Disclaimer: No characters are mine. Set in early to mid-season 13, after Benson becomes Sergeant, and then deviates from canon.

Blood was everywhere. It covered everything. The white walls, the nightstand, the bedspread. Her pillow. It pooled on the hardwood next to the bedframe. There was even a bloody footprint.

He shook his head in a daze. Even while subconsciously knowing he was dreaming, it still froze him where he stood to see his wife lying across the floor. Her blonde hair was red and sticky, her eyes bulging. Her neck was one large gash from where her throat had been slit.

He moved past her and out into the hallway. More blood. The photo of the 7 of them at Rockaway Beach was smeared red at his eye level. He shuffled on. His body was floating.

His youngest daughter's room. On her back in bed. Facedown, blood pooled around her. Eyes wide and unseeing.

Next room. His oldest son on the floor next to the door. Throat cut. Blood trailing to the bed. His youngest son, still with toddler rails on his bed. Face slashed, his small body covered in puncture wounds.

He moved further down the hall to the top of the stairs. His oldest daughter still with her coat on, preparing to leave for home. Cold and still, her hand trailed along the blood on the floor. Reaching for his middle daughter, who had barely made it down the stairs. She lay in a crumpled heap across the bottom. Her neck broken, throat cut, blood sprayed on the floor below her.

Blood was dripping from the railing next to where he stood. He looked down to see his own hand resting there. Red squished between his fingers. He took his hand away fast, his heart racing as he brought it up toward his face.

He had cut himself somehow. That was where all the blood was coming from.

Right?

He continued looking down at himself. Blood all over his clothes, his shoes, his socks.

Then he realized he was holding something.

A bloody knife.

Elliot flung it away like it had burned him. Then he screamed. And screamed.

Wake up. Wake up!