The first person I ever told was my father. I was only a child, but I knew he wouldn’t understand.

“No one has the same dream every night, sweetheart,” he assured me. Then, after playfully pinching my nose, he added, “They come and go like the bedtime books we get from the library. New replaces the old. You’ll see.”

I soaked my pillow with tears that evening. Because the vision did appear again, as it would on the many, endless nights to follow. It’s the same now, all these years later—whether I disappear into an alcoholic blackout or slide fitfully into a late afternoon nap—The Tower never fails to materialize inside me. Like a thorn in my brain. Like a worm.

Dad was wrong about another thing, too. The Tower isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare.

⁂

Asleep, I breathlessly travel a nameless path towards an unknown end. Cold mud and gravel underfoot. Roots and bramble scratching my ankles like talons. I can’t be sure why I’m running, nor for how long. I think some nights it differs. What never changes is, eventually, I’m forced to stop. As inevitable as death, the way is blocked by a high, high tower of black stone.

Rising like the head of some unimaginable dragon. A menacing edifice set against dark, razored cliffs. Or a roiling, invisible ocean. Or a shifting, moonless sky. I can’t be sure what lies beyond, as the hour of this recurring phantasm is a blinding midnight. The only reason I’ll even swear to the existence of that shadowy tower is the yellow light that burns in the top-floor window. Little more than a speck at the absolute limit of perception. Like a single, broken pixel at the corner of your high-definition screen.

I can’t stop my eyes from drifting to this cold, lonely light. Like a cut on the inside of your cheek, I’m unable to leave it alone.

⁂

I’ve known Casey since our first day of kindergarten.

We became such fast, easy friends, strangers at the park would assume we were sisters. I told her all my secret crushes, confessed my dream of growing up to do professional roller derby. She told me about the pictures she found on her father’s computer, about stealing money from her grandmother’s leather snap-purse.

But it wasn’t ‘til eighth grade that I finally trusted my best friend enough to come clean about The Tower.

“Something’s wrong with me,” I explained over the din of our middle school cafeteria. “It’s the same every time I sleep. Since before I can remember.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked.

“Because I don’t like thinking about it.”

“But why?”

“Cass, because it terrifies me!” I nearly shrieked.

In that moment, the corner of my best friend’s mouth tugged to the side—the beginnings of a smile—and my heart sank like ship ballast.

Smug as a gynecologist, Casey took a swig of her Coke, gathered her earnestness, and quietly apologized.

“Why does it scare you?” she asked next. “Is there someone chasing you down that path?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know. That’s not what I find scary.” Then, “Listen, can we talk about something else?”

“Hey, come on, Mari. I said I was sorry,” Cass pleaded.

“And I said I don’t like talking about it!” I threw back bitterly.

She folded her hands, letting the moment pass.

“Do you ever go inside this huge tower?”

I shook my head. “I wake up before I ever get close. Anyway, there are no doors. No ways inside.”

“Well, it is a dream.”

I waited for more.

“So, maybe you know what goes on inside anyway?” she continued. “Things don’t have to make sense inside dreams, you know?”

“I don’t know what goes on inside!” That was a lie. But I was so desperate to end the conversation, I wound up knocking that can of Coke into her lap. They let her go home early that day.

Following my talk with Casey, I gave up trying to speak about The Tower with anyone. Especially when, out of desperation, Mom and Dad sent me to a psychiatrist two years later. If my best friend couldn’t understand, how could that stuffy old man in his tweed jacket?

⁂

So, what does go on inside?

Cass was right. By the bizarre rules that govern all who slumber, what I cannot see I am nonetheless able to sense as vague impressions.

I’ve spent years teaching myself hypnosis. To quiet my own mind, sharpen my thoughts, and fire them like arrows towards an invisible target. To sleep shallow and awaken my lucid consciousness while still under The Tower’s hypnotic gaze.

I can’t see down those lightless hallways or spiral staircases, but I can run invisible, naked hands over its menagerie of finely sharpened implements. Rooms full of such tools. Spiked, bound in leather, and still warm from whence they were last plied against innocent flesh. My unincorporated form can still feel the burning against my cheek from the freezing-cold of other, faraway rooms. I can hear the cries of anguish from their capture, chained against the wall.

Despite the nightly practice, the years, I still don’t know all the horror that goes on within. The Tower is not bound by sane geometry. It contains worlds. It is a prison of the mind.

In a similar way, I cannot know those who do the torturing, nor to what end. When I try to run my fingers along their faces they jump at me from the dark, clicking teeth at my nose like bloodlusting sharks breaking the surface. Of these soulless monsters, all I can be certain of is their number, which are more than stars in a desert’s evening sky.

Conversely, there’s only one prisoner in The Tower. Just one who’s still possessed of their soul. The light in the window. All this is for them.

For the longest time, I wondered if it might be me. Or some poetic version of myself, split off and staring cheerlessly back down at the half-complete girl on the path. That room. That yellow glow, burning miles away.

But how could that be?

No.

I may be beholden to The Tower, but my words usher from a place beyond it. A land without any fear or pain. A decent place. Safe and warm.

⁂

There was one person who really tried. A boy I met in college. He took me to coffee shops and concerts. He said it was all right; that he could wait ‘til I was ready.

He was the first person who ever said he loved me. The only person I ever kissed and shared my bed with.

He said he wanted to know me fully. Said he could tell I was holding back.

“I see it in your eyes,” he said without judgment. “What are you not telling me?”

I nearly bought into the promise of that poisoned pill. Instead, I wisely pushed him away. For months afterwards he waited on the stoop outside my apartment building—holding pink flowers, his shoulders drooping, and his chin resting on his chest.

Of course, I felt bad. I am not made of stone. But I couldn’t trust him. Nor anyone else who’s so interested in The Tower. It has so many agents in its employ. And they’ll always come as those you want to trust the most.

⁂

Now, I know what you’re thinking: If I’m so convinced no one can understand, then why take the time and effort to write this? Why bother explaining my plight?

It’s a fair query with a simple answer. . .

Because you understand. Don’t you?

Admit it, the moment I mentioned The Tower, you had a crystal-clear image of it in your mind’s eye. And it’s exactly the same as the one from my vision. Don’t you wonder why that is?

Because you’ve seen it, too!

Don’t lie. I told you, I know what you’re thinking. That’s what happens when two people share the same dreamspace for so long. You know me deeper than anyone. In your bones.

Don’t you see? You’re the reason I approach The Tower night after night. You’ve been calling to me, and through years of meditation, sheer force of will, I’ve finally penetrated the veil of your false reality to deliver this message!

I can’t be entirely sure how it will appear. On a computer screen. On your phone. Or just an odd chapter in the book you checked out from the library on a whim.

I beg you, don’t turn away from this. I, of all people, know how frightening it must be. But, trust me, this moment you’re living, your supposed life, is not real. You’re really trapped in The Tower. They’re torturing you with some awful, fabricated existence. I don’t know for how long. Perhaps longer than I can fathom.

But it’s going to be all right.

Do you trust me?

Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. The Tower is massive, and your captors all wear thirty-one faces. They’ll come disguised as friends, loved ones, and those trying to help.

Even now, it’s imperative that you stay nonchalant. Put this book—or magazine, what have you—down and go right back to your life as if nothing has changed. I’m formulating an escape plan. I’ll get another message to you as soon as I can. Time works funny in The Tower. What might pass as one day for me might seem like years for you. But wait for me. Please. No matter how long. Wait for my signal.

There is a beautiful life beyond The Tower, with no pain or suffering. There’s a place for you in my world. With me. I love you. I won’t give up on you. Wait for me.