Dreamer
"When you sleep, sometimes you dream."
By Sarcastic Innocence
He opened his amethyst eyes slowly in the dark, shivering. Though he was covered in a thick blanket, he was cold. It chilled him to the bone. But it was the dead of winter, he thought. It should be like this, shouldn't it?
He had already experienced many, many years of cold. Shouldn't he be used to it now? So why did he still feel the chill?
Large snowflakes, if you could call the clumps of snow that, fell from the sky outside his window, landing on the already snow-covered ground. He knew that General Winter was most definitely patrolling outside tonight.
Ivan Braginski pulled the tan-coloured blanket higher up, tugging at the edge until it embraced his neck like his scarf would. But he was still cold.
Speaking of the scarf, where was it now? Ivan sat up, his eyes, now adjusted to the dark, scanned his large room, trying to find it. But no, sleeping while wearing that would be dangerous, especially with a night like this.
His overcoat? He knew that he had draped that on the chair on the other side of the room last night before he went to bed. He didn't want to go get it after he realized that.
If only he had the panda suit with him. He could just wear it and curl up on the floor with his blanket, he agreed with himself, he would definitely be warm then. But it was stowed away in a different room at the moment, too far away from his grasp.
Not being able to come up with any workable solution, Ivan rolled to his side, curled into a tight ball, and after a moment, began to drift asleep, letting the darkness and cold once again wash over him.
When you sleep, sometimes you dream.
Dreams are sometimes memories, the good and the bad. Ivan's dreams were more bad than good. The dreams that made him jolt awake in fear.
He'd dream about Moscow burning. But there was no choice, was there? It was for the sake of his people. But when he awoke from that dream, he would always fear that he would see the soft orange glow of fire once he looked outside his window.
He'd dream about standing at his window, firing his bayonet into a protesting crowd. The black military uniform he wore that day was, in his eyes, still covered in blood, even though he had Toris wash it hundreds of times, even though no blood had actually gotten on it. But still, he'd never worn it again after that. It still sat, even now, in his closet, hidden deep in the corner where he would never find it. When he thought of that day, he could hear the frightened screams of the people as they scattered at the sounds of gunshot, the pure white January snow slowly seeping crimson.
He'd dream about them all being killed. That was the day he lost the last shred of his sanity. He remembered that day clearly, when he had learned that they had all died, he had dropped to his knees. Everyone could recall the screams of anguish as large tears fell to the ground and he ordered everyone to leave him alone. The three Baltics, and even Ivan himself knew, that was the day that he changed.
There'd be the dream of Ravis, Toris and Eduard leaving. Before then, he never knew how alone he would be. There would be no more hushed whispers in his house, no more cheerful times having tea with them. The house then became empty.
He'd dream of waking up alone in a field of crimson red snow.
But not all dreams were bad. Sometimes Ivan would dream of a large warm field of sunflowers. A gentle wind would blow by, rustling the large flowers. Their golden petals would dance slightly in the breeze, and among it all, there he would be, surrounded by them. It was especially comforting when this dream came to him on cold nights like this.
But not tonight.
Tonight, as Ivan huddled in the cold and dark…
… there was no dream.