She found herself surrounded in darkness, a thick, viscous substance that clung to her body and filed her lungs. She couldn't breath, couldn't see, and couldn't move. Her arms and legs were stuck, held down by the blackness.

 

“I found you again.” A voice came from the darkness. A cold chill ran up her spine. She recognized it as the voice of the monster, the thing that hurt her. “Did you think you'd be free of me just because I'm dead?” Her heart began to race, and her skin felt cold and prickly, raised bumps grew on her arms. The voice came again, “Death can't stop the real monsters.”

 

A sudden burst of fear engulfed her. She tugged on her arms, trying to fight the black energy. Her voice was caught in her throat. “I do so love when they struggle.” The monster's vile words came from the dark. A pair of shimmering red eyes opened and she saw its face. Big and inhuman, with a mouth full of dozens of twisted, sharp teeth.

 

Tendrils of the black energy surrounded her and snaked around her arms and legs. They were cold, pulsating like stiff muscles. She fought against their pull, but no matter how she struggled, she could not escape. “You know the part I like best?” the horrible voice said. The face floated right in front of hers, its red eyes burning with glee. “I like it best when they stop.” A long, slimy tongue slithered out of it fang-infested mouth and slid across her face, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake.

 

She grimaced, her eyes clamped closed, and tried to turn away, but the tendrils wrapped around her head and forced her to face the monster. She pressed her lips together as tight as she could, but it wasn't enough. The rancid, disgusting pink tongue licked around her mouth, then forced itself inside.

 

Tamika's eyes snapped open. She lurched up, the blankets falling into her lap. It was dark all around, but not the thick black goo like before. It was night, the dim glow from the nightlight fell in from the hallway through the open crack of her bedroom door. She was in her own house, in her own room, in her own bed. Just a dream. All just a dream. Except it wasn't. Not really. Her brain was still trapped in the memory of that monster, the man that took her.

 

She took a deep breath, feeling her lungs expand, and then screamed. Her throat burned, her ears ached, and her head throbbed, but she screamed anyway. In the dream, that terrible nightmare, something had pressed down on her chest and she couldn't cry for help. She had to be sure this was real.

 

Footsteps thudded down the hall outside her room just before the door flew open. Tamika's mother stood in the doorway, breathless with her face flushed and wearing her light blue nightgown. “Tamika, what's wrong? What happened?” Her mother said between gasping breaths.

 

Tamika clutched the blankets to her chest, still rocking and trembling. “I...” she tried to talk, but her words were broken. “I h-h-had...” she stuttered.

 

“Another nightmare?” Her mom finished, and Tamika nodded. Michelle crossed the room to sit on the bed. She took the frightened child in her arms and gently stroked her hair, whispering, “It's all right. It was only a bad dream, that's all.” Her voice was soft and soothing, and the girl melted into the embrace. “You're safe. I'm right here. No one's going to hurt my baby girl.”

 

But someone did. No matter how many times her mother repeated those words, it would never change the fact that someone had hurt her. Tamika shuddered again, suddenly frightful, and her mother held her tighter.

 

“You don't have to tell me about it.” Michelle said as her hands continued to brush across Tamika's thick, black curls. “It's just a dream. Leave it as a dream.” She wiped the tears away from her daughter's cheeks. “You want me to stay with you until you feel better?”

 

Tamika nodded. “Uh huh.”

 

“Okay.” Her mother lead her by the hand to the TV room. Michelle set up the couch with cushions and blankets to let Tamika get settled, started the little girl's favorite movie, The Princess and the Frog, then went back to the kitchen to prepare a glass of warm milk. She cuddled up on the couch next to her daughter with the blankets draped over both of them, handed the glass to Tamika, and settled to watch the movie. Before the halfway point, Michelle was asleep.

 

Tamika sipped from the cup every few moments as the characters danced and sang on screen. At one time, she could've watched this movie ten times in a day and never gotten bored, but that didn't happen anymore. Nothing from before seemed to bring the happiness it once did. Part of it might be because she was eleven now, not a little kid anymore, but it felt more like what happened to her changed her.

