Christa Pike has “horrible nightmares.” Her “nerves are shredded.”

In eight days, the 50-year-old who killed her friend when she was a teenager will have her worst nightmares realized inside the execution chamber in Nashville, Tennessee.

Pike is set to become the first woman put to death in Tennessee since 1819 if Governor Bill Lee does not put a stop to the scheduled execution before 10 a.m. local time on September 30.

Her lawyers, who filed a 226-page clemency petition, are still waiting for a last-minute reprieve.

In the meantime, Pike is “terrified” of the prospect of a painful death by lethal injection.

Under the state’s updated lethal injection protocol, a single-drug chemical dose of pentobarbital will enter her system while she is strapped to a gurney.

In the event that she is not spared from execution, Pike has made a special request. She wants an all-female execution squad to carry out the procedure in front of witnesses, including the family of her victim.

The reason, her lawyers say, is that she has post-traumatic stress disorder from the widely documented abuse she suffered at the hands of men as a young girl, including when she was just two years old.

They also say her death by lethal injection will be “prolonged and agonizing” because she has a rare blood disorder that could make finding a vein more difficult and affect the way she reacts to the drug.

So afraid is Pike of the execution being carried out by lethal injection that she took the state to court in August to ask that she be hanged instead.

“(Lethal injection administered by men) will increase the likelihood that an 8th Amendment violation will occur,” Pike’s lawyer Stephen Ferrell said in reference to cruel and unusual punishment.

“There is an increased risk of pain and suffering.”

Pike’s ultimate goal is to take execution off the table completely, and to instead be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The state’s legal team has been unequivocal about one thing — Pike has not yet demonstrated a legitimate reason to do that.

“It was Ms Pike’s burden to come forth with scientific evidence (to overturn execution); she has completely failed to do that.”

An insight into what Pike is going through was part of a documentary titled: Christa Pike’s Last Fight to Stop Her Execution.

In it, she says she hardly sleeps.

“I know I said I believed a date would never be set, but now that one has been set, it’s like a roulette wheel of thought and your actual brain is the ball bouncing around.

“My nerves are shredded. When I do sleep, my brain eats itself.

“I have the most horrible nightmares, but I think what has been worse is that they told me a year ahead of time. And so, every day I’ve woken up and lived that thought all day, every day, every waking moment.”

News.com.au previously reported on details of the then-teen killer’s horrific crimes.

“This case began with the horrific and brutal 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer,” court documents, seen by news.com.au, read.

“Pike and Slemmer were both students at the Job Corps Centre in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the time.

“They had a strained relationship; Pike claimed that Slemmer ‘had been trying to get [her] boyfriend’ and … ‘running her mouth’ everywhere.

“These bad feelings unfortunately resulted in the following events.”

The Tennessee Supreme Court description details how Pike lied to Slemmer about a trip to a Blockbuster video store before Pike and her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp beat their victim, slashed her throat, and engraved satanic symbols on her body.

“On January 11, 1995, Pike, a student at the Job Corps Centre in Knoxville, told her friend Kim Iloilo, who was also a student at the facility, that she intended to kill another student, Colleen Slemmer, because she ‘had just felt mean that day’.

“The next day, January 12, 1995, at approximately 8 p.m., Iloilo observed Pike, along with Slemmer, and two other Job Corps students, Shadolla Peterson and Tadaryl Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, walking away from the Job Corps centre toward 17th Street.

“At approximately 10:15 p.m., Iloilo observed Pike, Peterson, and Shipp return to the Centre. Slemmer was not with them. Later that night, Pike went to Iloilo’s room and told Iloilo that she had just killed Slemmer and that she had brought back a piece of the victim’s skull as a souvenir.

“Pike showed Iloilo the piece of skull and told her that she had cut the victim’s throat six times, beaten her, and thrown asphalt at the victim’s head. Pike told Iloilo that the victim had begged ‘them’ to stop cutting and beating her, but Pike did not stop because the victim continued to talk.

“Pike told Iloilo that she had thrown a large piece of asphalt at the victim’s head, and when it broke into smaller pieces, she had thrown those at the victim as well. Pike told Iloilo that a meat cleaver had been used to cut the victim’s back and a box cutter had been used to cut her throat.

“Finally, Pike said that a pentagram had been carved onto the victim’s forehead and chest. Iloilo said that Pike was dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing ‘la, la, la’ while she related these details about the murder.

“When Iloilo saw Pike at breakfast the next morning, she asked Pike what she had done with the piece of the victim’s skull. Pike replied that it was in her pocket and then said, ‘And, yes, I’m eating breakfast with it’.”

A University of Tennessee employee found Slemmer’s body on January 13. The employee testified that it was so badly beaten that he had “first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal.”

It did not take long for authorities to turn their attention to the 18-year-old Pike who, upon being interviewed, waived her rights to silence and gave a complete statement admitting to her involvement.

She told police she used a box cutter and meat cleaver and that she had asked Slemmer to accompany her to the Blockbuster store before lying about a “bag of weed” she had hidden in the park.

“According to Pike, as she slammed Slemmer’s head against the concrete, Slemmer repeatedly asked, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’,” the court documents read.

“As Slemmer ‘screamed and screamed’, Pike recounted how she began to hear voices telling her that she had to do something to prevent Slemmer from telling on her and sending her to prison for attempted murder.”

they detail a history of violence, sexual abuse and tragedy that Pike was subjected to as a little girl — matters they say cast the killer’s crimes in a new light and should prevent her becoming the first woman put to death in Tennessee since 1819.

At the heart of the petition is a photograph, below, showing Pike as a toddler.

“There is a picture of Christa as a child that I often think about,” her lawyers write in the petition.

“She is outside; her curly red hair is slightly blown by the wind. She has big brown eyes, and her mouth is drawn tight in a straight line.

“I think about this picture for two reasons. First, it is a beautiful picture, not unlike the pictures I have of my own daughter at the same age. I am sure you have similar pictures of your daughters.

“Second, I think of this picture because I know that it was taken about the time Christa was first sexually abused. Her grandmother’s boyfriend had already begun orally raping her. To me, this picture represents a devastatingly sad turning point, where the chaos that surrounded Christa began to leave marks on her that were too much to overcome.

“A point where the chaos that surrounded Christa started to lead to cycles of depression, mania, self-medication, and abuse. Cycles that were compounded by what one expert called an ‘almost unbearably abusive background’.”

The petition relies on the horrific abuse she suffered, her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and her 30 years served so far in solitary confinement as reasons enough for clemency.

It also leans heavily on scientific and research developments in the years after her conviction.

Pike was 18 when she killed her friend.

But Shipp, her boyfriend and co-offender, was only 17. The difference in brain development is almost insignificant, but that’s not how the courts saw it in 1996.

Under Tennessee law, he was barred from execution because he had not yet turned 18.

If the schedule does not change, Pike will wake at 5:30 a.m. on September 30, clean her cell, shower, dress, and be given a last meal before being allowed final family visits or contact with a spiritual adviser.