Tales From The Dark Forest
The Nightmare Man Has HUNTED My Family For Generations, Killing All Who Don't Follow The Rules!
An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save, too. With Medicare's Extra Help Program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or a married couple who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The nightmare man dripped with sin and shadows. He had a smile like an infected wound and eyes that spiraled with darkness. He followed my family for generations. I don't know when it all started, when this monster started hunting my family. But the last time I saw my father, he warned me that the nightmare man would come for me one day, too. I remember the night my father walked into my bedroom. His white shirt and blue jeans covered in fresh pools of glistening blood. I was sitting up in bed, terrified and sweating, a mere child of seven. I'd heard the panicked screams coming from my parents' bedroom. I recognized the voice of my mother, filled with agony and terror. It sounded like she had been dragged off. The screams had faded into a distant point until they simply became inaudible. My nightlight cast the room in a dim yellow glare. "Your mother is dead," he told me. His eyes as flat and lifeless as if he was already in the grave. The nightmare man killed her Tommy. They're going to try to blame me for this. They'll put me in prison for life, but you need to know, I didn't do it. The nightmare man did. "Mom is gone?" I asked, horrified. At that moment, I realized the house had a strange smell to it, like panicked animal sweat combined with subtle notes of copper and iron. I wouldn't realize until I was much older that it was the smell of death. "Mom didn't follow the rules," my father said grimly, his face pale and grey. "Do you remember the rules?" I nodded, feeling dissociated and unreal. "Always wear silver to bed?" I said slowly, feeling my silver cross that my father had given me. "And always make sure a light is on." "Right," my father agreed. His voice sounded emotionless and far away. The nightmare man hates purity. He hates silver and white light. "He is a thing of darkness and impurity. You must burn away the darkness, even if it hurts." "What did mom do?" I asked, a sickening feeling rising in my stomach. "How did she get hurt?" My father put a cold hand on my cheek, lovingly clasping my face. She didn't use the flashlight. She never really believed me because she never saw him herself. She got out of bed in the middle of the night. At first, she was fine. Then she walked out a range of the night light past the closet. And that's when he reached out and grabbed her. My father leaned close to me. I could smell the sweet rank odor a sweat dripping off his skin. I heard sirens in the distance. My father shook his head grimly. The neighbors must have heard her screaming, he said, talking faster and faster as if he wanted to get everything out before the end came. Remember, Tommy, always keep a flashlight next to your bed in case of power outages. Keep multiple sources of lights around you at all times when you sleep and always wear silver at night. The sirens suddenly cut off. A few moments later, I heard insistent pounding at the door. Deep male voices started screaming orders. He looked at me one last time, taking a portable flashlight out of his pocket. I saw spatters of fresh blood staining its surface. He handed it to me with a grim nod. Like a man walking to his own execution, my father headed downstairs. His back slumped, his eyes ancient and haunted. A few minutes later, two police officers came upstairs, shining flashlights in my face. Blinded, I took a step back, blinking quickly to try to clear my vision. "Are you okay, little boy?" One of them asked, a disembodied voice floating behind a tunnel of garish white light. I only nodded, feeling like my voice had been taken away from me. The other cop read something into his radio. There was a hiss of white noise before a female voice came over the speaker, staticky and distorted. "Back up is on the way," she said. "Homma side will be there in ten." "Let's get you outside in the open air, okay?" One of the police officers said, putting his flashlight down and kneeling down in front of me. Still feeling unreal, as if I was floating above my body, I followed the officer like a sleepwalker. I heard the other one walking down the hall, saw his flashlight beaming into the open rooms as he went. The two of us walked down together into the hallway past the bathroom. This came my parents' master bedroom. I glanced inside on our way past. I saw a carpet of wet blood staining the hardwood floor. Next to the bed, there was only scattered drops but never the open closet door. It reflected the dull streetlights like a lake a gleaming crimson. The police officer looked determinedly ahead, so perhaps that's why he hadn't seen what I had. The closet was not empty. I could see a serpentine shape moving in the back. It had long, spidery limbs that glistened darkly. It looked like not much more than a slightly less black patch within a featureless abyss. Its obsidian skin looked wet and dripping. Its emaciated arms and legs constantly twitched and skittered. I screamed as I saw it. The police officer jumped whipping his flashlight