 

She suddenly thought back on that day; how she'd waited for her mom at the usual pick-up spot after school only to have a rag pressed over her face and then wake up in a dark, cold basement with a gross man touching her. Tamika couldn't control this thought, it just showed up again to shatter her composure. Her hands tightened around the glass and her breathing came in short, rapid bursts. Her eyes widened, heart hammered in her chest, and she began to rock back and forth.

 

“You're safe, you're sound. He's dead and in the ground.” Her voice was a whisper, barely audible even to herself. “You're safe, you're sound. He's dead and in the ground.” She repeated this phrase over and over again. If she said it enough times, she might even convince herself it was true. “You're safe, you're sound. He's dead and in the ground.” The movie played on, unwatched.

​

***

​

“Now, the easiest way to remember the order of operations is with a simple acronym. P.E.M.D.A.S.” The teacher scrawled the letters across the board in white chalk. “And it stands for parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. An easy way to remember is to think 'please excuse my dear Aunt Sally.'”

 

Tamika sat in the third row of her math class, her text book open to the chapter on order of operations. She rested her head on one hand, her eyelids drooping as she tried to stay awake. The lesson was boring to start with, and the teacher's monotone voice didn't help. On top of that, she didn't get any rest last night. After the nightmare, she couldn't get back to sleep no matter how she tried.

 

“Ms. Little,” The teacher shouted out to her and Tamika snapped back to reality.

 

“Yeah, Mrs. Michael?” She asked.

 

“Can you please solve the following equation using the order of operations.” Mrs. Michael set the marker on the tray and stepped away from the whiteboard, a math problem written across its surface.

 

9x8+(26-3)=?

 

Tamika stared at the board. She blinked and chewed her lip. “Um . . .” she uttered, “It's . . .”

 

“Come up to the board and solve it, please.” The teacher said.

 

With nervous apprehension, Tamika pushed herself away from her desk and walked slowly to the front of the class. She glanced up at the wall-mounted clock, and felt a moment of relief. Only two minutes until class was over. If she could run out the clock, she could get out of this.

 

Her foot steps became slow and monotonous as she approached the math problem. Once she reached the board, she took up the marker and placed it against the surface. Each movement was done with as much deliberate slowness as possible. She'd made only three strokes with the pen when the bell rang.

 

The entire class stood and the air was filled with the sounds of scrapping chairs, rustling papers, and slamming books. Tamika set the marker back on the tray and returned to her desk to pack her bag.

 

“Your homework for tonight is this chapter's assignment.” Mrs. Michael shouted out to the disinterested class. “Have a good rest of your day.”

 

Once her bag was packed, Tamika slung her backpack over her shoulders and hurried out of the class. She was eager to get home, ready to get out of this place. The hallway was packed with students pulling things from and putting things in their lockers, no one noticed her. She liked it that way. If no one saw her, she wasn't a target.

 

She went outside and walked to the street corner by the edge of the school to wait for her mom. She used to wait a few blocks away by the old convenience store. But after what happened last year, she was too afraid to go back there again. And her mother had insisted on Tamika waiting within sight of the school so she could be supervised.

 

As she waited, her bag sitting between her shoes and back pressed against a tree, Tamika watched as other parents came to pick up their kids. She held her phone tight in the pocket of her hoodie, waiting for her mom's inevitable text saying she was going to be late. It happened almost every day. Once that text came, she was supposed to go back to the office and wait there.

 

Tamika understood why these precautions were in place, and she was grateful, but she still hated them. Nothing was the same as it had been before, back when she could go where she wanted, when she wanted and didn't have to listen to Mom shout at her afterwards. But when that idea came up, the memory of that cold basement and those cruel hands came back in all its vivid, painful horror, and Tamika would start to tremble again, to relive those moments of terror.

 

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket. A text message from Mom displayed on the screen. It said she was running late and to wait in the office, her babysitter would pick her up. Tamika sighed, rolled her eyes, and slipped the phone back in her pocket.

