It took me three hours to fall asleep. Once I did, I had a dream. I couldn't tell if I was sleeping or not. The dream was terrifying.

I'm sitting at Molly's dining table. She's holding my hand, we are eating lunch. She looks up suddenly, and her smile falls. I can't read her expression, but she's staring at something, beside me.

I look to my side. Emma is sitting at the table, the seat directly beside me. She is sitting, staring at me. Her scratch, the long line down her arm from before, blood is drooling from it. And she's . . . she's smiling.

I felt as if I couldn't breathe. 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, dried bear the ends 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 this or that. 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, trauma and torture. She's in my home. She is Emma.

And I think I may die tonight. I may die next to Molly, and she'll see it. She'll me traumatized too.

Emma's eyes bore into mine. Is this my life, what I'm meant to do? Why me? Why?

Emma continues to stare at me. Her arm reaches out to me, my heart beats faster and faster, my heavy breathing becomes noticeable. The world is blocked out; all I notice is Emma, my own body fading out of sense. She reaches for me, for my arm. She clutches me.

I lift my feet up from the floor, breathing heavily and sweating at the back of my mind. My eyes are wide with shock and horror. I take deep breaths and look up. This time, I do scream.

She is not smiling, 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, she is staring at me; Emma. Standing on the box beside my couch.

Am I still just paranoid, or . . .

Was she the voice? Will she kill me one day?