He sits straight up in bed, tangled in sheets and sweating. Looking at his hands, he makes sure that they are the ones of a sixty-year-old man and not that of a child of eleven. Somewhat assured, he flops back down, turning his head to the window, where the street lamp outside struggles through the curtains, a dim yellow light, but enough to calm him further.
The flashlight he knows is in the nightstand comes out, clenched tightly in cold hands. He flicks it on. Same flashlight his mother gave him a week after that night so many years ago. It was the only way he would sleep.
With a light pressed against his chest all night.