Salvation looked up at the darkening sky. Midnight was two hours away, so she set her book in her bag and also set aside her supper. Salvation was a nightmare. Let me explain. Nightmares are doomed souls, living in a world-fragment. Their only job begins at midnight and, even if it seems to last no more than a second, will take the entire night. Each nightmare was unique, each one gave one person the same nightmare, every night of their lives, whether they remembered the nightmare or not. Salvation’s person was Samuel Hurrson, a deaf 6-year-old boy. The nightmare Salvation gave was this:

It was dark, the moon full. The most beautiful doe Samuel had ever seen stood in the middle of the clearing. The doe looked at him, and then began to gently chomp grass. Then Salvation appeared. She was a dark figure, only her skin, white as the perfect moon, was not the blackest of black. She held a glinting, sharp looking knife in one hand. Samuel smothered a cry and tried to run at the dark, menacing person advancing at his lovely doe, only to find he couldn’t move. Salvation slowly walked towards the doe. She wished she could do any thing but this! Anything! But she too was held captive in her own body. Step by step her horrid form moved toward the doe. As always, the doe only looked at Salvation with the most loving and trusting stare she had ever known. Reaching the poor creature at last, Salvation the puppet, the killer, pretender, murderer, raised the knife. Samuel would drop to his knees, hiding his tiny tear streaked face in his hands. Salvation too could feel the flow of salt water leaping down her face. It was the only mercy Fate ever gave her. Not even aloud to look away, the knife plunged down… and the nightmare ended. Samuel would jolt up in bed. Sometimes he whimpered, but most times, he screamed. Salvation would come to senses to find herself curled in her blanket in the exact spot the doe had been, her now bloody knife clutched in her hands.

    The time was about 5 am. Salvation would cry and moan until 7, then get up. Someone, she never knew who, always left her breakfast next to her. She’d eat it then then go to the hollow tree Samuel always stood at in the nightmare. Salvation would pry some of the bark away and find a book nesting there. She took it out, gone back to blanket, and began to read. Halfway though, she’d stop and reach out for the lunch that was always there. When she finished the book, supper was set out and the sun was setting. Salvation had a bag, a smallish book bag that one often buys in the average bookstore or local library. This one was light tan and canvas. She’d put the book inside and set it on top of her supper, folding and setting her blanket over all. Then she stood to let the nightmare begin again. Salvation always felt better at this time. The book calmed her down, though after reading it she often didn’t remember what it was like. All she remembered from this day’s one was something about a lion, a lion saying something. What was it? Oh yes. ‘Courage dear heart.’ Yes, that was it. Salvation loved the sound of it. She wet her lips with a tongue and tried it out. “Courage dear heart” Salvation whispered, and a tear dripped down her face and vanished into the real world, unto the hand of one Samuel Hurrson, aged 15 years and 11 months and hearing perfectly. Samuel would always remember that tear, and the faint memory of a voice saying the same thing, over and over and over. “Courage dear heart”