It had been happening more recently; dreams where he watched her die.
It started out as the dream of a terrible, terrible memory that involved howling winds, snow and a fallen tree. In the dreams, he'd always be by her side still, trying in vain to find a way to get her wedged free. His mobile had no signal, and the likelihood of help being able to reach them through the unrelenting storm outside was in the negatives. In reality, she was barely saved in time. They were able to launch the return to the past before she was swallowed whole by a frigid death by the skins of their teeth.
In the dreams, however, they are not as fortunate.
He is forced to stay there, as the storm settles and the sun peeks out, and he starts to try to dig her out. He moves some fog from the front of her goggles and he is sickened when he sees her eyes, wide open and lifeless, staring through the thin plastic of the goggles back at him. He finds the strength in him to scream in wordless, and starts shaking her shoulders despite the hopelessness of it all. He never gets an answer, only bits of stiff ice clinging to her coat cracking under his gloves; or maybe it's her bones cracking beneath his shakes, given she's frozen death. The moment he finally realizes that she's really dead, however, is the moment where he starts actually shrieking her name, voice cracking and breaking on the two syllables over and over again.
It's usually at this point, where he feels completely swallowed by his stomach-clenching grief, that he wakes up in his bed back at the dorms.
His roommate is usually a deep sleeper, but the shouts of the young brunette actually shake him awake. "Geez, Ulrich, having an interesting dream there?" He asks groggily, intending the comment to come off more as a joke. When he sees how pale the other is, how his eyes are glassy with unshed tears, he sits up. He's a deep sleeper but he'd also a great friend; seeing him so distressed knocks the notion of shrugging the unexpected wake-up call off out of his mind. "You wanna talk about it?" He offers after the other has the chance to take in a few gulps of air and recollect himself some more.
"I… Please no, Odd," He grumbles out slowly. Kiwi, his roommate's smuggled pet, hops over to him and starts licking at his chin furiously, clearly sensing the human's anxiety and hoping to qualm it some. He rewards the tiny animal for his consideration by lightly petting along his back. "Just go back to sleep."
Odd still looks concerned but he knows better than to press the matter; the use of the "P" word, however, leaves an uneasiness in his gut. The dreams continue on for roughly two weeks before Ulrich, feeling guilty over disrupting Odd's sleep schedule with his own problems, buys him some ear plugs of his own. He gives them to Odd in secret, because the last thing he needs it the embarrassment of his other friends knowing and making their own assumptions as to the reasoning.
It's after this that the second dream manifests. It's another memory, only this time it seems like role reversal with a twisted ending. The dream starts out with him rushing to Yumi's house, hoping to save her from a materialized Crab sent by XANA. This time he shows up too late, unable to save her or her family. When he stumbles onto the scene, he's greeted by her ear-splitting shriek of pain as he watches the wicked mechanical beast tear her stomach open, her intestines dangling from the edge of the claw. He finds the family's abandoned heirloom blade on the ground a few feet away, resting mere inches from the extended arm of her dead father, and rushes for it. He seizes it up and charges, distracting the monster from her.
It swipes at him with the arm that had been dismantling her, her blood splattering across his cheek as he jumps aside to dodge it. He cuts that leg off first, then the other front one, performing a duck-roll to escape as it falls on its face. He resists the urge to finish the beast off to instead rush to her side. He drops the sword and tries to carefully pick her up, one arm supporting between her shoulder blades while the other hovers shakily over the gory mess that was once her midriff.
She can't even speak, her attempts at words coming out as a gurgling noise because of blood pouring from her mouth. It even bubbles a couple of times and the sight makes him want to wretch. Her eyes are wide and unseeing, but shift here and there as if they are searching frantically for salvation. His stomach twists when more when her eyes roll back so he's left with only the whites and thin red veins. "Yumi, Yumi no… Oh God no!" He whimpers out. Her safety and happiness is all he has ever wanted and again he fails her; fails her like he has so many times before. But this time it's a much heavier consequence then a few days of silence or their usual shouting match.
He can only sit there as the love of his life's blood soaks his shirt and trousers.
When he awakes from this dream (the first time he does, anyway), it becomes a mad dash for the men's washroom so he can offer homage to the Porcelain Gods. He's lucky that none of the other guys near his room were awake to notice and he's completely alone. When the deed is done he lets his forehead smack against the rim of the bowl and he tries to take calming breaths to steady himself. He tries reminding himself that Yumi is safe at her home, most likely asleep, while he sits here and worries for nothing and he needs to stop shaking like some senseless moron. He can't stop himself, no matter how hard he tries to, and then he feels the tears start; tears of frustration at his own weakness; of fear that those dreams will become reality; of pure exhaustion over constantly trying to be stronger than he really is.
He stays there and just sobs senselessly for an hour before going back to the dorms. He manages to get in two hours of dreamless sleep before greeting the day with fake smiles and real dread over a test in Math.
