Night Visitor
"This is crazy. Why can't you tell me where you are?"
"Because you will never want to see me again."
"No! I won't take that anymore. Tell me!"
She shook her head and faded away.
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I sat up in bed and ran my hands through my hair. I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. I turned on the light and stared at myself in the mirror.This girl was going to make me lose my mind and I didn't even know who she was. She wouldn't tell me her name. She wouldn't tell me where she was from. All I knew was that she could only come to me in my dreams. I found myself day dreaming more often. I found myself going to bed earlier and waking later.
I turned around and looked at my back in the mirror. There were dozens of scratch marks on my skin. This wasn't the first time but every time they seemed to become more severe. I knew I wasn't doing them to myself. They were on my back for Christ's sake. I didn't know what they were from. Maybe it was the dreams. I mean it wasn't like we weren't having sex in them. She would scratch me.
I would get her to tell me what these dreams were all about. I asked over and over but she would never tell me. She always said, "If you know, it can hurt you." I believed that for all of two weeks. When they first started, I just thought they were dreams like any other dreams. Until I was coming out them scarred and bruised… and until I started missing the feeling of her fingers on my skin. I went back to my room and climbed back in bed. I laid back and closed my eyes.
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She was standing there waiting for me.
"You know you can't keep running like this."
"I am sorry but it is better you do not know."
She walked to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I returned her embrace. She looked up at me and smiled.
"You want to know, do you not?"
"Of course I want to know. You've been coming to me for years and I don't know who you are. I wake up and find myself missing you. You're more than just a dream."
Her smile faded. "That is true."
"So tell me. Why can I not know you?"
"It is not that you can't for you already do. It is just that some things are better left unknown."
"That makes no sense."
She smiled again and her brown eyes seemed lighter, almost golden. "I am what you wish you had. I am the girl you dreamed about bringing home to your parents. I am the personification of you version of true love. I exist in both your world and this but I cannot allow you to find me."
"But why not?"
She touched her fingers to my cheek, "You certainly are a curious one. I am what I am and I only wish I could be more to you. I will allow you to see me where I am. You cannot try to find me unless I allow you to, do you understand?" I nodded, "Close your eyes."
I did as she told me and waited.
"Open them."
I opened my eyes and found myself standing in an empty room. Three walls were made of glass. The other was all metal.
"What is this place?"
"My cell but I'm not in any prison that you can break me out of. Finding me would mean putting yourself in danger. I can't allow you to do that."
"So you want me to let you sit in jail?"
"It's more than jail. I'm an experiment. It's amazing at all that I have any feelings for you."
It wasn't until now that I realized her clothes had changed. She had on little more than a short white dress now. It went down about mid-thigh. Her hair was shorter now. The usual length, which was down to her waist, was now chopped so short it was to her chin. She was barefoot as she always was but the ankle bracelet she usually wore now looked like a house arrest bracelet.
"This is what I really look like. The dress I wear when I'm with you, the long hair, it's all what you see me as. It's what I want you to see me as. I'm a prisoner. I used to look the way you see me." She turned and put her right hand to the glass, "Through these windows I watch the people below and I envy them. I've been trapped here as long as I've been coming to you."
I stepped up behind her, slipping my hands around her waist as I did so. "But why me?"
She laid her head back against my chest. "Because I used to just dream of you. After I came here, I found out you were real. They showed me how to link to your unconscious mind. It's how I visit your dreams. It's also the only way I stay sane."
There was a loud banging sound. She pushed me away before she collapsed to the ground and scrambled to the corner.
"What's going on?"
"You have to go!" she yelled.
Then everything around me vanished and I was standing alone.
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I was in my room again. Everything was normal. I put my face in my hands and felt the stinging of tears in my eyes. I walked to my desk and turned on the light. I turned on my laptop and waited for it to start up. I typed in my password and waited for everything to load. I went to the internet and then started searching…
Secret experimental facilities.
No results found.
Underground prisons.
No results found.
Prisons that experiment on people.
No results found.
"God damn it!"
I stared at the screen. The big red letters displaying No Results Found seemed to be taunting me. She told me not to look for her. She didn't tell me not to find out where she was. I looked at my clock. It was about ten o'clock now. I found my phone and called the only person I could think of that could really figure this out.
The phone rang a couple of times.
"Zexion's phone." Someone said through a mouthful of food.
"Hey, is he in?"
