When I was much younger, I used to have night terrors. They usually accompanied a fever and typically happened the night that my fever broke. I could never remember what the night terrors were about, but I remember waking up to my dad shaking me, calling my name, trying to wake me up. Often I’d be trapped in the embrace of the night terrors and my mother would hold me while I moaned and thrashed in my sleep, singing and repeating my name over and over again until I regained consciousness. My parents got used to it over the years and as time passed, the night terrors became fun little anecdotes when we’d reminisce.

As I grew older, the more I could remember about my night terrors. The last night terror I experienced was years ago, during the first week of my freshman year of college. There was a kegger and the dorm was empty. I wasn’t at the party because I had mild food poisoning and was fighting the fever that accompanied it. I woke up alone around midnight, with the terrifying sensation of being chased.

I sat up for hours, even after my roommate returned in a drunken and more than likely stoned state, trying to remember more. Slowly an image began to form of a three-headed humanoid creature astride a lion with dragon wings. It was chasing me down a long tunnel that’s just a little bit taller than myself, about seven feet wide, and stretched on for about thirty feet before its curve caused the end to disappear. My bare feet were slapping wetly against the wet floor of the tunnel. As the lion breathed fire, I could see that the walls and the floor of the tunnel were red, looking like the inside of someone’s throat. I could see the three heads with their distorted, grotesque mouths open, roaring in anger as I remained just ahead of the grabbing claws of the lion. I’m not sure how long the night terror had lasted, but the sensation felt like forever.

Always running, but never getting away.

The constant fear of being caught, torn apart and devoured.

Years after that night, in a fit of anxiety, stress or depression, that feeling of being chased would return. When it did, I would sit or stand there, somewhat catatonic as that feeling of running, running—somewhat akin to the sensation of constantly falling in your dreams—until I would shake or slap myself from the stupor.

There’d be times when, in those moments after I shook myself free from those thoughts, I’d tell myself what I experienced wasn’t an external experience. Because it was internal, whatever it was, and was a part of myself. Somewhere, deep in my subconsciousness, the beast was inside me; was me.

Even after that experience with my cat, Blackie, there’d be times I would let the beast out: shooting my BB gun into a nest of baby birds, kicking a soccer ball at a kitten, holding my dog by her neck against the ground as she struggled; whimpering, clawing, trying to bite until I released her, my forearm bleeding.

The night terrors never returned, but there’d be occasions where I’d wake to Veronica telling stories about things I did in my sleep that I had no recollection of: odd conversations, sitting up wide-eyed and staring at her in the dark, and occasionally a few things I did to her that were quite a bit more naughty.

There was one night when she was weak and lying in bed, and I was reading to Eleanor from a chapter book. A few sentences into a new chapter, Veronica interrupted from the bedroom, saying that I had already read the chapter to Eleanor the day before.

No, I insisted, I hadn’t picked this book up in a couple days.

Veronica proceeded to describe the cake that was delivered to the children a couple pages later. Eleanor piped up at that point, agreeing with her mother.

I grew frustrated. How could I not have any memory of reading that book?

Later that evening, once Eleanor was asleep, I confronted Veronica, asking her if she was just toying with me, but she insisted and stuck with her story.

It’s my memory. It’s an unreliable thing.

Yet, where my memory fails, inductive reasoning takes over.

Rather than anchoring to information my senses were receiving, I began to think rationally through the logic of the situation. I started assigning blame to the typical causes of these mental faults: stress, anxiety and depression. I begin obsessively dissecting the events, looking for possible explanations, listing the obvious assumptions and developing hypotheses to test.

Our human nature, by default, causes us to base decisions and thoughts on our most recent experiences. There was definitely a sense of cognitive dissonance as I experienced a heightened level of psychological stress while I sorted through these contradictory experiences: the visions of Veronica and Eleanor’s duplicate self.

Prior to these events, if someone had asked me if I believed in ghosts, I wouldn’t have hesitated in my denial. Within that denial, though, I realize how hypocritical I am. For years, I blindly accepted the idea of faith and religion, regardless of the lack of science and occasional reason to prove it.

With the discovery of the God Particle, science had basically rendered ghosts as a figment of our imaginations. Because the God Particle proved that everything in existence should have mass, ghosts should retain a certain frequency or particle that corresponded with their human body, making them detectable.

That encounter with Veronica wasn’t the only one. I hadn’t seen her physical form since that night, but there were still moments of footsteps throughout the house that weren’t associated with myself or Eleanor.

A few nights ago as I lay awake, I could hear Veronica humming on her side of the bed. It was the same tune she used to hum when Eleanor was a baby, lying in our bed, nestled between us. I rolled over on my side, reaching across the bed to where Veronica used to lay, listening to her hum until I fell asleep.

As this went on, it was a companionship that I became used to. I didn’t feel as lonely as I once did. I stopped piling pillows on her side of the bed. I turned off the hallway light at night. I slept better, awoke more refreshed, and felt more connected to Eleanor. There was a strong likelihood that this was all part of my imagination, but I was happier. Not completely happy, per se, but happier than I had been, which was a considerable amount of progress.

Checking in on Eleanor, I see that she’s lying skewed sideways across her bed, her covers thrown off. I straightened her out, brushing her hair away from her eyes, and tucked her back underneath her covers.

Going into my bedroom I begin my nighttime routine: going to the bathroom, washing my face, brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom again, and then climbing into bed with my e-reader before deciding to go to the bathroom one more time because of my indecisive bladder.

Even though these events were random, I have a hope that I might see or hear something tonight.

After a while, I can feel my eyes beginning to grow heavy. I realize that I haven’t progressed to the next page for a while, so I close the cover of the e-reader, and let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

Where Veronica’s rocking chair used to be is the darkest corner of the room. We had set the chair there when we had Eleanor so that there wasn’t any light pollution from outside the house or from the hallway. Now the corner is empty, the chair sold online when it became too uncomfortable for Veronica to sit in.

I know I’m tired, but in the darkness I can sense tiny movements.

“Veronica?” I whisper.

The darkness grows, as if it’s standing. The movement is sharp and sudden and I slide out of bed, standing, my back pressed against the wall. An image of the beast flashes in my head as it moves towards me. It appears as if it’s three-legged, until I realize that it’s moving towards me in a bipedal fashion, carrying something that stretches to the floor where its hand should be.

With its movement comes an inaudible sound. It’s deeper than Veronica’s voice, but sounds far away.

“Why are you here?” I can hear it ask. “Leave us alone.” It says something else, but I can’t hear it as my head collides with the wall, hit by some unseen force. Sinking to the floor, I look up, and within the darkness I see my face. I’m angry, scared, yelling while gripping the handle of Veronica’s softball bat.

“Leave us alone,” I hear again as I drift into unconsciousness.