Night Terrors

What goes on after you turn off the bedside lamp?

It’s out there. I can feel it. Lurking, pacing. Waiting for the moment I get up to use the bathroom. Sometimes it’s so close I can feel and smell its rancid breath on my neck. I feel its long, purple fingernail run lightly down my back. Goosebumps. I can hear footsteps outside the bedroom door. I’m petrified! Why don’t they come in? And yet my husband sleeps on.

We can measure time in many ways: The footfalls coming up the stairs, the heart-pounding in the ears, or counting the seconds waiting to die. Is it Night-Terrors, or something far worse?