There was a hallway, she remembers. And paintings. Everywhere. Bright white faces in frames. Something tells her not to look at the faces. She busies herself with a box on the table. She tries to open it. She doesn't have a key. She knows if she could just open the box, than everything would be okay. She wouldn't be in this hallway without doors. She could feel the faces looking down on her. Willing her to look up. She starts to shake the box, but nothing will open it. The paintings know, they know where the key is and they are mocking her. At the last moment she looks up. They are not just washed out faces, but they have detail now. As she looks at each one, she sees familiar things. Bright innocent eyes, crooked smiles. These paintings are her friends. She takes a step closer to them, but instead of bringing them into focus, it distorts them. Dark bruises appear on their faces. Large gashes.
I did this to them, she thinks. I destroyed them.

She couldn't tell what reality was anymore. Her dreams were vivid, and her life was hazy. Nightmares came true, and reality became just a dream that she could faintly feel in the back of her mind.
Prince charming would grow big glistening fangs, and she would watch his face meld into something grotesque. She became scared of the things that gave her joy.
Death looked beautiful, and life looked like torture. She was constantly hanging between the two. Close enough to death to almost touch it, but still suspended in a life filled with fog and doubt.

Sometimes it because clear. He would hold her, and for a few minutes she could remember what it was really like to live. But then they came marching in, by the thousands. Big black shadows with sharp teeth and long claws.
She would go to them so willingly. Into another pair of arms. When she looked in his eyes, she could see a darkness that matched her own. Sometimes she felt it was easier to give into the demons, then waste her life fighting a never ending war.
There was something familiar that she had choose the king of darkness himself, over the prince charming in her life. She didn't have to try so hard to keep her world clear; she could go fuzzy at the edges. She didn't have to be all there. She didn't have to pretend she wasn't this queen of destruction, that ruined everything she touched.

There comes a time, when friendly faces distort into the darkness of her dreams. She can't tell who the monster is now.
The arms around her become calloused and the flesh starts to rot. She is trapped in these arms of the damned. Struggling, she claws at them. She just needs out. The arms hold on tighter, with harsh whispers of I love you, and it will be okay. Just stay still Effy.
She claws and kicks until the arms let her go and then she runs.

She runs away from the loving arms of her Freddie, and into the dark comforting creature that is so much like her.
Because when she's with Cook, at least she is embracing the darkness, and not being dragged to hell.

She sits crying in her bed. But she's not in her bedroom. It's damp in here and dark. Unbelievably dark. She's paralyzed in fear. It's here, it's in this room, and it's coming for her. Dark, clawed, and ready for a massacre.
"I'm not scared!" she screams but her voice is shaking, she can hear clawing from under her. It's here. If I just look at it, it won't be so scary. It's just a dream, it's just a dream. When I look under the bed I'll wake up. Even as she said this to herself, she still hadn't moved. It's not real. She is still locked in her fetal position. She takes to closing her eyes, and pretending that she is okay.

We checking for monsters under the bed, when we realized they were inside of us.