Someone is missing.....

Panic seemed to snatch him from his sleep, leaving him cold and shaking even as sweat trickled down his face. The darkness caressed his body and seemed to both soothe him as a lover would, and threaten him as if it were a hostile intruder. Reaching out a shaking hand, he stops, listening carefully. Something was missing, something that he should hear in the darkness, something he should feel. Something wasn't right, and the panic that drove him from the dream grabbed his heart again. Sliding carefully from the bed, shaking hand flicking the light switch, careful to not knock the light over, he turns his head, automatically shielding his eyes from the sudden stab of brightness. Sliding slowly to sit on the floor beside the bed, he lets his eyes adjust to the light before lifting his head and gazing around the room. There were so many little hints that something was missing. Someone was missing......
The blanket was jumbled at the foot of the bed, half in the floor. The sheets were wet with sweat and twisted in the center of the bed. There was no one else in the bed, only the damp outline where he soaked body had writhed in the throes of panicked dreams. Dropping to his knees as a sob rips from his throat, he didn`t even notice the pain the shoots up from his knees when they connect with the hard floor. Reaching out, he bunches his hands in the twisted sheets and leans his head forward, resting his forehead against the edge of the bed as he cries, body trembling, not from panic now, but from pain. The memories were never far when he was awake, and now his sleep was no longer a respite. The dreams he'd hoped would never come had started. There was no where left to hide, no place to escape.....