3:45 a.m. I woke up with a sweat running down on my face. What a terrible dream! I heard someone begging for help but everything is dark. I can't see them. Only I am standing, trying to move my body yet it remain still. I shouted for someone but no sound can be heard in my voice. A sudden flash appeared from a distance portraying a shadow of a woman sitting on the floor, weeping as if the death was after her. Why am I seeing her? What does it have to do with me?

I stand there, in the cold light of the guard’s office, streams of sterile white and the constant hum of the computers trailing behind me. The yellow bulb in the hallway flickers, and I find my hand reaching for the taser holstered in the thick, stab proof fabric of my security vest.

“Ma’am?” I find myself calling out. “You need to leave. Visiting hours are over,” I say, voice firm, though it unmistakably belongs to an underqualified 20 year old who’d fallen asleep on graveyard shift in an ill fitting security guard uniform. You’d think an upmarket old folks home would have better security.

The figure on the floor does not move, only continues to weep. Her skirt is fanned out in a black arc against the polished floor, back to me, hair stringy and sticking to her face and hands. I hesitate, placing one heavy boot-clad foot over the threshold of my office and out into the hallway. They echo the whole way down, like clunky warning bells, and I sound a lot more authoritative than I feel. I keep one hand poised on my radio and count the steps until I reach her. Twenty one.

“Ma’am?” I ask again, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. A sudden jolt runs through me, sweat soaking through the fabric her dress, a flash of feverish warmth, then a coldness so severe it feels like burning. “Are you okay?”

The woman goes very still then, and very silent, hands peeling away from her face with a soft, wet sound. She breathes in sharply, then stands like a hit baby deer on long, shaking legs. They extend at the knee, then the hip, and suddenly more and more joints until she is towering over me like a great spider, held aloft by a pair of high-heeled shoes, skirts falling and falling to cover her lengthening legs. Her face is gone, and yet, she grins.

Her hospital bracelet reads: Harriet Klein — flight risk