Currency
There is a membrane between the conscious world and the unconscious one. A viscous film that keeps the nightmares from crawling from the dark into the light, prevents the horror from seeping through the cracks. Rowen woke with the feeling of gauze unsticking. Malignant dreams clutched at her with bloody fingers as the shadows resolved themselves from monsters into furniture. The metallic noise of the machine at her side kept time with her pulse and she fretted a moment at the sound of it. Her left arm wrapped in bandages, she felt for the nurse call button with her right and waited. Agonized floating near the ceiling, the swish and whoosh of the door sliding open, jumbled blocks of voices falling into piles on the floor.