I sat up abruptly on a raft of tangled bedclothes, and shivered at the rapid cooling effect of the sweat on my goosebumped skin. It was a long time since I’d been hit by the nightmares, to the point where I even thought they’d gone away completely. I should have known my luck wasn’t that good. They always followed the same pattern. I went through the rape again and again, unable to change a word of the dialogue, or a moment of the action. This time around events took place in a public arena, and they’d sold tickets. My parents were in the front row, eating popcorn and cracking jokes with my commanding officer. Woolley and Lewis were chatting together a couple of rows further back. I could no longer clearly remember the faces of the four men who’d attacked me. They’d faded into that area of the subconscious that hides trauma from your waking mind. I had a hazy knowledge that Morton was short and wiry, and Clay had been built like a Challenger tank, but beyond that, they all blurred into one. This time, though, there had been an unpleasant variation to the dream.
