I did not know going to the bathroom would be the catalyst of my night’s gruesome turn. But when I exited the stall, it was clear I was on my own. My friends were nowhere to be found. I scanned the room, with only the flashing strobe lights to illuminate dozens of faces, none of which were my people. I composed myself and dove into the crowd. My costume was teeming with sweat, and the fake blood I had smeared across me was all but gone. In the corner was a smashed pumpkin which had at one point been proudly displayed upon the mantle of a fireplace.

The beginning of the night seemed a lifetime away. It had only been two hours since we all danced around our shitty two bedroom apartment, desperately trying to pull together halloween costumes. A last minute invitation to “Robert’s Halloween Bash!” caught me off guard, keeping me from my original plan: a night of self loathing and popcorn.

“You have to go,” my roommate Phoebe grabbed my arm and lifted it to spin me around like the ballerina in a jewelry box, “it’s Halloween, you can’t miss the best party of the year!” I managed out a groan and forced a smile to reassure her.

We stepped outside onto the back alley street on which we lived, and the crisp air signaled we were officially in the heart of fall. Leaves cartoonishly swirled through the air in gusts of wind, inciting a chill within my core. It had been three years since the incident, and Halloween night still left me feeling uneasy. I hugged my all too bare arms close to my chest in an attempt to find warmth. My friends walked eagerly ahead of me, but I fell a few paces behind. Thoughts bubbled up in my mind, fighting desperately to make their chilling presence known. I struggled with them a bit, attempting to push them away, but that just seemed to anger them more. Flashing images of police lights and towering trees. My head was swirling, haunted with memories I wished I could forget.

“Oh no, do not make that face before we’ve even gotten to the party,” Phoebe sneered in my direction, “please not pouty Mara, just tonight, for me.”

Though all Phoebe wanted was to cheer me up, she sometimes had a way of making me feel worse. Yet maybe I was the problem and she was just a friend trying to lighten the mood. I asked myself why it was impossible for me to be happy for one night out. Surely I had been tested in far more pressing ways. So I put on a good face, and was fully prepared to have a good time, for everyone else’s sake. I let the memories slip away, hoping this Halloween would be different. Maybe new associations with the holiday could be formed. Ones that left positive feelings instead of a gaping hole in my chest. It was all going pretty well until I was alone. There is nothing like the fear of being alone to bring forth all your demons.

Here I was, as the party darkened and slowed to a gathering. People all around me were performing a disappearing act until the smashed pumpkin was my closest acquaintance. It was apparent that it was time to go, and my fate would have it that I’d be walking myself home tonight. Well maybe not all by myself. As soon as my boots made contact with the street, thoughts and memories seized me by my arms, squeezing tighter than I would have liked. The attackers in the night whom I had so desperately wished to avoid.

“You’re hurting me,” I cried, but they did not care. They showed me loops of my past until I was unable to look away. Twisted woods, the abandoned hospital. Sweat dripped from my brow despite the goosebumps that now took residence over every inch of my skin. Shackled by their presence, I stumbled through the streets, desperate for a sign of hope. More images: the smashed window, friends I had left in the past. For a second, I caught wind of the situation and was able to peek ahead. Out in the distance, my shoebox apartment; home.

I fought with all my strength as the memories ran one by one into my view. Gagged and bruised, I could see it now. I was back to that night. The police cars flashed blue and red on the woods behind the old asylum that had been left to rot. I stood there, amongst the scene, surveying my surroundings. I looked to the window we had broken to get into the dilapidated building. We had only meant to explore this place which had been a legend to us for a few hours that Halloween. We had only meant to be dumb kids, until the roof caved in, trapping a boy I had known since preschool. Youth escaped us all in one swift moment. My two friends stood beside me, shaken and silent. I saw the stretcher escorting the body into the ambulance; his body. My heart sank all over again. And then a voice.

“Mara,” it was Phoebe, “You’ve been standing outside our door for five minutes, what are you doing?” Confusion struck me, and I realized I was home.

“Why did you leave me?” I asked her with an unsteady tremble in my voice.

“We knocked over the pumpkin and got kicked out. What a bust! I tried to find you, but someone said you left already.”

Pieces of the night began to fit together, and my heart rate returned to a normal pace. I remembered the years that had gone by, the new friends that had been my support system. I was safe. That is until the next time my attackers inevitably find me again.