around to face me. I just pointed with a trembling finger into the master bedroom, the scene of so much suffering. The door slammed shut with a sound like a gunshot. "What the hell?" The police officer cried, pointing his pistol at the closed door. "Come out with your hands up. This is the police." There was no response except for our heavy breathing. "James, I need backup." The cops standing next to me cried to his partner, who had gone in the other direction down the hallway, presumably to check the rest of the closets and make sure no one else was hiding in there. But the end of the hallway stayed gloomy and quiet. We saw no bobbing flashlight or any signs of James. The police officer's head frantically ratcheted down to the other end of the hall and back to the door a few times. He seemed unsure of what to do. "Stay close to my side, kid," he whispered, the pistol trembling in his hands as he continued pointing it at the closet door. With his other, he pulled his radio out of his belt and clicked it on. "I need backup immediately. My partner is not here and we have another person in the house. They're barricaded in the closet and not responding to orders." The radio gave a long hiss of static and response then went quiet for a moment. I thought that female voice would come back on the line, but instead, a gurgling, diseased laughter rang out through the white noise. The cop nervously stared at his radio as if he expected it to turn into a snake in a tachum. He gave a long, weaving sigh and looked down at me. His chalk-white face seemed ghostly. "Do you know who's behind that door, kid? Is it one of your family members?" The police officer asked, his shaking hands ready to start shooting at the slightest movement. I shook my head, feeling dissociated in the ghastly nightmarish world. "It's the nightmare, man," I whispered. He killed my mom and now he's coming for me. The police officer listened intently, drops a sweat falling off his nose and chin. He hesitated for a long moment, looking like he wanted to say something, to call me crazy. But instead, he knelt down next to my ear. "Here's what I need you to do, kid," he whispered. The fear evident in his wavering voice. Go downstairs and go outside. Tell any police officer you find to come up to the second floor immediately. "An official message from Medicare." A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. You should apply single people making less than $23,000 a year or marry couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. When you need to work quickly and confidently, you need grammarly. It's a trusted AI writing partner that helps you get work done faster with better writing. But it works where you work, across 500,000 apps and websites. 96% of users agree. Grammarly helps them craft more impactful writing. Sign up and download for free at gremmerly.com/podcast. That's gremmerly.com/podcast. Grammarly. Easier said. Done. "Can you do that?" "I nodded. Glad to get out of there." "I'll find you help, mister." I promised, looking up at the tall officer. He looked young, probably in his 20s. Looking back on it all these years later, I doubt he had much experience. He slowly started walking towards the closet door as I took off down the hallway. I glanced back, seeing him sign-stepping the last few feet. His pistol raised and held in both hands. "Come out with your hands up," he yelled. I saw the door fly open in a blur, but once there was a gap of about six inches it froze in place, as if a video had been paused. Shadows like smoke crept out on the floor, as thick as winter fog. The police officer backpedaled, nearly falling. He caught his balance at the last second. "Come out now!" "As you wish." I heard the disease thing rasp in a hissing low voice. An inhumanly long arm shot out, the twisted black fingers wrapping around the police officer's arm. A gunshot rang out. My ears were ringing. I turned to run, hearing the cops terrified screams echoing all around me. Before I fled down the stairs, I glimpsed him being dragged into the inky abyss contained behind the closet door. The sharp, spidery fingers digging through his skin and muscle like burrowing ticks. I flew through the open door, seeing two police cars parked along the dark empty streets. Their lights flashed constantly, sending blue and red light dancing over the nearby houses and trees, though the sirens remained off. I looked around frantically for help, but I saw no one there. "Hello? Dad?" I screamed. I wondered if the police had already taken my father away to the station, but where were the rest of them? I thought about the cop upstairs getting dragged into the closet, screaming and crying. A cold shudder ran down my back. "Is anyone there?" My voice seemed to fade into the cool autumn night. There was an eerie feeling of electricity in the air. Black clouds swept across the sky at a rapid speed, covering the world in a black blanket. As the wind whipped past, it reminded me of the voice of the nightmare man, hissing in low and distorted currents. I felt that the street looked different. It took me a few moments to realize why. I looked up, seeing that the street lights were all unlit. All of the houses, too, had their lights out. The only illumination came from the spinning lights on the