Vachon Imagined

The Sandman entered her room with every illusion she could not name.

What had once been a bed became something else in the dark—no longer rest, but vigilance. A place where shapes gathered meaning before they could be questioned.

The night learned her fear before she had words for it.

And so it taught her to answer it.

At first, there was only unease.

Then there were intruders.

Then there were murderers.

Not seen, but felt—formed out of the same silence that once held peace.

She began to prepare herself against them.

To harden.

To strike first in her mind before anything could strike her body.

To punish what had not yet arrived.

What she did not realize was that the Sandman had not brought them.

He had only opened the door.

And behind that door, her own fear began to take shape.

A child once stood in the same space where her anger now lived.

Small.

Unprotected.

Waiting for something she did not know how to give.

And yet she turned toward him with the same force she had learned in the dark.

The blame, the rage, the need to make something responsible for what could not be understood.

The Sandman did not leave.

He only moved deeper into her room.

Until she could no longer tell what was entering and what had always been there.

The child and the violence began to trade places.

One becoming the other.

One speaking through the other.

Until there was no longer a distinction between what was seen and what was imagined.

Only the body reacting to a world it no longer trusted.

And somewhere beneath it all—

what had once been a bed of roses remained.

Unclaimed.

Unnoticed.

Not needing to grow through fear.

Not needing to prove its existence at all.