Why are you running?

What are you running from?

I groan loudly with my eyes still shut. Still groggy. As usual. The nightmares haven't stopped for years. I thought I'd forget about it by now. Shouldn't I have forgotten about it by now?

I'll just pull the duvet over my head and take a few more hours of light sleep. The kind that doesn't involve dreaming. But doesn't really help you feel more awake when it's time to get up. A fair trade to not hear that haunting question again. I reach for my duvet, but my hands meet something else. Something hard?

Did I fall asleep with my laptop in bed...again. No. It's something else. I open my eyes slowly, expecting to see the pale cream walls of my London flat (I really should paint them...), only to be met by the slight glare from a large window and empty seats everywhere.

I sit up tall. Sit? Either I'm losing my mind or I've finally learned how to lucid dream. I'm not in my bedroom. I don't even think I'm in London gauging by the dark hillside that flows quickly past the windows. I'm on a train...

I forgot the process for figuring out if you're still in a dream. I rack my brain for Leo's advice from Inception. Something about not remembering how you got there...or something like that. And I definitely don't know how I could be on a train. I'm standing now. Slightly pacing. Slightly about to delve into a stage 10 panic.

I can't remember Leo, but I can remember my therapist's voice, sweet sounds that have talked me down from a million cliffs since that day 3 years ago.

5 things you can see.

Chairs. Windows. Doors. Carpet (gross.). Train... I'm on a train.... I'm on a train?!

I try to keep it together. I hold on to her voice.

4 things you can hear.

Music. Rihanna. Rihanna?! Okay, no.

Now I know I must be dreaming because Rihanna's Pon de replay is not just any song. It's a song about running (albeit to a catchy Caribbean chorus line). That means I'm still dreaming, because I'm always running in my dreams. Or better said--hiding, but I guess that's a technicality to anyone who isn't me. Who doesn't know what happened.

I take a deep breath. Then pinch myself. Hard. This doesn't feel like a dream, because if it was, I would have already heard that voice. His voice. The voice that followed me that day. The one that... No.

I stop myself before I go down that path again. I sit down and sigh. I look around and decide this must be real life. And if it's real life, I need to get off this train and go home. I look around me at the empty seats and brightly lit corridors. I get up and say a soft, "Hello?" Which I know is probably useless. I have a sinking feeling that I'm on this train alone. You know that soft pain you get in the bottom of your gut that tells you the truth when your brain doesn't want to listen. The one that tells you something bad is going to happen. That you're being watched. That someone is going to... Stop.

I definitely know I'm awake because it's only in real life that my thoughts drift back to the events of that night. And it's only in real life that I can stop them. I can't believe I've just been standing here battling my own thoughts instead of trying to figure out what is happening. Call it a magic trick, chronic anxiety. Always there when you least need it and ready to take over your mind.

I collect myself and start walking. As I'm walking, I realize that this train hasn't stopped once. What train doesn't stop once in the time someone is having a panic attack? I press my face to the window and shudder at the cold glass on my forehead. The hillside outside is not just dancing by in the beautiful way only train windows can show you. They're flying by. I start running down the car, hoping that the next car will have someone in it, but there's no one.

Next car. No one.

Next car. No one. I hold in the urge to scream as I press the button for the next car.

Next car. No...wait.

It's...him.