“When I was little I used to lay outside and reach my hands to the sky above, convinced I could touch the great moving clouds if I just extended my arms a little further…”

*Like that?* he asks playfully, reaching out to my shoulders, pulling me closer into his arms.

*Like that, my shining star?* he repeats, holding me tight, pressing my chest against his, as if my heartbeats and his could become one.

*Like that, as if your survival would depend upon the immortality of me?* he echoes in my ear, while my body breaks and my spirit crumbles under the preassure of our embrace.

And then I know. His bright eyes turned into cavernous flames, his smile into a rictus of hate, his heart into emptiness.

He’s not my love. Nor my abyss. He will not allure me, guide me, seduce me, change me, take me, oh no. He is my darkness. He will destroy the very essence of me.

That’s when I wake up, fighting for air.

And this is not my worse nightmare. Not at all.

The worse is the question that my lips are too afraid to pronounce: what embraces me when I hide away from the blinding Light? What is its name?

…