Hanging
Valkyrie is having nightmares again.
They grow worse every night. As soon as she closes her eyes they plague her, like a horror movie she can't get away from. She tries to keep herself awake at night, but nothing works. Eventually she slips under. She always does.
Tonight it's eleven forty-five and she is awake, but tired. So tired. She sits up in bed, her duvet wrapped around her, struggling to keep her eyes open. She tastes the metallic taste of fear in the back of her mouth, feels her pulse racing. She knows it is only a matter of time before she falls asleep.
Her eyes start to close. She forces them open again.
She suppresses a yawn.
Her eyes start to close again. This time, she doesn't try to stop them. Her eyelids feel so heavy. She wants to sleep, but she doesn't want to dream.
She dreams anyway.
Her eyes close and her head drops onto the pillow, and it begins. She is being led by Skulduggery and Tanith to a gallows while a crowd around them scream abuse at her. Skulduggery shoves her roughly in front of the executioner, who loops the rope around her neck. She doesn't know why she's been sentenced to death, but she can guess.
'Let me go!' she screams. 'I'm innocent! I'm not Darquesse, I swear, let me go, I'm innocent! I haven't - ' tears roll down her cheeks now - 'I haven't done anything wrong - '
She is standing on a cart. The executioner, faceless and menacing in his black hood, pushes the cart away and Valkyrie sways, the rope around her neck tightening. Her feet swing in midair and she tries to cry out but her throat constricts and she can't breathe. She can feel her throat being crushed. Her lungs burn. She wakes up.
There are still tears on her cheeks and she is gasping for air, the suffocating feeling still there. She massages her throat and sinks down onto her pillows.
It is four a.m. Maybe she can go without sleep for the rest of the night.
A/N: I read somewhere that dreaming you're being executed usually happens to people who feel guilty about something...
Anyway, next one will be better - I hope. if you want to describe a nightmare you've had in your reviews, I can maybe use it in a future chapter?
I used to have horrible nightmares when I was little :( They weren't really about anything in particular, but they still managed to be scary, somehow...
Review and you'll get marshmallows!