"There's a special place in hell for people like me." he slithered in my ear.
I awoke, writhing, screaming. My bed sheet was twisted around my body, as if it were a snake squeezing its prey. The dim light from the moon leaked onto my bed, contorting shadows into ghastly figures and faces. Gasping for air, I struggled to find the lamp.
Finally I felt the familiar texture of the switch. I turned it on, no light. I tried again, still not light.
"No, no, no, please no." I pleaded. The light had been out since last Tuesday, and I knew that.
The lingering memory of the nightmare sat on my bed as I scrambled for reality, running its long cold fingers over the bones in my spine. I could almost hear it laughing at my desperate attempts to find comfort.
"He's coming for me. He's coming for me, oh God please help me, he is coming for me." I repeated this multiple times, retreating into the corner where my bed met the angle in the wall.
Finally someone came in.
"Honey, it's okay. It's just a dream, they're always just dreams, no one can hurt you here." she whispered, trying to coax me out of the corner.
She should be right, no one should be able to hurt me here, where the windows have bars to keep the "residents" from getting out. Where the locks on the doors have locks themselves. But she was wrong. Someone could hurt me here, He could hurt me here.
"I'm going to call for someone, so we can get you some medicine to help you sleep-?" the nurse pushed the hair that was plastered against my porcelain skin away from my face.
"NO," I replied, too abruptly. Scrambling to redeem myself after my manic episode I answered her with, "I'm fine. Really. It was a dream. Nothing else. I don't need medicine."
She insisted, and I struggled against the syringe full of sedatives and the hands holding me down.
As the last nurse left my room, he came in. The shadows worshiped him, and the darkness greeted him as if he was an old friend.
He came to a stop at the foot of my bed, in all of his evil glory. The director of Happy Grove's Home for Struggling Adolescents pulled back my blankets that were tenderly laid on me moments before.
"I'm just here to help you," he cooed. "Just like I help all the other girls."
My vision was starting to blur, my body had lost all mobility at this point. The sedatives were strong, and I couldn't fight them. I couldn't fight him.
"I'm an old man," I heard him say. He placed a hand on my shoulder, "I cant be saved now."
My eyes gave in, and just as I was about to slip into unconsciousness, I heard him breathe into my ear, as he always does:
"There is a special place in hell for people like me."