It took me hours to fall asleep. I was too tired to count how many, but it was painfully long. Once I'd finally succumbed to my exhaustion, I had a dream, but I couldn't tell if I was sleeping or not. The dream itself was terrifying - feeling like it was real, even moments after I'd woken up from it, was worse. Sitting up in my bed, drenched in sweat for the first time in my life, was much worse; I begged myself to sleep early and easy in the night to come solely because of it.

I'm sitting at Molly's dining table now. She's holding my hand. We are eating lunch, chicken sandwiches she made. We aren't really talking. My living room feels like it's somebody else's now. She looks up suddenly, something catching her attention, and her smile falls. I can't read her expression, but she's staring at something... something beside me.

I follow her eyes until I'm looking directly to my right. Creepy Little Girl is sitting at the table, the seat next to me. Neither of us noticed her sit there, no one ever does when she appears. She is staring at me once again. Her scratch, the long line down her arm from before, has blood is drooling from it. And she's... she's smiling.

I couldn't breathe, my heart banging in my chest but nothing coming in or out of my lungs. Her teeth, pure white, dull like a child's, but the crinkles at the edges of her eyes, the lift of her eyebrows. That scratch on her arm, it was from her nails, wasn't it? Her pigtails, tips dried together with blood, like she was just out in the rain.

I was wrong for thinking anything good I thought; for thinking I was too paranoid or that she wasn't entirely evil or that she would never hurt me, just scare me. I was wrong for thinking she was created by the Devil, for thinking she is the Devil. She is none of that.

She is a cruel, little girl . . . She is death, torture and trauma. She is fear and unwavering. She is a stern frustration that bears the fruit of a snake's tree. She's in my home. She is Creepy Little Girl, not Emma or anything human.

I swallow. I shake. I violently plead with my eyes only.

I feel like I might die tonight.

And Molly...

I may die next to Molly, she'll see it. She'll be traumatized too by this haunting little freak she knows as Emma.

Creepy Little Girl's eyes bore into mine. Is this my life, what I'm meant to do? To die at the hands of... of whatever she was? Why me? Why? Does the Lord himself even know?

Creepy Little Girl continues staring at me. Her arm reaches out to me, firm in the air, my heart beats faster and faster, my heavy breathing returns heavy and noticeable. The world is blocked out; all I notice is Creepy Little Girl, my own body fading out of sense. She reaches for me, for my arm. She clutches me, clawing at me. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to let her go.

In my dream, I lift my feet up from the floor, breathing heavily and sweating. My eyes are wide, holding in shock and horror as I realize that I'm not in the dream anymore. I'm having lunch with Molly, and this is real. I take deep breaths, finally registering that Creepy Little Girl really is in front of me, grabbing me with cold arms, so cold they were painful. This time, I scream.

Suddenly, I shake violently, sitting up from the couch. I stare at the wall. I try to peak into the kitchen, Molly and her chicken sandwiches aren't there. I don't realize how fast I'm breathing, but I hear my own pants.

I crinkle my eyebrows. I... I was dreaming? Again? But it was real, at least it felt like it. It was almost like a memory.

Creepy Little Girl is not smiling anymore, her cut is not there, no blood in her hair, but in a yellow dress with red stripes, white socks and black shoes, hair in two parts behind her, and she is staring at me; Creepy Little Girl. Standing on the box beside my couch. I look her up and down, my lips curled into disgust and my eyes wild, rapidly taking her in.

Am I still just paranoid, or...

I thought about the voice that I was too sure was hers. I thought about my dream, unable to push it away.

Was she really the voice?

Will she kill me one day?