The adrenaline was coursing through my body as I was running through the darkness. I could hear a howling of some unrecognizable animal in the distance, which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I moved quickly through the dense trees, my breathing heavy, laboured; a sharp pain in my side signalling that I had been running for a while. It was dark, except for the light of the full moon. I could see shadows behind the trees that I knew were alive, but I couldn't make out anything specific. I was alone and scared, jumping and dodging around trees with a sense that the hounds of hell were on my heels. Where was I? What was chasing me? I didn’t know. Why was I running? All I knew was my life depended on it, and I was terrified. My energy spent, I paused to catch my breath behind a tree and peer out into the murky darkness. Through the dark, I thought I could see the shadow of something that had a human shape to it. Had it found me? I crouched down further and watched as the shadow of what I thought was human-like seemed to now become something much larger and menacing in my mind. My focus on the creature was broken, though, when I heard a tree branch crack closer to me, and I turned away and ran, fear and adrenaline kicking in again. Where was I headed? What was I running from? All I knew was that the fear was real! My stomach was in a tight knot as I tried to escape whatever was after me. I tried jumping over a fallen branch at high speed and missed, tripping over a tree root and falling flat on my face. The ground was so hard it knocked the wind out of me, and that’s when I woke up and realized I had only been dreaming the terror. Without changing position, I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes again. I was sitting there with my eyes closed, thinking about the dream, when something large hit my upper body, and my head hit the window next to me. The knock on the cool glass brought me back to my current, miserable reality. My heart sank; I opened my eyes, realizing that part hadn’t been a dream. I was riding in the car with my mom and new stepdad, heading away from beautiful Vancouver. Once again, my stupid brother thought it might be fun to hit me in the head while I was sleeping, but this time I wasn’t asleep. The hard ground that I dreamt I had hit the first time was just my head bouncing off the window from him, whaling me with his pillow. “Jared, you are such a jerk!” I yelled. “Ha! You should have seen your face! I thought you crapped your pants,” he snorted, "that would be so hilarious."