But the dreams continue to plague him, each one different than the last. Death by poisoning, drowning, being ripped limb by limb from rabid animals and so many others take his peaceful nights away from him. He starts gagging himself at night to assure his screaming doesn't both any other tenants on their floor; only taking this precaution after Odd goes to sleep and hiding the evidence before the other is awake. It's not too terribly hard but his new life of no sleep is difficult. Staying focused in class is harder, leading the soccer team to success becomes a new battle of its own, and he ends up flaking out on more than a few of his after school Pencak Silat sessions.
It isn't until it affects his performance on Lyoko, however, that any of his friends seem to really give his insomnia a second glance.
Interestingly enough, William is the first one to comment on it. "That's some heavy luggage you've got under your eyes. Anything you want to talk about?" He chimes when the group is gathered together after classes one day. Jeremy and Aelita are looking over some specs for some new device to help them fight XANA, Odd's playing Pokemon Y on his 3DS and Yumi's working on some of her homework. None of them look up but Ulrich can tell they're all waiting to see what his response will be.
He shifts, grabbing his bag from the ground, and turns toward the dorms. "Not really," He answers before wandering off and away. He ducks behind a corner and peers back, making sure they can't see him, and isn't surprised that they fall into muffled chatter. He knows they all tend to do it. When one of the group is acting strangely they tend to talk about it once they live, but he had been hoping they'd just let him slide this time. He watches as Yumi says something, seeing angry, and William places a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her back down. He feels a pang of jealousy jab in his chest but he decides to swallow it down and rush off to sulk in the woods.
The next person to say anything is Aelita. He's rather surprised by it. They've all been close, but Aelita has never felt the need to really invade Ulrich's personal space and privacy like the others have. She's a modest and sweet girl by nature, and she understands all too well that some people would rather have some of their thoughts and memories for only themselves. She's a bit craftier than the others, though, and finds him while he's playing around with a soccer ball one day after school. They're the only two one the field. "You're really great. I always wanted to ask; have you been playing long?" She asks with a smile, giggling at how he nearly leaps out of his skin from her quiet approach.
"Yeah, my older brother showed me how to play when I was a kid. I started playing because it was fun, and kept playing because my parents seemed to yell at me less when I brought home medals and trophies," He says blandly, kicking the ball roughly so that it strikes the goal post and rolls back toward him. He stops it with his foot before it can whiz past him. "So what's on your mind, Princess?"
"I came to ask you that exact question," She says while walking closer. He keeps his eyes fixed on soccer ball; he nudges it on to his foot with the toe of his sneaker and starts bouncing it from foot to knee to head. "Odd mentioned you've been having trouble sleeping. And I've noticed you haven't really been making eye contact with Yumi."
He flinches at that. He had been dodging her eye because it was too hard. Even when awake, the various faces etched in his dreams of her in death made looking at her too difficult. One minute she'd be herself and then, in the blink of an eye, she'd be one of her many mutilated dream world counterparts, watching him with glassy eyes filled with sorrow and disappointment. "There's nothing to talk about, Aelita. If it was really that big a problem I would have mentioned it, wouldn't I?" He argues weakly.
She just flashes him a small half-smile followed with the statement, "Do you really want me to answer that?"
He's always been terrible at expressing his feelings like a normal, well-adjusted kid and tends to bottle things up until he flips his lid. He would only talk to Odd about certain things thanks to necessity; they were roommates, after all, so certain secrets were hard to keep. He bites his tongue and just keeps his gaze on the soccer ball as she walks away, clearly disappointed in her lack of answer but knowing when to throw in the towel.
After the two confrontations, the dreams get longer and worse. He's forced to go through police interrogations, funerals and grieving friends. The ones with the funerals have to be the worst, though. They ceremonies are always open casket and sometimes, when his mind is feelings sympathetic, they'll end with her dead eyes opening again. And then she'll ask, "Why?" in a voice that is raspy and dry from disuse. Those dreams are better because he'll wake up as soon as she speaks, giving him the real sense that is a dream. The ones where she doesn't, however, are much harder because he must then meet the grief-stricken eyes of her parents and Hiroki. He has to looks the others in the eye and he can see it there; they all blame him. Every time she dies he is there and can do nothing to save her.
His avoidance of her gets even worse at this point. He reaches a point where he can't even talk to her if he's looking at her; instead staring at his shoes or keeping his back to her. His performance on Lyoko gets so bad that Jeremy starts suggesting he stay on Earth and protect the home front. It feels like a slap in the face but he understands that they can't lug around his dead weight. Plus it makes his whole tactic of ignoring Yumi as much as possible a little easier.
Or so he thinks. One day, at lunch, Yumi drops her tray so that she is sitting directly across from him. His eyes immediately swivel to his food as she settles into her own seat. The others exchange greetings with her and she returns them warmly enough, but her eyes are set in a glare on him. "Ulrich," She says tightly.
Her angry tone is actually welcoming to his ears; he so rarely hears her anymore that his only memories came from her howls of death in the dream world. "Yumi," He grumbles back quietly.
"I was thinking we could have a sparring session today after class. Are you available?" She asks, stabbing a meatball with more gusto than necessary.
