The "face in the floor" first-night nightmare

timeline_event

texture · UNDATED — DISPUTED attribution and dating

When: UNDATED; narrator's "first night at the Academy," "awake and almost twelve"
What: A second-person account of a recurring nightmare on the first night away at the Academy: a "distillation of total evil," a leering face in the floor (cat-slit pupils, "\ /" eyebrows, toothy smile) that the name-tagged maternal flashlight keeps missing, then its mouth opens; the dreamer wakes and cannot re-find the face. If Hal's, a formative childhood-terror memory (resonates with the "face in the floor" imagery elsewhere). Logged lightly given disputed attribution.