police cars. It was a surreal feeling, seeing the empty, eerie world shining with the harsh glare of the red and blue lights. I heard footsteps stumbling behind me. Terrified, I backed away from the door, taking slow, uncertain steps into the street. A silhouette fell through it. A scream caught in my throat, but I realized it wasn't the nightmare man. It was the missing partner who had gone down the hall, the police officer named James. His uniform was slashed and covered in drips of scarlet gore. He held his hands to his stomach as he laid gurgling on the front porch. His dripping intestines bulged out through a ragged tear in his stomach, uncoiling and slithering out like red snakes. "Help!" he gurgled, reaching out a blood-stained hand in my direction. I shook my head, feeling like I might throw up. I continued backing up. I hit something metal, realizing my back was pressed against one of the police cars. "What can I do?" I whispered, feeling incredibly scared and small. With trembling fingers, he pulled something off of his belt. I realized he was holding his radio up to me. "Come, take!" he gurgled, coughing up more blood. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to turn around and run. He tried to say something else, but instead a spewous scarlet shot out of his mouth. He crawled forward on the ground slowly, still holding the radio up with the last of his dying energy. There was a strange smell around the police officer's body, a chemical odor like ozone. Nervously, I stepped forward and grabbed it with numb fingers. As soon as my hand touched the plastic, the police officer's other hand jerked up and closed around my wrist. I instinctively tried to pull away in confusion and terror. His skin felt freezing cold. My eyes widened as I realized the layers of flesh were dripping away, revealing a bone-thin spidery limb underneath. I looked up into the face of the nightmare man. He towered over me with skin as dull and black as shadows. In the center of his pointed skull, a single blood red eyes stared out, dilated and insane. His skin seemed to be shivering and rippling, as if the darkness inside were fighting to get out. I felt lost as I looked into that total alien face. Terrible visions washed over me. I saw myself burning alive, the skin melting and dripping. A heartbeat later, I saw myself with my throat slashed, my lips turning blue as my pupils dilated in death. Looking blindly in my pockets in my manic delusional state, I felt the small flashlight my father had given me. My instincts screamed at me that it was my only salvation. As the nightmare man lowered his spinning face down towards me, I pulled away, clicking the flashlight on and spinning it at the enormous eye. Though the nightmare man had no mouth, a scream ripped its way out of the eldritch body. The inky shadows forming his emaciated rail-thin, flesh-body rippled and spun faster and faster. The black skin of his head started to drip and rip apart wherever the light touched it. The banshee whale emanated from all around him, radiating out of his skin. He struck out at me as sharp fingers like railroad spikes dug into my neck. I felt my breath get choked off. A pressure like a metal band crushed my windpipe. I continued shining the light on his body, hearing his shrieks of pain. Then his long, twisted fingers brushed against my silver necklace my father had given me. The effect was instantaneous. There was a sound like sizzling bacon and an explosion of white light. I felt myself being thrown back onto the hard pavement to the walkway. The nightmare man scuttled backwards into the shadows of the dead house, screaming as he pulled himself along. A heartbeat later, he disappeared, leaving behind the smell of ozone hanging thick in the air. I ran along the empty streets for what felt like an eternity. I pounded on lock door after lock door, calling for help, but the entire town seemed deserted. I saw the thick black clouds sweeping by overhead, and I wondered if the nightmare man had somehow dragged me into his world. It seemed like the nightmare never ended, though many hours must have passed by this point. The world stayed black in silence, as if no sun would ever rise here. Coming back, it seemed doubtful that this nightmarish world had a sun at all. I had only my flashlight as a weapon against the darkness. I kept running in a straight line, not seeing a single person. All the streetlights stayed dead and empty, and the houses looked uninhabited. I reached the end of street after street, coming to the borders of Frost Hollow, where the boundary of the town stood, the ground suddenly dropped off. Beyond it, I saw a void of total emptiness stretching out forever. As I stared into the abyss, I felt watched as if hidden eyes stared back. I thought I saw inky forms shifting behind the impenetrable curtain of shadows. The hissing of the strange wind in this dark world abruptly escalated to a wailing, a diseased gurgling. I spun in terror, seeing the nightmare man standing only inches away, his crimson eye looking down on me with fury. Melted strands of black flesh. