They were coming.
Arcade knew he had to be dreaming. He knew he was safe and sound at the Fort, safe in his bed sleeping, but still the old hounds of fear crept from the shadows of his thoughts, his past, to snap, snarl, bite at his tattered conscious during the sole solitary time when he couldn't defend himself from them.
They were coming.
Slim, delicate fingers gripped his small hand tightly. He was a child, just a child, once again as they ran and ran - the sounds of pursuit heavy behind them. He could see Daisy ahead, the woman turning as the sounds of her rifle boomed and echoed through his young mind, shattered the air, and they were moving again. His mother, Daisy, the other Remnants… they could only go so fast, so far. There was nowhere left to run. Nowhere left to hide.
They were coming.
His mother stumbled. He could feel her shake, stagger, trying to push him ahead of her as she scrambled back to her feet. The young boy turned, lips parted, but the word died immediately as a rush of warmth, the shocking spill of crimson, sprayed from the women and across the front of his youthful face like the demented caricature of macabre warpaint. Blue eyes were filled, shocked, stunned as the woman's body fell before him and he reached for her, reached for her, but Daisy was saying something, babbling something, and was there pulling him away.
They were here.
Cruel unrelenting sunlight glared off the Brotherhood soldiers' suits of power armor as they gave chase. Never stopping, never ending, Arcade's lungs felt as they were going to burst in his chest as he turned from from them, turned away from his mother's body, stared ahead.
And all they could do was run.
Despite the heated, stifling feeling that burdened over his chest the blond man sat upright in his cot. He was shivering, shaking, almost as if he were freezing… completely ignorant of the heated heaviness within his tend and the fine sheen of sweat across his skin. For a moment his chest ached, burned, and a panicked sensation of fear pervaded his senses before he remembered that he needed to breathe. Choking a bit Arcade gasped for air as he moved, swinging his legs over the side of his cot as he scrabbled first blindly for his glasses, putting them on before he grasped a warmed bottle of purified water.
He almost choked a second time on the moisture as it touched his parched throat but he shuddered instead, screwing the cap back on and setting it back down on the ground beside his feet. He still shook, still shivered, from the lingering feelings the nightmare had persisted to cling to him… his head lowering, burying into shaking hands.
It was just a dream. Just a dream. He was awake now. No one know about his past. Everything was fine. Safe.
Safe.
Sometimes Arcade didn't think he'd ever really feel safe again..