I am swimming, thrusting my arms through golden water-- golden like oil. The water grows thick and syrupy, then it pulls me under. I'm in a bottle, glass sloping above me. Someone tilts and pours, and I slide onto a pan, palms burning from the heat. I slip and roll in the slick spill. Steam rises off my wet hair. Then I am smothered under the sticky weight of raw meat. "Mommy, can I sleep with you?" The voice startles me, a breathy whisper in the dark. Then it comes again. "Please? I had a bad dream." I wake up with a start. My heart is pounding and I'm sweating like I've been running.

I can hear my son's voice, but he's not in his bed. I swing my legs over the side of my bed and stand up. My eyes are adjusting to the dim light of the nightstand lamp when I hear a noise behind me. I turn around and gasp. My son is standing there, but he's huge-- at least ten feet tall! He's wearing a scuba suit and his face mask is pushed up onto his forehead. He looks scared and confused. "M-Mommy?" he stammers. "What's happening?" I don't know what to say. I'm too shocked to speak. Then, suddenly, my son-- my giant son-- starts to shrink! It's like watching a time-lapse video of a balloon deflating.

He gets smaller and smaller until he's back to his normal size. "What was that?" I ask him, still trying to catch my breath. "I don't know," he says. "I was swimming in a pool, and then everything got weird." He looks at me with his big brown eyes, searching for answers. I know what we have to do. "We're going on an adventure," I tell him. "We're going to find out what's going on and how to stop it." I grab his hand and lead him out of our house. The night air is warm and sticky, and the stars are like pinpricks in the black sky. We walk through the streets of our town and eventually come to a beach. "Let's start here," I say.

"Maybe there's something in the water that's causing this." We walk down to the edge of the water, and I dip my toe in. It's warm and inviting, but there's something else-- a hint of something metallic. My son looks at me, and I can see the fear in his eyes. "We have to dive in," I say. "We have to find out what's down there." My son nods bravely, and we put on our scuba gear. The water is murky and dark, but we press on. We swim and swim, and it feels like we're getting nowhere. But then we see it-- a huge underwater cave, glowing with gold. We swim into the cave, and suddenly the water changes. It's thick and syrupy, just like in my dream.

I look over at my son, and he's morphing into a giant again! "Mommy!" he yells. "Help me!" I grab onto him, trying to hold him down. He's growing and growing, bigger and bigger, until he's towering over me like a skyscraper. "Someone's pouring something on us," I realize. "That's what's causing this." I look up and see a shadowy figure standing on a ledge above us, pouring some kind of substance into the water. We swim up towards him, my son's huge hand grabbing onto my scuba tank. "What are you doing?" I shout up at the figure. The figure looks down at us, his face twisted with anger. "You're ruining everything!" he spits. "This is my chance to be famous! My chance to be rich! And you-- you're ruining it all!" He raises the bottle of liquid above his head, ready to pour it onto us.

I feel a jolt of fear run down my spine. There's no time to think-- only time to act. I grab onto my son's hand, and we propel ourselves towards the figure. I don't know what I'm doing, but I know I have to stop him. And then-- it happens. We crash into the figure, knocking him off his feet. The bottle goes flying, shattering against the cave wall. There's a flash of light, and then everything is back to normal. My son is the right size, and I'm not swimming through syrupy water anymore. We swim back up to the surface, gasping for air.

The night sky is still dark, but it feels different-- like we've accomplished something great. "Did we do it?" my son asks me. "We did it," I say, a smile spreading across my face. "We saved the day." We swim back to the beach, and I take off my scuba gear. My son does the same, and we sit there for a minute, watching the waves roll in. "Mommy," my son says, his voice soft. "Can we sleep together tonight? I don't want to have any more bad dreams." I look at him, and from this angle he's just a little boy again-- no taller than me. I wrap my arms around him and hug him close. "Of course we can," I say. "And maybe tonight, we'll both have good dreams."