Dreams.
By Bounce. (TCP) Rated R (imagery)
Disclaimer: I don't own the mutants. Marvel does.
Everyone fears something. I know. An old man who lives down the road from me is terrified of fire. A boy a block across is afraid of dogs. Three doors down lives a young doctor. She fears losing a patient more than anything else in the world. My littlest sister is scared of the vampires on Buffy.
Me? I'm scared of the dark. I'm scared of dreams. I'm scared of the woman who lives two streets away. She joined the FOH two months ago. It doesn't comfort me to know that she fears mutants much more than I fear her. I'm scared to sleep these days. I haven't had a peaceful night's sleep in a long, long time. I'm afraid to.
Every night I stay awake until I get so tired the world blurs and shifts. Until my eyes get so tired they won't focus any more. Nothing helps. I tried taking pills, thinking they would help. That they would stop the dreams. I learnt a terrible thing then. They made them worse. Took them from dreams to waking visions. Made them infinitely worse. I can't even drink alcohol anymore. I can't have any kind of drug in my system or the dreams become real. So these days I just try really hard to stay awake. I try not to sleep. It doesn't ever work.
I fall asleep with the television blaring full volume in the lounge room. I'd made sure the room was so cold I was shivering. The television was on. I was sitting bolt upright in an uncomfortable chair. I shouldn't have been able to sleep. I did.
The old mad down the road is sitting on his back porch reading. He is young again, not even eight years old. Screams begin to echo from inside the house. He shoots to his feet, looking so young and so scared. The boy runs inside. His baby sister who always looked about three years old had fallen into the fire. The flames catch her dress, her hair. And she screams. There is nothing even remotely human in those screams. They sound animal. The little boy runs towards the fire. He is crying now. He always cries. Every time. He reaches out to grab at her feet, her dress, her arm. She turns pale and translucent and his hands, wrinkled and old now, blotched with liver spots and the barely visible plastic sheen of old burn scars pass right through her. He tries again and again. She stops screaming eventually. The room fills with clouds of black smoke and the smell of roasted meat. He stands and watches her die. He cries then. He does every time.
And me? I stand frozen in the corner and watch an old man relive his own private hell again and again.
The next dream isn't so bad. Not really. The young doctor from down the road holds a tiny baby in her arms. It had died on the operating table. It is covered in blood and its chest and stomach are sliced open. It is so small. I watch, unable to move, or turn and run away form her nightmares.
A woman dreams of a war she had seen. The soldiers have guns. They drive large trucks and tanks. The destroy her home, her town. They kill her husband.
My sister is chased by vampires. They ran so fast and chase her through a deserted city. They gain on her no matter how fast she runs. She cries. The sobs of a terrified child. The vampires circle closer. Laughing softly. Their faces shift and change into monstrous warped versions of human faces. The fangs gleam softly in the dim light of a street lamp. The whole city is deserted. There isn't a sound except for her panting breath and sobs. The vampires are utterly silent now. They reach out and catch hold of my sister's arms. I strain against the invisible bonds that hold me. Scream silently. She wakes up. She always wakes then, when the vampires are about to kill her.
That dream fades into mist. For a long blessed moment everything is calm, blank. The blackness between dreams is so peaceful. It doesn't last. It never lasts.
A man dreams of his girlfriend. She towers over him, shouting angrily. He can't move, can't talk. He watches as she destroys his house, smashing through walls, floor, and the roof. The windows shatter, great sparkling fountains of glass. The floor boards crack and splinter under her weight. Her body swells and grows, destroying the roof, the walls. The whole world disappears then, turning into nothing but an empty blackness. And the woman, towering over the man. He cries softly and she shouts at him. Her words should have made sense. They don't. They tug and tease at the edges of your mind, like snatches of a half-remembered song. And they don't make any sense.
A young child screams, loudly. He shakes and his eyes show the whites all the way around. He struggles, trying to move. The front of the car is too badly crushed to allow him to do more than twitch helplessly. I know that his leg is broken, even though I can't see it. Blood drips into his eyes. His forehead is badly cut. His mother is a twisted mass of blood and bones. One arm is crushed beyond recognition. Her back is twisted at an unnatural angle, legs crushed and broken. Her head has fallen onto the little boy's lap. There is a hole in the back of her head. He pulled a metal spike out of it. It is still clutched loosely in his hands. Greyish fluid drips from the hole in his mother's head. It stains the front of his tee shirt. The woman twitches softly, breaths with shallow gasping breaths. She is, somehow, alive. I cry silently, scream at the horror of the child's dream. I try so hard to run. I can't. I never can. And I never stop trying.
I hit the floor with a solid thump. The television blares loudly in the background. I curl into a ball and cry, shaking from the horrors of their dreams.
I sit up eventually. I'm still shaking, scared. I can't take this any longer. I'll go crazy. I stand up. Walk into the kitchen. It's in the third draw on the left. I take it out. It'll stop the dreams. I know it will. It has to.
It doesn't hurt much at all. I thought it would hurt more.
Blood pools on the floor. It's so much redder than it is in the dreams.
Everyone's scared of something. Me, I was scared of sleeping. Of my mutant ability that let me see other people's nightmares. See their own private hells. I'm not scared any more. I watch the blood pool around me. The world goes grey. And for the first time in years I'm not scared.
