She looked at her face closely in the bathroom mirror, touching her cheeks gently where her nightmarish assailant had slapped her. There were no marks, no pain, nothing. Nothing at all. She turned on the cold water tap of the sink and picked up the white plastic tumbler with shaking fingers. She filled the tumbler and drank it all quickly. When she tried to return the empty cup to its stand, her hand was so unsteady that it slipped away and clattered to the tiled floor.
Still shaky, she retrieved the cup and put it on its stand with slow and exaggerated care. She was getting a little control of herself back, but her nerves were still jangling. In all her life, she had never had a dream so real, so vivid, so unsettling. Unlike most dreams, which faded from her memory too quickly, this one
