.i.
I dreamed I was a knight last night, says Irina. It was awesome .
Did you kill anyone? says her brother, rather too interestedly.
Please don't talk about killing people while we're trying to eat, their mother says in an absent voice.
Knights only kill bad guys, Mom. So it's totally okay. And I was super badass.
What Irina does not say is that the dream was terrifyingly, eye-strainingly vivid. She'd woken up and gone into the bathroom and squinted at her reflection trying to make sure the blood she could still feel coating her face wasn't actually there.
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It's just a dream, she reminds herself, after a particularly horrific one where the usual forest was replaced with the familiar woods out back of her house. It's just a dream– so I don't have to feel bad about how good it makes me feel.
And it does feel good, so so good. After some asshole had catcalled her on her way home from work, dreaming about disemboweling several suspiciously douchey-looking men gave her a surging sense of visceral satisfaction.
.
Sometimes in the morning her muscles are sore in sympathy with the hacking and slashing and fancy sword work that she dreamt about all night. She's even starting to get used to feeling a constant vague stickiness on her hands even when she's awake.
.
How awful!
Hm?
On the news, look. Someone died.
Bastard deserved it, her father grumbles. They said he's the one who assaulted–
Irina stops listening. She knows that man. He was the one in her dream last night.
.
The tiles behind her feet are smeared with pink.
.
Sweetheart are you alright?
Yeah. Why wouldn't I be alright?
Her mother holds up her sweatshirt from yesterday. There's blood all over the sleeve, look. What happened?
Irina looks at the stain, and knows that it is not her blood.
I just cut myself during woodworking. It's no big deal. I'll take that up and try to get the stain out okay?
She makes it to her room and shuts the door and locks it before her composure crumbles.
.
For the rest of the evening and all through the night Irina sits on the floor next to her bed with her face in her hands.
She does not go to school the next day. Her brother tries to pick the lock. She puts a chair in front of the door.
.
.
It's just a dream. It's just a dream. It's just a dream. It's just
.ii.
He can feel the madness spreading.
.
He comes out of choir and his best friend is waiting for him.
What are you singing for the talent show?
Mm, says Tolys.
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He has been keeping a journal and he does not think these are his dreams. He has never dreamed so vibrantly, all sharp-edged colours like the patches on a frog. Nor are his dreams ever this coherent, with real and consistent plotlines. They continue over from one night to the next. Maybe they are not dream s . A dream. A single dream, that is not his.
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I don't think I'm going to sing in the talent show, he says quietly.
What? But you always–
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This is not his dream. He can feel it sitting a little uncomfortable like a rock behind his ear. It is not part of him yet; it is not his. He thinks maybe he is its.
.
Feliks remembers suddenly, Hey, I think you left your journal at my place when you stayed over the other night.
Ah! So that's where it went! I'll drop by after school and grab it. He pauses. You didn't read it, did you?
Just the first page, enough to know it was yours.
Well that's alright then, I guess. Thanks.
.
He can feel the madness spreading.
.
He keeps a pressed flower in his journal: a rose, pale blush pink and a little faded at the edges of the petals. It lets him know when things are real. Roses in the dream are always brilliant scarlet or deep midnight blue.
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He leaves the journal, open to the rose, on top of his new sheet music and loads the gun coolly with steady hands. The dream wants him to kill someone. So he will.
.iii.
Feliks spends the funeral nibbling at the bandaid on his finger and feeling numb.
I should've noticed, he thinks dully. He's been acting so weird lately but I didn't think–
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He's been having weird dreams. Not weird in a bad way. Just weirdly coherent for dreams. The dreams do make him feel better. He is beautiful in the dream, and wears beautiful clothes so that he feels like a prince. And Tolys is there, in the dream, singing for him.
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The stupid papercut still hasn't healed. He doesn't even remember where he got it at this point, but it hurts like a son of a bitch. Tolys takes his hand and examines the swollen finger.
It's infected, he says, and there is a strange tone to his voice. The emerald colour of his soft blousy shirt is so brilliant it hurts Feliks's eyes.
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The dreams are turning into nightmares. Feliks gets up in the middle of the night and goes into the bathroom. It still smells like paint. It's giving him a headache. He stares into the mirror at his red-rimmed eyes. He hasn't slept well, since Tolys died. The dreams don't seem to rest his body at all.
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The dreams are turning into nightmares. Feliks gets up in the middle of the night and goes into the bathroom. His bare feet are chilly on the new tile, which is dark and slick because his mom thought it would be easier to clean that way.
His skin is rotting away. Drooping off his face in dark grey-green strips. It doesn't show up in his panicked selfies, but mirrors don't lie.
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The hole in the side of Tolys's head keeps getting bigger. Sometimes Feliks can see flashes of the white, shattered skull.
Tolys reaches up and smears the blood from the bullet wound onto his fingers.
Look, he says, and draws it across Feliks's cheek like a ritual.
Mirrors don't really work in the dream. Feliks gets up and goes into the bathroom and sees a line of clear, pale skin streaked through the rotting flesh in the shape of Tolys's thumbprint.
.iv.
Nata has been having strange dreams. They feel wrong, tinny and sharp like loud noises when what she needs is dark. She's starting to get sick of them.
She doesn't tell anyone, not even her brother. He's got enough on his plate trying to coax their older sister out of her sudden nervous breakdown.
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Feliks has dark circles under his eyes, virulently purple in contrast to the soft buttercream yellow of his shirt.
You look awful , says Nata.
Good to know, Feliks says drily. Thanks for coming. Come here for a sec?
They follow him into the bathroom.
The mirrors are covered with sheets. Nata frowns at them.
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I don't want to hang out with Feliks, Nata whines. He's boring. And he talks too loud.
It's been less than a month since his best friend killed himself. It would be criminal to turn him down.
Blegh. Can we at least get ice cream after?
Only one protest before acquiescence? thinks Ivan. She must really be worried for their cousin, who has been so quiet and withdrawn lately it's as if he's a different person.
.
Feliks casually shuts and bolts the door and saunters over to the bathtub. There are two 5-gallon buckets sitting on the floor against the wall.
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Nata has been having such strange dreams. Last night: her hair dripping red as if she had washed in it. Not sticky. Smooth and soft. It had seemed so real at the time, but in real life blood makes a terrible conditioner.
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I really appreciate your help, says Feliks.
Help with what? Ivan asks. Wordlessly, Feliks picks up one of the buckets. There's a strange set of scratches on his cheek. His skin is creamy and smooth under the yellow bathroom lights, dappled with little golden freckles.
Something glints in Feliks's other hand. His expression is cold and hard and alien.