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The nightmare man hissed in a soft reptilian voice that radiated from his glossy, writhing flesh. Before I could react, he swiped his sharp fingers at my face. I felt a pain simultaneously burning and freezing, eating into my skin as they drove four deep gashes into my forehead and cheeks, barely missing my eyes by a fraction of an inch. Bleeding heavily, I fell back, my screams mixing with gurgles of the nightmare man. I felt my back foot touch empty air as I hovered over the edge of frost hollow, leaning down over the seemingly never-ending abyss. My arms windmealed as I tried to catch myself, but at that moment, the nightmare man lunged forward, aiming another powerful blow at my head. It barely missed me, whipping through the air like sword blades. Thrown totally off balance, I disappeared over the edge, descending into a freezing blackness that swirled and jumped all around me. I thought I caught glimpses of strange, eldritch silhouettes blending into the abyss around me, spinning black holes and enormous dark stars that sucked in light rather than emanating it. All around me, dark snakes whose bodies seemed miles long slither past, shadows rippling above shadows. And eternity later, I felt myself screaming, my arms striking out at nothing. Someone was standing over me, shining a flashlight down into my face. I opened my eyes, seeing police officers and paramedics standing over me. I looked around, realizing I was laying at the edge of the highway at the border of frost hollow, sprawled into the breakdown lane next to speeding cars and trucks. I was covered in gashes and cuts. It looked like I had walked through a forest of pricker bushes, and the slices from the nightmare man still bled freely on my neck and face. A police car and ambulance had pulled over a stone's throw away, the lights blinding and harsh. They brought back memories of my time in the nightmare man's world, and I had to repress an urge to scream, "Can you hear me?" I met aghast, putting on gloves as he knelt by my side. I was breathing heavily, confused and filled with agony. "How did I get here?" I asked. "Where's the nightmare man?" "Who?" The met aghast, a confused look crossing his face. I saw them wheeling a gurney down the pavement. "The nightmare man," I screamed, "Where is he?" I swam through cautiousness and uncautiousness, falling back into a shell-shocked stupor. I felt cold hands lifting me off the ground. In my delirium and covered in injuries, I thought it was the nightmare man. I screamed and thrashed, kicking my legs and arms, trying to scratch and punch anyone close by. I woke up in the hospital restrained, my father in prison, my mother dead. The most memorable day of my childhood had come to an end. In the years since, I followed my father's rules like a holy order. I never slept without lights turned on around the room, always wore my silver necklace and kept flashlights by the side of my bed. Despite these precautions, on many nights, I still glimpsed a shadowy silhouette reaching towards me, held back only by a weak circle of light. But something else my father had said the night my mother died kept coming back to me. Something about fire in the nightmare man. Haunted every night by this seemingly eternal presence, I bit the bullet and went to visit him in prison. It had been nearly two decades since I saw my father. The towering momentum of concrete and razor wire loomed above me. The guards pointed me towards a partitioned glass booth with a phone. I saw my father ambled in, looking as if he had aged fifty years. His eyes stared blankly ahead, totally lifeless and devoid of hope, like the eyes of a death camp inmate. He sat down heavily across from me, sighing and picking up the phone. "Dad, I wanted to ask you about the night that mom died," I said nervously. "I've been following your rules and it's kept me alive so far. But that thing won't stop following me, it won't stop hunting me. You said it hates silver and white light, then at the end you mentioned fire. Can the nightmare man die, dad? Can fire kill it?" My father gave a long sigh, staring straight into my eyes. "Do you know what they found in that house, boy?" he asked, seemingly ignoring my question. I just shook my head, watching him closely through the glass partition. He looked sick as his wrinkled face fell into a grim frown. They found tiny pieces of at least three bodies, but not actual bodies. I saw the papers during my trial boy, I will never forget what I read. Pieces of your mother's teeth were embedded into the closet wall, broken and jagged and sticking straight out. They found one of the cops' eyes inside a lightbulb, with the optic nerve still connected to the wall socket. They were broken pieces of bloody fingernails embedded into the floor and walls. But no matter how hard CSI looked, they couldn't find more than tiny bits and fragments and lots of blood. "Does that sound like something a human could do to you?" He spat, his eyes darkening into slits. His wrinkled face looked immensely sad and haunted. "I've spent my life in prison for a crime I didn't do. If you're not careful, the nightmare man will do it to you too. He feeds off the suffering and death as if it was food. He is always watching you, even now." "What can I do?" I asked, feeling sick and weak. "Is there any way to stop this?" My father leaned close to the glass partition, a new sparkle coming into his sunken