whole ground gives way to blackness. I wake up with a sickening jolt. By then it is morning so I get up for school.
There the girl’s screams sound in my head. They bounce off the walls of my skull stronger than before. No painkiller can ease the pain and noise, so I have no choice but to live with it. There is no escape from this torment, day in day out, I live with the screams in my head and suffer in silence. The day slowly inches its way past and not a moment passes when I don’t think about that girl. My baby sister.