 

She had just picked up her bag and was headed back to the school when someone came around the tree and crashed into her. Tamika shrieked, dropped her backpack and fell to the ground. Her heart was racing again, her eyes wide with shock and lips trembling in fear.

 

“Woah!” the rough voice of an older boy exclaimed. “What's wrong with you?” He shouted at her, but Tamika could hardly hear him. “Can't you watch were you're going?”

 

She looked up at him, but still couldn't reply. Her voice was caught, like a bone stuck in her throat. She tried to slow her breathing and managed to swallow before uttering a response. “S . . . sorry.”

 

“Jeez,” the boy rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his disheveled brown hair. He was older than her, clearly a high schooler. He wore a dirty denim jacket over a worn and faded black T-shirt that showed some rock band Tamika had never heard of. His jeans were both torn at the knees and his shoes were dirty and falling apart in places. “I hate kids,” he muttered to himself, but held his hand out to help her up.

 

Still startled, but no longer afraid, Tamika reached to accept his offer. Just as her hand caught in his, a sudden flash of images and voices filled her head.

 

“What's wrong with you, boy!?” An angry drunken voice screamed and a beer bottle flew through the air to crash against a wall. “I didn't raise no queer!” A memory of pain erupted on her face as she felt a hand slap across her cheek. “Clean up that mess!”

 

Tamika screamed again and pulled her hand back. She fell to the ground again and crawled away from the high school boy, who stared at her with confusion and anger.

 

“Well, fine. If you're gonna be like that,” he sneered and stuffed his hands in his pockets, and kicked at the dirt. He turned to walk away.

 

Tamika pulled herself to her feet and tugged her backpack straps over her shoulders. She blinked, more confused and frightened than before. And a little ashamed of herself. She hadn't meant to freak out like that, but the sudden rush of sounds and images had overwhelmed her in a way she couldn't prepare for. While they felt real, they didn't feel like her.

 

“Butch,” she said, suddenly realizing a name with the memories.

 

“What?” The high school boy turned back when he heard her speak. “How do you know my name?”

 

“I don't know.” Tamika confessed. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it.” She hurried off towards the office, trying to forget what she saw and what she'd heard. It wasn't her business. It didn't concern her. Even if it felt like someone had been hitting her when she touched that boy's hand. She rushed into the office and seated herself in the reception area to wait.

 

The receptionist gave her little regard, looking up briefly and waving when Tamika entered, then returning to her work. Tamika sat with her heavily loaded backpack in her lap and her arms wrapped around it, trying not to think of what she'd seen. Her grip tightened and she started to steadily rock back and forth in the chair. “I'm safe here,” she whispered to herself. “Safe and sound, he's dead and in the ground.”

 

The office door opened and Tamika's eyes were drawn to the high school aged girl that stepped through. She wore a black jacket covered in silver buckles and zippers over a black T-shirt with a red anarchy symbol on it. Her straightened hair, eyeshadow, lipstick, nail polish, fingerless gloves, jeans, and boots were all likewise black. She was Serena Ravenwood, an almost perfect definition of Goth. She was also Tamika's stepsister.

 

“Tamika,” the girl said, “I got mom's message.” She adjusted the strap of her backpack, the only thing about her that wasn't black as night. “Are you ready to go?”

 

Tamika leapt from the chair, her backpack dropped to the floor, and ran to the door. She threw her arms around the older girl, buried her face in her shirt, and clung like a frightened child.

 

“Woah!” The Goth girl uttered in shock. “Is everything okay? Did something happen?” She placed her hands on Tamika's shoulders, softly embracing her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Tamika did not respond, she only buried her face deeper into the older girl's shirt and tightened her grip.

 

“It's okay.” Serena stroked her hair in a gentle caress. “You don't have to tell me. It will be alright.”

​

“Promise?” Tamika managed to pull herself away just enough to look the older girl in the eye. Her cheeks were wet and she'd left tear stains in the shirt, but neither cared.

​

Serena brushed her thumb across Tamika's cheek, wiping the tear away. “I promise.”