What do I need protecting from?

The weird voice, the girl I saw in the wood, or myself? All this whirls through my head, as I drift off into a deep sleep.

My eyes snap open, as I feel myself being shaken roughly, a screeching voice in my recently awoken ear.

"Wake up! You're late!"

I find myself staring at a horrible looking woman, face spotty and wrinkled. Age had seriously taken its toll. Her breath travels to my nose, stinking of some kind of pickle perhaps?

It's my foster mum.

"School started an hour ago! Get up and get a move on!"

"Huh?" I say, confused due to the suddenness.

"Stupid child!" she screams, dragging me from the safety of the warm covers;dumping me on a cold, hard floor.

"I'm not stupid." I snap, annoyed at how she's speaking to me, "Maybe if you got me up on time, we wouldn't have this problem!"

"Don't speak to your mother like that!"

"You aren't my mother!"

She marches out, slamming the door angrily behind her. The whole room shakes - frightened by her actions.

I skip back into bed, refusing her orders. Why should I do as she says if she has no respect for me?

I snuggle down under my duvet, bringing it just below my eyes. I bury my head deeper into the cushions, and close my eyes slowly...

"Hello there Kacey."Whispers a patronising voice, "I see you have met my daughter."

My eyes snap open, as I find myself looking at a ghostly figure. Long grey locks fall far past its shoulders, its eyes piercing through me like a thousand knives. Its hands seem aged, it has finger nails, yet they seem to have been bitten down hungrily.

It reaches out to me, softly caressing my face.

"Darling, come to your mother. My daughter doesn't know the truth. I am you mother."

I feel the vision blur away; as I find myself in back where I was before, quietly settled in my bed.

Well obviously that incense did a lot of good!