"Can't. I have… To do a thing. Already promised Odd," He mumbles, stealing a glance at the boy beside him. Odd, cheeks full with food, sends him a scandalized look. Everyone in the group had learned at this point to not get in Yumi's way when she was on a war path, and now Ulrich was trying to throw him in headlong! Ulrich just mouths a simple "Please" in hopes of Bro-Code being enough to help sway his blonde bud.
Yumi quirks an eyebrow and looks between the two, not missing a beat of the silent exchange. "Well, then, Odd, would it be alright if I borrowed him before? We should only be sparring for an hour at most,"
"That would be absolutely fine," Odd says with a touch too much enthusiasm. The brunette resists the urge to hit him and just resumes picking at his lunch. Yumi lets out a small triumphant hum and lets the table conversation return to its usual schedule of XANA and Odd's lack of manners.
He plans to make a break for the woods as soon as the bell signaling the end of the day chimes, but she's already ahead of him. She's leaning on the wall next to the door, a knowing grin on her lips and her arms crossed over her chest when he walks out. He usually admires her intuition but he finds himself resenting it at that moment. "Shall we head to the gym, then?" She asks, her tone filled with self-satisfaction. He gives a solemn nod, resigning himself to the fate of getting reamed for his antics over the last few weeks, and follows her across the campus.
He turns to face her as soon as she slams the gym doors shut with more effort than necessary, trying to will the visions from his mind. She seems stunned to see him meeting her gaze before glaring at him. "So what's this all about now?" She spits out.
"It's nothing," He says calmly, averting his gaze as his mind flickers between her annoyed scowl to her face dripping blood from the mouth and nose and rolled back eyes. At least he got to look at her for a minute before those haunting dreams came back to muck his head all up.
"No, it's nothing! You look like death and you haven't been yourself!" She snaps, her fists clenching at her sides. She's never seen him like this; he is so unhinged and it scares her out of her own mind, however, she can't think of anything that could trigger it. And so her mind goes into its automatic response when she's scared and she lashes out with anger. "You've been next to useless on Lyoko and your grades are slipping even more than usual! You get more of your food smeared on the tray then actually in you and Odd says you haven't been sleeping at all!"
He flinches and growls lowly at the personal attack. "And what do you care? We're just friends and if I don't want to talk about it then it's none of your concern!" He barks back, but he doesn't look at her still. He instead fixes his gaze on the empty bleachers to her left.
"It's my problem because I'm the only one you won't look at over this whole thing! What's got you so wound up?" She growls, taking a step toward him.
"You!" He snaps, flinching away from her and finally lifting his eyes to meet her. Something in his face causes Yumi's anger to deflate, her shoulders slumping and her head tilting ever so slightly. "I can't-! I can't take all of this and all of you and it's driving me nuts! Why can't you just let this go? Why can't you just stay away from me so you don't get hurt?" His voice is loud but he does notice that something about it sounds off; it's shaky and cracks on a few words.
"You're crying," Yumi comments softly, reaching over and lightly rubbing at one of his cheeks. He tenses up as he realizes she is, indeed, correct. He starts to tremble at the realization of his weakness, blinking a few more tears away and turning away quickly. "Ulrich, please, can you just… Talk? For once can you just say what's on your mind?" Her voice is soft but pleading and it tugs at his heart.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and begins recounting the whole ordeal to her. He skitters around a few of the gory details because he want to freak her out and he isn't sure he can handle saying the worst parts out loud. He wrings his hands together to give them something to do and he watches her from the corner of his eye. Her face is serious, occasionally pulling a grimace, but she doesn't seem repulsed or infuriated with him. "The dreams have been going on for a while and I just… I just can't keep dealing with the thoughts they put in my head. I don't want to think about what would happen if you were gone," He manages to press out at the end. He doesn't want to use the word "died" because it makes his stomach churn in even worse ways.
"You'd be fine, Ulrich," She says gently, reaching down and taking his hands in her own. She flashes him a small, reassuring grin but he doesn't find any comfort in it. "You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for."
"I don't think you're right about that. You… You're a lot more important to me than you realize," He mumbles, holding her gaze as he speaks. It took him a moment to realize what he had said before his face turned faintly pink. "I-I mean, the whole gang… We'd be lost without you…" He stammered out, averting his gaze downward again.
She chuckled a little bit at his poor recovery, squeezing his hands gently. "Right. Anyway, you don't need to be worried. XANA isn't going to get me anytime soon; you should know that I'm not one to go down without a fight," She says, keeping her tone light and quiet.
"And I'll have your back if you need me," Ulrich chimed in quickly. He looks down at their hands and feels a small smile worm up on his lips. "Thanks, Yumi."
"Don't let something as ludicrous as this get you down again, okay? I mean, you aren't the only one who has dreams like that," She says, giving his hands another small squeeze. He nodded a bit before shifting and hugging her lightly. She smiled and embraced back gently.
Ulrich achieved a peaceful sleep for the first time that night; instead only dreaming of a day where he could be the kind of man Yumi would be proud to stand beside.