‘Tis the wee small hours, and beside me, Charlotte sleeps fitfully. I don’t sleep at all, kept awake by the sounds she’s making; fearful, haunted.
Should I wake her?
…. Or is any sleep better than no sleep?
It’s not simply formless noise coming from her. She’s talking, all the time whispering. It’s an eerie sound, like the background to some edge-of-the-seat horror movie. Words in there, they are just below the edge of hearing, where I can’t pick them out.
It sets my teeth on edge and my nerves jangling. And as it continues, the hairs on my neck rise.
My own fiancée is giving me the spooks…?
She grows louder, the words now sometimes discernible: panicked sounds, fear, horror, the sheer terror of a young girl trapped by those who will abuse her.
Tossing and turning, her face distorts