Fin.
By Bounce. (TCP) Rated R (imagery)
Disclaimer: I don't own the mutants. Marvel does.
Everyone fears something. I know. An old man who lives down the road from me is terrified of fire. A boy a block across is afraid of dogs. Three doors down lives a young doctor. She fears losing a patient more than anything else in the world. My littlest sister is scared of the vampires on Buffy.
Me? I'm scared of the dark. I'm scared of dreams. I'm scared of the woman who lives two streets away. She joined the FOH two months ago. It doesn't comfort me to know that she fears mutants much more than I fear her. I'm scared to sleep these days. I haven't had a peaceful night's sleep in a long, long time. I'm afraid to.
Every night I stay awake until I get so tired the world blurs and shifts. Until my eyes get so tired they won't focus any more. Nothing helps. I tried taking pills, thinking they would help. That they would stop the dreams. I learnt a terrible thing then. They made them worse. Took them from dreams to waking visions. Made them infinitely worse. I can't even drink alcohol anymore. I can't have any kind of drug in my system or the dreams become real. So these days I just try really hard to stay awake. I try not to sleep. It doesn't ever work.
I fall asleep with the television blaring full volume in the lounge room. I'd made sure the room was so cold I was shivering. The television was on. I was sitting bolt upright in an uncomfortable chair. I shouldn't have been able to sleep. I did.
The old mad down the road is sitting on his back porch reading. He is young again, not even eight years old. Screams begin to echo from inside the house. He shoots to his feet, looking so young and so scared. The boy runs inside. His baby sister who always looked about three years old had fallen into the fire. The flames catch her dress, her hair. And she screams. There is nothing even remotely human in those screams. They sound animal. The little boy runs towards the fire. He is crying now. He always cries. Every time. He reaches out to grab at her feet, her dress, her arm. She turns pale and translucent and his hands, wrinkled and old now, blotched with liver spots and the barely visible plastic sheen of old burn scars pass right through her. He tries again and again. She stops screaming eventually. The room fills with clouds of black smoke and the smell of roasted meat. He stands and watches her die. He cries then. He does every time.
And me? I stand frozen in the corner and watch an old man relive his own private hell again and again.
The next dream isn't so bad. Not really. The young doctor from down the road holds a tiny baby in her arms. It had died on the operating table. It is covered in blood and its chest and stomach are sliced open. It is so small. I watch, unable to move, or turn and run away form her nightmares.
A woman dreams of a war she had seen. The soldiers have guns. They drive large trucks and tanks. The destroy her home, her town. They kill her husband.
My sister is chased by vampires. They ran so fast and chase her through a deserted city. They gain on her no matter how fast she runs. She cries. The sobs of a terrified child. The vampires circle closer. Laughing softly. Their faces shift and change into monstrous warped versions of human faces. The fangs gleam softly in the dim light of a street lamp. The whole city is deserted. There isn't a sound except for her panting breath and sobs. The vampires are utterly silent now. They reach out and catch hold of my sister's arms. I strain against the invisible bonds that hold me. Scream silently. She wakes up. She always wakes then, when the vampires are about to kill her.
That dream fades into mist. For a long blessed moment everything is calm, blank. The blackness between dreams is so peaceful. It doesn't last. It never lasts.
A man dreams of his girlfriend. She towers over him, shouting angrily. He can't move, can't talk. He watches as she destroys his house, smashing through walls, floor, and the roof. The windows shatter, great sparkling fountains of glass. The floor boards crack and splinter under her weight. Her body swells and grows, destroying the roof, the walls. The whole world disappears then, turning into nothing but an empty blackness. And the woman, towering over the man. He cries softly and she shouts at him. Her words should have made sense. They don't. They tug and tease at the edges of your mind, like snatches of a half-remembered song. And they don't make any sense.
A young child screams, loudly. He shakes and his eyes show the whites all the way around. He struggles, trying to move. The front of the car is too badly crushed to allow him to do more than twitch helplessly. I know that his leg is broken, even though I can't see it. Blood drips into his eyes. His forehead is badly cut. His mother is a twisted mass of blood and bones. One arm is crushed beyond recognition. Her back is twisted at an unnatural angle, legs crushed and broken. Her head has fallen onto the little boy's lap. There is a hole in the back of her head. He pulled a metal spike out of it. It is still clutched loosely in his hands. Greyish fluid drips from the hole in his mother's head. It stains the front of his tee shirt. The woman twitches softly, breaths with shallow gasping breaths. She is, somehow, alive. I cry silently, scream at the horror of the child's dream. I try so hard to run. I can't. I never can. And I never stop trying.
I hit the floor with a solid thump. The television blares loudly in the background. I curl into a ball and cry, shaking from the horrors of their dreams.
I sit up eventually. I'm still shaking, scared. I can't take this any longer. I'll go crazy. I stand up. Walk into the kitchen. It's in the third draw on the left. I take it out. It'll stop the dreams. I know it will. It has to.
It doesn't hurt much at all. I thought it would hurt more.
Blood pools on the floor. It's so much redder than it is in the dreams.
Everyone's scared of something. Me, I was scared of sleeping. Of my mutant ability that let me see other people's nightmares. See their own private hells. I'm not scared any more. I watch the blood pool around me. The world goes grey. And for the first time in years I'm not scared.
Fin.