savior

In her dreams, Rachel always saw children. They were her students, crowding around her, reaching out to touch her as though just one brush of their small, crumby hands against her face, her hair, her skirt, would solve everything. Their crusty eyes, their swollen throats, the wounds weeping on their flesh--these gruesome horrors whose source she did not know. They pressed up towards her and against her, and she could not give them what they needed, and the sensation was suffocating.

She moaned and twitched, deep in her slumber, and during these dreams her mutterings became more anguished and desperate. Her mother, who spent as much time as she could at her bedside, would stroke her daughter's hand, trying to calm her. Sometimes, Rachel could feel the touch, just as sometimes she heard the frenzy of the hospital that surrounded her. Sometimes she could feel the warm drips of tears on the back of her hand, her mother's dry palm pressed against her own, running over her cheeks, her face, stroking her hair away from her eyes. And sometimes, in the dreams, her mother would force her way through the crowd, and the children would part for her, and she would stretch out her hand to Rachel and lead her away, lead her to somewhere safe, clean, and quiet.