Little Box of Secrets

Iliana woke up early in the morning, relieved and somewhat uneasy that she hadn’t had any nightmares the previous night. She sat up on the bed and tried to remember the last time she was happy. Ever since the nightmares came back a few months ago, she’d barely had enough sleep. Although she had gotten quite used to having them, they were particularly torturous and unrelenting this time round. If she wasn’t too scared to fall asleep, she’d be struggling to wake up from another one and losing energy in the process. She had woken up early that day because Sid would be coming back and she wanted to get ready for that. She sleepily dragged her feet to the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove to brew herself some tea. She hadn’t been cooking for the past few days because she felt weak, tired, and lazy. Instead, she regularly ordered food from a nearby Chinese restaurant. When Sid was home, though, she usually cooked since he didn’t like Chinese food – something about him that Il