He Comes At Night

Continued...

"Rose! Rose calm down it's me!" 

The familiar sound caused Rose to stop her scream fest and open her eyes only to see wide eyed Jake quickly maneuvering his way towards her.

He looked panicked and just as scared as she was.

"Oh Jake!" A cry fell from Rose's parched and scratchy throat before she ran to meet her uncle half way and go straight into his warm and safe embrace.

"What are you doing here? I heard someone scream and I couldn't find you in your room. Do you know how worried I was?" Jake threw a fit as soon as she quit sobbing in his hug.

She rubbed her eyes clean not liking how she was crying like a child. In her defense, this was not easy to find yourself waking up in a dark forest than your own bed in the middle of the night.

Seeing her silent and lost in her own thought, Jake decided this was neither the time nor the place for inquiries as he needed to take her back to the house first.

"Let's just go back to the house first. Then you can tell me why you are covered up in dirt and leaves like you were rolling around on the floor." He commented looking at the state of his niece up and down. He had a deep rooted frown on his forehead that hadn't yet left.

"Yes, I'd like to go back... But- where, where even am I and how did you find me?" Rose asked once again looking around the tall tree that looked like they were reaching the stars in the night sky from her perspective.

"You don't know where you are?" He asked looking at her surprised. Considering he found her here, he assumed she knew what she was doing but it seemed the story was something else entirely. Looks like that frown was going to stay longer.

Rose didn't know how to answer her uncle's question as she looked around feeling as if she was caught doing something wrong.

He grabbed her hand and began to walk in the direction he came from and after a few steps and around a few trees, the image of the back of a house began clearing up and soon the were standing in a clearing from where she could see the line of houses at a distance. 

Their own house was the closest from where the came out of the woods and Rose could see the back yard door wide open. Is that where she came out from and into the forest?

Rose had no recollection of walking out of the house or into the forest.

"You were in the woods behind our residential strip." Jake informed as the two made their way into the house and this time, Jake closed and locked all the doors they came in thru, not for no reason after all.

Once they were inside, Rose wanted to just walk up the stairs and straight into shower but Jake stopped from with a question that made her halt in her steps.

"This has happened before, hasn't it?" His quiet knowing voice resonated around the silence between the two of them.

"This is what Sarah was talking about when she and your doctors mentioned 'incidents', when you were much younger... I thought it stopped." Jake walked closer but kept his distance, noticing the tense posture from Rose. He understood how this was not a subject she enjoyed discussing, fairly so.

"It did. At least that's what we thought..." Rose sighed thinking back on her younger days.

"The last time I sleep walked was when I was around 13. But it never happened again- We thought- I thought that it was over... I guess I was wrong." A slight crack in her voice was evidently showing how vulnerable she was feeling at the moment.

"Hey, it's okay." Jake came to stand in front of her.

"Look, it must be just from the stress of moving to a new place- well, old place but it's kinda new since the last time you were here you were practically a fetus." He chuckled trying to uplift her mood, which hardly did anything.

"Rose, it'll be okay. I promise I wont let anything happen to you." He grabbed her shoulders to make her believe him.

There was pain in her eyes but also a glimmer of hope that perhaps he was right it was just stress that was triggering her old bad habits.

"You know, one time I sleep walked out of the house when Sarah was asleep and when I woke up I-" she fell short on words.

"I know- You woke up and you were standing in the middle of a road and a-" He too fell short of words to say what transpired with a already traumatized 10 year old girl. 

"A car almost ran over me if it wasn't for a woman who pulled me off the road. I swore to myself it will never happen to me again, but tonight, I felt afraid I had walked too far away and if I was ever gonna find my way back, Jake..." 

"You will, Rosie you will get over this. You know how I know? because you are the strongest girl I have ever seen in my life, ever. We will make it through this together if this is starting again. But I am sure we have nothing to worry about, as I said before, it is just the stress."

She nodded, "I hope so too."

"Well I better go take a shower." Rose sighed.

"Sure." He watched her turn, "Hey, umm... did something happen out there in the woods?"

Rose struck still, "Why?" she questioned wondering if she should mention all the weird dreams she's been having? 

But in truth, nothing actually happened, not at least in the parts she was awake for. 

"I heard a scream. It was yours. Why did you scream? Did something happen?" Jake sported a frown over his forehead in concern and she felt bad for him in that moment.

There first day after so long and she was already causing a scene, that too in the middle of the night. Twice!

When it came to answer his inquiry, she wondered why she screamed or when? She remember releasing one when she saw Jake emerge from behind the shrubs out of the blue. 

But the one before that was when she was still dreaming. Rose wondered if she actually screamed as she came to her senses or was that all real to begin with.

She couldn't honestly tell what part of it was real and what was the dream anymore.

"I just got scared of something I guess." she shrugged not meeting his eyes for more then a second.

But Jake seemed to have bought that, coming closer he splayed a supporting arm around her shivering form, "If you say so. Come let's get you upstairs."

They both walked out the living room, leaving behind everything unmoving as they were; the windows all locked, the kitchen tap leaking a single drop every few seconds causing a pitter sound resounding in the empty kitchen with a rose sitting on it's island.