There are many things I wish I'd known before I came here. Like how much the human body can truly endure, how much the mind can bend without snapping. And I wish I had known about the dreams, Helen, oh my God, the dreams. They're like other beings here, lurking creatures that run amok when your guard is down. They dig their claws into the inner, most hidden parts of you and drag them up to the surface. They make you suffer; they make reality frail. Sleep should be a sanctuary, but here, the nights are never safe.

The camp seemed deserted. Margaret stood at the door to her tent and looked out, her hands clutching the door frame. Nothing moved out there, nothing could be heard. No voices in the distance, no footsteps approaching, no motors rumbling. The sky white and unmoving up above.
She waited. Silence never laid over camp for more than a few seconds.

She waited.

Nothing.

She stepped outside and looked around. The tents around her looked like photographs, or like she had stepped out on a stage and the camp was nothing but painted backdrops. The air felt strange, stale.

"Hello?"

Her voice sounded strange too, it didn't carry at all, the moment it left her mouth her words fell heavily to the ground.

"Come on, guys, this isn't funny!"

It was a joke of some kind, right? At any moment someone would jump up and scare her, or yell 'surprise' and throw her a birthday party, soon there would be people in silly hats. But it wasn't her birthday, and she very much doubted anyone would throw her a party even if it was.

The silence pressed in on her, making her ears ring. It felt like a creature, a living thing enveloping her entire body, squeezing it hard.

"Hello?", she yelled again. It was like yelling into a sack of flour.

Something behind her shifted, like the air itself had moved a little. She spun around. Nothing.
And then again, movement behind her, this time someone touched her hair. She gasped and tried to slap the hand away. Only there was nothing.
Again, the hand in her hair. Again. Again.
She spun in circles, trying to fight the hands off, but her waving arms only met air.

A sound.

She stopped, panting a little. It was coming from far away but was getting closer fast. Closer. An engine? Choppers? No, it was a moan. It grew, surrounded her, made the stagnant air tremble.
Movement again, to her right.
A person staring at her, a man. Tall, unmoving now. Dust on his clothes, in his hair. His face hung slack and his coat billowed in a breeze that wasn't there.

"Dad?" she whispered. "Daddy?"

Someone touched her hair again and she spun around. A young man, a soldier with a rifle over his shoulder. He stared at her, his mouth moving, but no words came out.
While Margaret watched, a red spot appeared on his cheek. Then another. Circles of red, lighter at the edges. Like watercolors, like someone was dipping a brush in water. The spots moved and shifted over his face, shrank, and grew. The young man raised his hands, the spots were there too, moving, changing. He tore his shirt open and there were more, so many more.
Red, so red.
He stared down at himself and back up at Margaret, his eyes a silent plea for help as the red moved over them too.

Movement again, behind her. Another man, the same silent plea, the same spots moving. Another man. Another. A spot disappearing on one cheek only to appear on another.

The moaning grew louder. It didn't even seem to come from the men, it was as if it came from the earth itself. A keening, a wet sound, no shape or contours to it. Nothing but grief.

So many, so, so many of them, their mouths open, their hands reaching out for her, pleading.
She couldn't, there were too many. Couldn't help them, couldn't be in their midst, they sucked the air away, their mouths like black holes.

And the red, dear God, the red.

"Daddy!" she pleaded, looking around for him. He was big and strong, she was his little soldier, he could make them go away. But she didn't see him, there were just the pleading, the moaning.

Two hands grabbed her arms. Doctor Robbins, his gaze determined, his grasp hard, just like it had been that afternoon. For a second, his face shifted into Phil's. Phil who was supposed to be her friend but had left her bruised. It shifted to Colonel Fensky who thought she owed him gratitude, then to the drill sergeant who wanted to show her what the enemy did to little girls who fell behind.

He pulled her closer.

"No, no, no," she begged, trying to pull away. "Daddy, please help me!"

It was Doctor Robbins again, and spots were running over his face too. Black ones.
She looked down at her arms where he held her, saw that the blackness was seeping into her skin, black spots, shifting, moving up and down her arms. He opened his mouth, a black hole, and whispered

"Be my woman"

and she woke up. Something was tangled around her, holding her. She kicked at it, and it ensnared her feet.

"No, no, no"

She threw herself to the side, reaching blindly for the lamp. Her heart a caged animal in her chest, thundering, trying to break free. 'Something will grab me'. The thought echoed through her mind as she fumbled, fumbled for the light switch. There would be a hand grabbing her wrist, squeezing, bruising, spreading its blackness, its malevolence.

And then there was light.

Her tent, just as she had left it, the pile of unfolded laundry on the chair, her robe on the closet door, papers on the desk. Her sheet had snaked itself around her feet, and she kicked it off.

Silence.

No. No, no, no. Panic coursed through her body like a wave, like tiny needles pricking her skin. She couldn't breathe, soon she would hear them, soon the moaning would start.

Laughter. Laughter outside, two voices, someone snorting and starting to cough. Further away a door slammed shut.

Margaret took a deep breath, and had to force herself to exhale, to try and get her body to relax a tiny bit. She held out her arms in front of her. No black spots moving over her skin. She sobbed in relief and pressed her hands against her face. Her skin felt clammy, a sheer film of sweat covering her all over. She leaned forward and breathed, just breathed, as her pulse slowly began to calm down.

"What was that?" she mumbled, still out of breath,

Doctor Robbins, Phil, the others, they were supposed to be buried, the memory of them wasting away on the ocean's floor. Why her father? Why was sleep so treacherous here? A minefield of the mind.
She looked over at her alarm clock. Quarter past three. The Wolf Hour. Her grandmother used to warn her about it, the hour between three and four in the morning. 'If you wake then, my Maggie, keep your eyes closed and lay still, you never know what may be around.'

"Sorry, Grandma," Margaret mumbled. Seemed like whatever was out there had already spotted her, found a way in. They lived inside her now, like hitchhikers, never letting go.

Margaret felt a twang of pain as she thought of her grandmother, she missed her so much. Her small, veiny hands, the jingling sound of the lucky charms on her bracelet. Her grandmother saw catastrophes everywhere, but knew how to protect herself, to ward them off. Margaret wished she knew that too; she should have paid better attention. She wished she could go back to sleep while her grandmother stroked her hair. To the sound of jingling charms, almost like tiny creatures laughing.

She sank back in bed and listened to the world outside. To the breeze that made the walls billow. A dog barked somewhere.

Her light stayed on through the Wolf Hour and beyond, while she kept the minefield of sleep at bay. It was too late anyway, whatever was out there had already found a way in, so she kept her eyes open, tried not to think, tried not to feel them move around deep within.

But even though she tried her best not to feel them, she only succeeded a little.