A nightmare

Yesterday I read this post by faerie, and it struck a chord with me that vibrated the rest of the day, and apparently into the night. I think a trigger warning might be appropriate right here too.

Thankfully my situation never became like hers, my mom took me and left my dad as soon as he began showing strange interests in me when I was around 3, so I don't know if it would have escalated or not. He's dead now and I never had a conversation with him - the one memory I have of him is of torturous neglect bordering on abuse.

I still have contact with his family though, and I'll be visiting them this holiday season. Faerie's post and this fact seem to have combined to give me a nightmare that was truly terrifying.
The dream:

I was in my father's parents' house visiting, and he showed up, like it had been planned. My mom was always afraid of taking me to family events where he might show up like this, and here it was happening. I got up to get something, and he sat down next to my child in the seat where I had been sitting. I came back into the room to find him in my seat, and I sat down on the arm of the sofa next to him, because he was next to my child and I wasn't comfortable sitting farther away. My mom (who won't be there when we visit) said "Excuse me, her child. You need to move," and he did.

Something happened and no one was around anymore but me and him. There was a maze of white walls, and I was trying to get away from him in terror. I found this small alcove that was mirrored on three sides and it rotated into a large bathroom with multiple tubs and showers, one of which seemed very hidden to me. They all had droplets of moisture in them, like they'd all been used recently. I ran a hot bath in it and I got in the particularly hidden tub.

Steaming water enveloped me and I heard three loud knocks on the mirrored alcove. Surely he can't find me here, I thought to myself, but I held my breath anyway. My breasts floated in the water. I remember feeling very disconnected. I heard his footsteps enter the bathroom, and I heard him start pulling shower curtains back and forth, searching for me. I was terrified. Here I was naked and helpless and he was looking for me and how would I get away if he found me? Why was I so stupid as to take off my clothes?

He pulled a shower curtain on the shower adjoining my tub, but not the curtain that would have revealed me. He turned on the water and started showering. I exhaled in relief and I slipped out of the bath while he was washing, I didn't even take time to dress, just grabbed my stuff and went back out the mirrored alcove, trying to turn it so it looked undisturbed. When I was back outside the alcove, everything was different than it had been. The maze of white walls now led to a carpeted staircase, and I took it up into a house. The first landing had a hall and another staircase up, so I went up there as well.

There was a large room at the top of that staircase, with a long table full of food, and at the table sat... dummies. It was like a Christmas scene, some of the dummies moved their arms up and down with forks and knives and some of them moved their heads from side to side, and they were all sculpted and painted like elves and people and whatever.

It was terrifying. I had been hoping to lose myself in the people so if he came here he couldn't do anything to me, but these weren't people. I knew if he did find me, he'd do something horrible to me that I didn't want.

That's it. The alarm woke me up so I could wake up my husband.

I'm shaken.