eyes. "You know, I've always wondered that," he whispered. Maybe I deserved this for being a coward. I should have tried to stop this years ago. I should have died fighting this monster rather than waste my life in a cell, slowly going mad, trapped in this tomb of concrete and razor wire. But maybe there is a way, maybe. Before my grandfather died, he told me about entering the nightmare man's world. When the nightmare man comes out, everything around him changes. The rooms, the walls, the sky? It looks like our world, but it's always dark and empty, only filled with the presence of the nightmare man and the bodies of his victims. Perhaps there in the darkness where his true form is revealed, he could be stopped forever. He could be killed. "I don't know, but if you could end it, boy, you must end it. The curse cannot drag our family down to hell forever." I nodded grimly. "I think I was there," I said. As a boy, I got trapped somewhere else. It felt like I was there for days, but the sun never rose. "You need to fight fire with fire, Tommy. Purify the nightmare man with the flames. End it, son. Avenge your mother and myself and kill this evil bastard." For the next few days, I made my preparations to return to the nightmare man's world. I eventually inherited my parents' home and still lived in it, despite the horrifying memories that hid there like childhood monsters creeping through the shadows. To my immense relief, I found that American citizens can buy military-grade flamethrowers without any sort of permit or paperwork. I gave a short prayer in thanks that I had lived in a free country which allowed self-defense. After searching and emptying out all of my savings, I bought an XL-18 flamethrower, which cost a few grand. I figured the money will be well worth it if it saved my life. The XL-18 was a sleek black thing, a futuristic looking metal backpack attached to a line that ran to the gun, which honestly looked like more something I might use for watering my lawn rather than burning demons alive. It appeared like a rigid, modified hose over a foot long with a trigger at the bottom. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply, single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In addition to buying a flamethrower, I made my own napalm, which was surprisingly easy. I bought a couple dozen gallons of gasoline and experimented with it, letting equal parts but styrofoam and cat litter dissolve in the gas until it became a thick, flammable sludge. As the sun set that final day, I filled the XL-18 with my homemade napalm, a rising sense of excitement crawling up my chest. I tried shooting it a few times, seeing a massive spray of flames extending out far in front of me, satisfied and grinning, I headed back inside. Since the world had descended into total darkness, I crept upstairs to the room where my mother had died all those years before, feeling the way to the fully loaded flamethrower backpack, whispering prayers that I would return alive and unharmed. Little did I realize the agony and suffering I would experience the rest of my life after my fight with the nightmare man. I surveyed the dark empty room, seeing the closet door stood ajar a few inches. Trembling and terrified, I took a step into the blackness, creeping closer to the closet. The door suddenly moved, swinging open with a low drawn-out creaking. I heard hissing and soft laughter, the shadows swirled and danced, "It's your time!" The nightmare man gurgled from the abyss, "Come and see!" I glanced back, seeing a shard dim light from the hallway slicing in. The door back out to the normal, safe world seemed so far away, eternally far away. Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the closet threshold, feeling freezing chills running through my bones as I entered the rippling black shadows. I heard agonizing screams like the last cries of murder victims or the damned shrieking in hell. I wondered if these were the cries of the nightmare man's victims, echoing of past atrocities. I found myself standing where I just was, looking into an open closet door filled with an abyss of nothingness. The floor, ceiling and walls of the closet, had apparently disappeared, leaving only a portal of emptiness. I realized that the nightmare man's essence was everywhere around me, hissing in the darkness. He was the colossus whose face hung over the strange shadowy world. He was the juggernaut who would crush any who stood in his way to bone splinters and meat paste, a sense of paralyzing fear struck me like lightning. I looked around, seeing my house stood completely dark now. I had added a flashlight attached to the top of the flamethrower and clicked it on, preparing myself for an eminent battle. "Where are you?" I screamed, glancing around frantically, my finger hovering above the trigger. "Come out, coward. What? You can only kill defenseless women and children? You're a chicken-shit murderer!" Crying out seemed to shatter the fear that gripped my heart and made everything real. I stood for a moment, seeing everything with adrenaline-fueled concentration. The shadows in this dark world rippled and danced faster around me, sending eerie currents running through the floor and walls. But in sweat, I carefully headed in the direction of the hallway. I