Eventually, I began spending most nights sleeping fitfully; either tossing and turning restlessly as I tried to escape the horrors that tormented me, or curling up on my side and holding onto my stuffed animal tightly.
Some nights I couldn't stop myself from shaking violently as I shivered against the cold floor while I screamed for someone to rescue me. Other times I would sit there wide-eyed and paralyzed for hours as the memories of the previous nights played over and over again, like a broken record.
One evening, in the middle of one of these episodes of unrestrained panic, I was suddenly overcome with a powerful urge to scream, and instinctively I opened my mouth and began wailing at the top of my lungs until tears ran down my cheeks.
I could feel someone shaking me awake but I continued to scream and fight whoever it was of me until I realized I was no longer alone, and that the shaking wasn't meant to hurt.
