Sehun.

His mother was smiling and she was wearing her best coat. The black one. She was calling to him, and his heart bursting with joy to see her again, was running as fast as he could towards her.

                Everything had been a dream, he thought as he ran. The explosion, the house, the nursery. . .  everything. This was real. This was happening.

                He kept running, almost reaching her, almost there. But every time he came close to her, she seemed to move further away. Always distant, always out of touch, calling to him but knowing he could never reach her. Then at last he began to make some headway. He could have cried out in joy, laughed aloud. He was going to hold his mother again. Soon. Now.

                Only it wasn’t his mother anymore. She had changed. She was still wearing black but it wasn’t his mother’s good coat. Her clothes were old, shabby. And she wore something over her face- a veil? It didn’t hide the face beneath. He could see her white skin stretched tight so it looked like dead, weathered bone; her eyes, black and hard, glittering with spite and malice. And he was running towards her.

                He tried to make himself stop, force his feet to slow down, but his pace only increased, his legs pumping faster. He shook his head, tried to cry out, but his voice wouldn’t work. This is dream, he thought. Not before. Please let me wake up, please. . .

                Sehun sat bold upright, his chest bursting from dream-exertion, sweat on his sharp brow. He opened his eyes. The room was in darkness. Everything was a blur but he could see enough see light from entering his room through the window.

                He reached for his cellphone on the bedside table but in doing so knocked it to the floor. Leaning out of bed, he d around but couldn’t seem to reach it. Behind him he heard the sound of something cracking, shifting. Grumbling.

                He sat up, looked around. The only thing behind him was the wall. Was the wall cracking? He squinted, tried to see. All he could make out were vague shapes moving against the shadows.

                Then one of the shadows began to make it its way towards him. As it did so, the sound of cracking was replaced by another sound. Slithering. The shadow was moving fast, becoming bigger and bigger, looming towards him. There was an awful stench of decay and rot. It made him feel instantly nauseous.

                Terrified, he pulled the blankets over his head and lay down as quickly as he could. He held tight to the blanket, not daring to move, barely breathing, willing himself to be weightless and invisible as his anxiety and panic attacks took over him. Tried to do what his mother use to tell him, think good thoughts to drive the bad dreams away. Hoped that it would work on whatever or whoever was there.

                Sehun trembled, forced back his cries in case it could wake his older brother, Chanyeol, heard him. He kept his eyes tight shut, willed himself to fall asleep once more, go back to his dream.

He lay like that for the rest of the night.