"Zexion! It's Axel." Then there was a gulp, "Hang on a sec."
Then there was silence for a while, then the sound of a kiss and the phone changing hands, "This is Zexion."
"Hey, it's me. I need you to do me a favor."
"Anything."
"I need you to find out anything you can about a secret prison that experiments on people."
"Is this about that dream girl again?"
"Zexion, she told me. She showed me the real her."
"You can't keep looking for her."
"I won't give up. I love this girl. She's real. I know she is. Zexion, please, help me find her."
"Axel, you have to understand this won't be easy. You said that she kept telling you that finding her would put you in danger. I don't believe she was making that up."
"She wasn't but I can't leave her there."
"And if you go after her where will that leave you?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll get thrown in prison with her. Either way, I'm going to be with her."
"Very well."
Then the line went dead.
I knew he would help but I didn't know how much he could do.
I found myself slipping into another daydream.
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Dream Girl
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"Just because you are not asleep and you are not daydreaming does not mean I cannot keep track of you."
"So you know?"
"I know that you are asking your friend to find out about this facility. You are breaking my rules."
"Why give me rules? You know I'll break them."
"I was hoping you would listen. You have no idea what you can do."
"What are you talking about?"
"If you find me, the people that are holding me will kill you without blinking. They could slit your throat and leave you to bleed out without so much as a second glance. Then they will kill me."
"Not if I can get you out."
"But you can't." I turned to face him, tears plaguing my eyes, "If you continue to hunt for me, I cannot keep coming to you."
"No!"
"You have to understand that as I monitor your dreams they monitor mine."
"So they can just take you from me?"
"Yes."
"But_"
The banging sounded erupted through the room.
"Goodbye, my love. Now that you know, I may not see you for a while."
He reached out for me but I closed my eyes and waited.
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"Dreaming again are we?"
The voice came from the doorway. I could only see the silhouette but I knew who it was. He was the only one that ever interrupted my dreams. I dropped to my knees as he stepped into the room, his light blue hair practically glistening in the light. He looked at me with the familiar golden eyes that instilled a fear in me like no other.
"Answer me."
"I just wanted to see him."
I didn't look up at him. I couldn't.
"You waste your time on this boy."
"I have all the time in the world. I'm a prisoner."
"True. Why is he searching for you?"
"Because now he knows I'm real. I don't want him to find me. I told him he's putting himself in danger and he doesn't care. He wants to be with me, whatever it takes."
"Will he still want you when he finds blemishes on your skin that he didn't leave?"
The next thing I knew I was being yanked from the ground and thrown into the wall. I was face first against the glass. His lips bit at the skin of my neck. Something cold slid across the skin of my thigh.
"What are you doing?"
The cold thing in his hand, I realized as he lifted it to my eye level, was a knife, "I promise I am doing nothing you won't like."
I turned to face him and pushed him away. The back of his hand struck my cheek and I hit the floor. Everything after that was a blur. This wasn't the first time he did this to me. It was, on the other hand, the first time he had hit me. Normally, it was a death threat that would get me to have sex with him.
My skin grew cold as my bare back was forced against the metal of the floor. My hair was pulled.
"Say it." He whispered in my ear.
"Say what?" I forced out.
"You know what."
I knew what he wanted to hear me say but I just couldn't do it. I had gotten too used to saying my dream guy's name.
His hand struck my face again. I forced his name out of my throat. More time passed and I was alone. I curled into myself on the floor and cried. I wouldn't sleep. I wouldn't let him see me this way. I could only keep that promise for so long.
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Axel
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She stared at me from a distance. Whenever I would step closer to her, she would take a step back. Her tears were like glitter falling down her face.
"What's wrong?"
"You have to stay away Axel."
I watched her fingers twitch against her bare skin.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing that hasn't happened before."
I tried to look closer. I could make out dark splotches on her skin, hickeys and bruises.
"What did they do to you?"
"I was raped Axel!"
I watched her as she broke into a hysterical fit of tears.
"I can't stay much longer. I just came to tell you goodbye."
"No!"
I screamed out for her to come back but she left.
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I was in my room. It was dark. I picked up the clock from my nightstand and stared at the time. The red numbers taunted me, reminding me of the blood she may have lost. I set it back down and got out of bed. I paced back and forth for a while. I ran my fingers through my hair. I grabbed the clock again and threw it against the wall.
I fell to my knees and cried as hysterically as she had. I was losing her and for all I know, I lost her.