Once Upon A Time: Lay Me to Sleep
(after the events of "Tallahassee")
Sweat beaded on her pale brow, soaking the dark strands of hair in icy, damp, fear. Aurora shuddered, but not from a chill. She knew where she was. It was the same place she always seemed to appear as soon as her eyes fluttered closed for the night. As soon as rest claimed her, for even the briefest of moments, she was always in the same place.
The red walls of the room loomed thick and impenetrable. Their paint was rich, dark, and foreboding; the exact color of blood. Neither windows nor doors marred the smooth surface of her prison. Trapped, she was trapped. There was no way out.
Aurora could feel her chest tighten and breath grow shallow. Her heart pattered to a gallop. It was the same feeling she remembered as a girl when she'd toddled off into the woods and accidentally fallen into an old well. She'd cried and called for aid, the rancid water chilling her to the bone, but none had heard her. She'd scrapped her hands raw in desperation trying to clamor out, but to no avail. The old granite stone had been unyielding, and had denied her return to the sun of the world above. Even as a child, she'd feared she would die in that hole; cold and forgotten. Trapped between unfeeling stone and a watery grave forever.
Only serendipitous luck had lead an old goat herder close enough to the decrepit well to hear her cries the next morning. The princess was pulled back to the surface cold, hungry, and bloody from the fall. The wounds had healed, but the memory still remained. Aurora had intently avoided small dark spaces ever since.
Those long-ago fears crept into her heart now, fluttering like a bird and stealing away her breath. She panted, gasping, eyes darting about desperately for some means of escape. She caught sight of the only feature of the empty place.
Curtains of the richest burgundy silk, embroidered with elegant scrawling gold thread, rippled in an intangible breeze. Aurora had the momentary inclination to reach out her hands and touch the beautiful fabric, anticipating relishing in its soft caress across her fingers. Trepidation stayed her hand. She was a princess, not a fool. Caution outbid curiosity's luring desire.
The curtains, perhaps realizing they'd been rejected, retaliated by bursting into an angry conflagration. Flames, sudden and savage, licked at the walls and devoured the fabric hungrily, leaving billowing towers of black smoke. The heat was so intense and unexpected, that the princess recoiled; shielding her eyes and staggering half a step back from the torrid scalding waves. The reek of singed hair told her that she'd moved not a moment too soon.
Blue eyes burned and watered, blurring already obstructed vision. The smoke was beginning to fill the room in a dark haze, constricting Aurora's throat and making the remaining air nigh unbreathable. She coughed, lungs choking for want of fresh air, as saliva and sweat spattered the princess's sleeves. She tried to cover her nose and mouth with the hem of her dress, but it made little difference.
She fell to her knees, scrabbling about blindly in search of cooler cleaner air. The heat was stifling, and her body screamed silently for oxygen. The windowless room was a virtual oven, and the flames were soon to be her tomb. Her vision was narrowing to a pinpoint, as she felt along, hand outstretched, clamoring as far away from the inferno as possible.
The world behind her watery eyelids was a blur of light and dark; heat and smoke. Something stood on the opposite side of the room, and she crawled towards it.
As she grew closer she could recognize dark hair that framed a youthful face…it couldn't be, could it? A man? But perhaps not just any man…
"Phillip?!" she croaked, hand out stretched and the humanoid form, bleary eyes searching hungrily for the face of the love she'd lost. The figure seemed to draw closer…and the face was not one she knew. Aurora could feel the dark claws of disappointment and loss sink deep into her heart. Phillip was gone. Gone forever. The eyes that watched her were not those of her love, these eyes seemed to glint darkly. The frame was that of a young boy, pale and stoic.
He seemed to study her, unaffected by the burning hellscape that surrounded them both. Surely he was some sort of sorcerer…Only a man of magic would be able to taint her dreams night after night. A whisper snaked past his cherubic lips, loud enough for only her to hear.
"I know who you are."
The words knifed through her mind, and Aurora blanched. In a fraction of seconds she felt, rather than knew, many things to be true. The first was that the child in her dreams was real, and existed. The second was that she was sure-with every fiber of her being- that he was searching, hunting, for something…something close to her. Something she had access to. The third was that he knew her…down to her very soul, knew her.
These realizations tore from Aurora's throat in the form of a scream, and the dreamworld splintered like shattered glass into thousands of tiny tilting pieces. Rough hands grasped her, and the princess lashed out, kicking and thrashing in animal-like desperation. He wouldn't have her. He wouldn't take her like the wraith had taken Phillip. She would fight.