barely taken half a step over the threshold when the nightmare man attacked. I saw a blur of a tall, spidery shape soaring through the unlit hallway. I screamed, falling back a sharp finger slashed through my arm and shoulder-like knife blades. I tried spinning the flamethrower and its flashlight to aim at the pointed reptilian skull of the nightmare man. Waves of adrenaline dulled the pain for a moment, but I could feel the blood spurting the warm currents from my wounds. "You will die like your mother!" The nightmare man gurgled through his glossy skin as the enormous crimson eyes stared down at me. The dilated and sane pupil gleamed with amusement and insanity. Burton stunned, weighed down by the full backpack of napalm. I felt like a turtle stuck on its back. The nightmare man raised his scalpel-like fingers. They were twisted, black things, each the size of a railroad spike. Hissing in his low, demonic way, the hand hovered above my face like the ax of an executioner. When a blur came down towards me, aimed at my eyes and nose. Instinctively, I let go of the gun and grabbed my silver cross, raising it above my face just in time. The nightmare man's flesh exploded with a flash of blue light when it smashed into the pendant. His hissing changed from one of bloodlust and excitement to an even more distorted cry of agony. When he fell back, his inhumanly long, jointed legs thudding softly against the wood. I used the opportunity to write myself, grabbing the gun and raising it. The nightmare man's one enormous eye saw the weapon. Without hesitation, he lunged at me, flying through the air with two outstretched, monstrous hands. I pulled the trigger as he smashed into me. The flamethrowers sprayed an inferno of burning napalm, like the breath of some fiery dragon. The napalm worked instantly, sticking to the nightmare man's alien body. The flames flickered and seized as the black skin of the nightmare man started dripping and falling onto me. Each drop was on fire, and I felt my flesh melting. I bit down my lip, trying not to scream along with the nightmare man. He rolled on top of me, spreading the flames further and further. I felt my arms and chest burning, smelled the hair igniting. There was a smell like searing pork chops as pain like hydrochloric acid ate its way through my muscle. The nightmare man rolled off me after a few seconds. In the flurry of agony and adrenaline, I ripped the backpack off, rolling on the ground over and over to try to extinguish the flames. The nightmare man had become a seven foot tall pillar of fire by this point. Whaling in its distorted banshee voice, he slammed himself into the walls over and over. I heard the heavy thuds, the cracking of wood. An overpowering smell of ozone mixed with an odor of smoke and gasoline, filling the hallway with its cloying pugment aroma. "Help me," I cried, knowing no one would hear me. Just for maybe God. I saw my fingers and hands still burning and melting as my clothes melted to my smoking blackened skin. I nearly lost cautiousness from the indescribable pain, dragging myself towards the closet an inch at a time. Waves of white light flashed across my vision, threatening the drag me down into a dreamless sleep from which I would never awake. Using on my intense pain to keep myself cautious, I continuously pushed myself forward. The last whales at the nightmare man echoed through the room. I kept my focus on the open closet door and the endless abyss waiting beyond. Without hesitation, I pushed myself over the threshold and felt myself falling. I struggled through the moments of unconsciousness. At that moment, I saw little and understood nothing. I found myself back in the room where my mother had died. It laid empty except for a computer desk in the corner with a laptop and a land line on it. I crawled to the phone, groaning and weeping with every movement. After a few failed attempts to reach it from my place on the ground, I pulled the whole thing down and immediately dialed 9-1-1. "Help?" I whispered through cracked burnt lips. "I'm burnt. I think I'm dying. It hurts so bad." The woman on the other end said something, but I couldn't concentrate. A thick blackness kept rising up, a dreamless sleep without pain. I tried pushing it away, but the 9-1-1 operators' words kept repeating on the other end of the line. It soared up and dragged me under. I remember flashing lights and men in uniforms leaning over me. It seemed like a nightmarish repeat of my childhood experience escaping the nightmare man's world. I woke up a couple of days later in a hospital bed. Most of my body covered in bandages. A doctor told me I had received severe burns over much of my body. I would live, but I would be scarred and ugly for the rest of my life. They also had to amputate most of my fingers on my right hand, saying that they could not be saved after the deep burns they suffered. In the end, I found justice for my mother, but in the process of killing the nightmare man, I had sacrificed my own body and health. And while I may be bitter sometimes, at least I can now sleep without seeing that spidery silhouette staring out at me across the room. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. You should apply single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.