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... and I wake up.

I'm shaking and sweating. I always am after the nightmare. I feel like I've been screaming, but in all these years I've never made a sound. Mum and Dad would have told me if I had.Advertisement

I only wear underpants and a T-shirt to bed. I used to wear pajamas, but I'd always sweat through them when I had the dream and have to dump them the next day.

I get up and stagger to the bathroom. I take off the T-shirt on the way and drop it by the foot of my bed, knowing Mum will stick it in the laundry basket in the morning.

I sit on the toilet, shivering. I don't need to pee. I just have to wait somewhere outside my bedroom for a bit, until the shakes pass.

I hate that bloody dream. Apart from when Dad is on the rampage, it's the only time I ever feel truly scared, lost, out of my depth, helpless. What's worse, I can't tell anyone about it. What would it look like, someone my age admitting they're scared by a dream about babies? I mean, if it was cannibals or monsters or something, fair enough. But bloody babies!

Dad would skin me if he heard I still have the nightmare. When I'd go crying to him as a kid, he'd tell me not to be stupid, there was nothing scary about babies. When I kept bothering him, he whipped me with his belt. He asked a few weeks later if I was still having the dream, I forced a grin and said I wasn't.

When the shakes stop, I get up and wash my face and hands. I wipe sweat from my back with a towel, then pause and study myself in the mirror. My eyes are bloodshot and blurry with traces of fear - I think I sometimes cry quietly in my sleep - so I splash water over them and rub them with my knuckles until it hurts. Next time I check, I just look angry. That's better.

I study my light blue eyes and admire my stubbled head. Flex my biceps. Rub a faded yellow bruise on my left arm where Dad thumped me a week ago when I didn't hand him the remote quick enough. I wink at myself and mutter, "Looking good, B."

I massage my stomach, to loosen the tightened muscles, then pick at the faded white scar near the top of my right thigh. It's a small c shape, from an injection I had when I was two or three years old. It was a new type of flu vaccine. Dad volunteered me for it - they were paying good money for guinea pigs. Mum was worried but Dad said there was no way they'd test it on babies if there was any chance it would cause harm.

He was right and it worked a treat. I've never even had a cold. I don't know why it didn't make it to the shops. Maybe there were side effects and I'm one of the lucky ones who didn't suffer any. Or maybe they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can put it on the market.

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I scowl and stop picking the c scar. The things that go through your mind at - I check my watch - 3:27 in the morning. I should be sleeping, not analyzing a dumb bloody scar. I grin at myself. "You're a stupid..."

I stop. In the mirror I spot a baby standing on the laundry basket, hands red with blood, eyes white, teeth glinting. It breathes out and a small cloud of red mist rises from its mouth.

I shut my eyes and count to five, taking quick breaths, cursing myself for my weakness. When I look again, there's nobody behind me.

I stomp from the bathroom and back to bed. I grab a fresh T-shirt from my wardrobe and glare as I pull it on, mad at myself for letting the nightmare freak me out so much.

"It was only a dream, B," I whisper as I lie beneath the covers, eyes wide, knowing I won't get a wink of sleep again tonight. "Only a dream. Only a dream. Only a..." pqdm.com