Victoria awoke with a jolt, her body trembling as if the nightmare had physically struck her. Sheets tangled around her legs, damp with cold sweat, clinging to her skin like a second, unwelcome layer. Her chest heaved, tears streaming down her face, and for a long moment, she could not distinguish the terror of the dream from the reality of her quiet, dimly lit bedroom. The nightmare had been vivid, cruelly precise. She had been running through a twisting corridor that seemed to stretch on forever, walls closing in only to expand into impossibly high ceilings that swallowed her whole. Shadows moved along the walls, fluid and faceless, yet she could feel their gaze burn into her. Whispers pressed into her ears, insistent, teasing, cruel—familiar in a way that made her stomach knot. These voices were echoes of long-buried memories: rejection, betrayal, helplessness. Faces from her childhood, blurred but recognizable in their cruelty, swirled at the edges of her vision. The dream didn’t just scare her—it reminded her of every moment she had felt powerless, every time she had been ignored or dismissed, every wound she had learned to hide.