Becky woke up feeling disoriented and out of breath. Her heart thundered inside her chest.

Will the nightmare never end?

It has been six years and not a single night had passed without this nightmare plaguing her mind. Becky touched her throat, trying to loose the tightness that had formed inside it. The voices were too loud in her head, the images too vivid. She shook her to get rid of them but they seemed to press closer. In the darkness of her room, she fumbled for lamp switch. When her fingertips touched the switch, she pushed it on and the lamp glared to light. Becky leaned on the headrest of her bed and closed her eyes. Keeping her eyes closed, she felt the small table beside her, trying to find her handkerchief. When she found it, she used it to wipe her face. Sweat was dripping down the side of her face. Tendrils of her auburn hair stuck to her temple and the sides of her cheek. Even the air conditioned room could do nothing to stop her from perspiring.

Becky slowly used the cloth to wipe the beads of cloth from her face, her neck and the valley of her breasts. She did not venture too much inside her robe even though her whole body was drenched. She still couldn't look at the marks, let alone touch them without suffering through another episode of trauma. 

And they were all over her body.

She licked her dry lips and slowly peered her eyes open. For a moment, all she saw were faces, heard were voices. Then the room slowly came into focus and the voices faded away. Becky curled her legs closer to herself and pressed her head on her knees. A shudder went through her whole body.

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Becky climbed off her bed. She slipped on her slippers and gently padded through the wooden floors, carefully to not make any sound. The kitchen was downstairs. She flipped on the lights and leaned on the kitchen counter. She needed another moment to feel the ground under her feet, to realize that the real nightmare was over six years ago. She took an unsteady breath as another shudder ripped through her body. Her knees buckled and she crumbled down on the floor. 

A cry bubbled up her throat. Becky bit down on her lip hard but the sob escaped, only it sounded more like a whimper now.

"Mommy?" A soft, hesitant voice called out to her. Becky's head snapped up and she found a boy lingering near the door of the kitchen. He looked partly worried and partly scared.

"Alex?" She spreaded her arms out, beckoning at him. Alex did not hesitate. He snuggled inside his mother's arm, his little fingers fisting her robe. 

"You okay, mommy?" He asked.

"Yes, baby," she kissed his head, filling her lungs with his baby smell. "Your mommy had a bad dream."

Alex looked up and touched her face. "It's just a bad dream, mommy. You said Ba Ba Dook is not real, remember?"

Becky chuckled. "I know, baby. Don't worry. Mommy is all right." 

Alex stared at her some more. Then feeling satisfied, he ducked his head underneath her chin and pressed closer. It wasn't long before Becky felt him go limp in her arms. She pulled her sleeping son closer to her chest and gently stroked his hair. Alex was right. Ba Ba Dook was just a legend. But what Alex didn't know was that his mother suffered from a horror far worse than Ba Ba Dook.

A horror with no end.