Sleep evaded him, for the fourth night in a row now. He’d always had dreams here and there, often very rare occurrences, but this nightmare was tenacious; unrelenting and exhausting. He’d wake up drenched in a cold sweat, breaths ragged and heavy with his heart nearly slamming out of his chest.

The Grabber — how could anyone be so vile? Hurting innocent kids, something so pure. How could anyone do such things? It couldn’t be so easily forgotten, abandoning him with an unsettled feeling in his stomach, always weighing the odds that somehow he could’ve spared another life if he’d been taken sooner. But every haunting memory had him thrashing at night, tossing and turning until startled awake.

It was no different after sleepless tormenting night, forced to trudge his way to school, eyelids heavier than the books weighing down his backpack. Exhausted being an overwhelming understatement, and — foolish mistake — he let his head hit the desk, falling asleep in class. It’d been three years since The Grabber so, consequently, the dreams should’ve stopped.

30 minutes into sleep, it started again. The same tormenting dream. He tried to snap himself awake but he was anchored into the dream, pulled towards the same terrible visual. He could feel the air leaving his lungs, his throat closing up as his feet unwillingly carried him forward. The icy shock of fear when he realized he was perched on the all too familiar scrap of a mattress, concrete walls as the door to the basement screeched open. He could just see the mask of The Grabber when a pair of hands on his arms brought him to reality.

Finney woke up, shooting up in his seat with shaky breaths. He ran his hands through his hair and over his eyes, simultaneously trying to get air back into his lungs and slow his heart rate away from a heart attack. His eyes darted around — helplessly trying to remind himself that he’d never return there — before his gaze landed on you, an imperceptible shaky breath of relief slipping past his lips.