The rain said hush to the roof outside, but George wasn't awake to hear its coaxing.
He was past the point of no return; a deep sleep with eagle talons, locked and set under his skin to hold him there. Usually, sleep held no ill will against him. He could flit in and out of it as easily as a mermaid cut through water without disturbing it. It soothed him, let him stay there as long as he could before the morning would pester him into a world where living wasn't quite as enjoyable as it was within the throes of a dream.
Tonight, however, was different. The talons of depth twisted in his skin, making him jerk in his bed. The sheet tangled about him, and in his dreams - it felt like strangulation. He struggled, choked out a whimper, and fought back.
He was running - running faster than he ever had before; faster than any broom he'd seen fly. Rubble from walls fell in his path but he had the sense to jump over them, never putting too much of a stopper in his pace. His skin was slick with sweat, the exertion getting to his head and making his vision dance. His breath was constricted and tight in his chest, but George refused to stop. His lungs felt the color purple of desperation, tearing and screaming and pleading for him to halt - but he did no such thing.
He was so close. So almost there. The thought process that came with logic and the sense to follow instincts blended together in a fight, but instinct came victorious. All sense wiped from his mind, he turned into an animal.
He saw smoke and fire and blood and saw mouths pried open on screams but there was no sound. He saw light and a dark-washed sky - or was that smoke from a burning home? The bodies of the dead? He looked up, skidding to a stop. Faces. Faces upon faces upon faces - millions, hundreds, stared at him, aghast, faces he knew - jaws open wide and awkward on angles, broken, drooling - black black black inside. Lucidity bled out and he screamed for them. He made the sound they couldn't, and it continued long after he closed his mouth. Everything was broken, falling, collapsing. The edges of his mind wobbled and danced in thick waves of black fog towards him and - why was everything black?
And then it stopped.
And so did George.
He was there, alone, and the land was flat and there was nothing. No buildings burning. No faces in the sky with wide black mouths. No fire, but there was gray like ash. Something flashed to his left and he looked sharply. Red hair, too many freckles. Gone.
Something flashed to his right. He snapped around to try and glimpse whatever it was, but brown curls blinded him. And then it was gone.
Something moved behind him - he heard the rustle and spun to address. The room danced in light suddenly, the very same red of the lightning bolt that crashed into the floor for one moment and then in the next, just like that, gone.
And then he was there, and George counted the freckles on his nose - the very same number that rested upon his. From the tip of every finger nail to the split of every hair - he knew this person. He knew how many times in a day he would lick over his teeth in thought, how many faces he would make that were so comical despite whatever frustration or anger he was feeling. He knew which way every freckle would contort when a certain emotion would become displayed on the face he'd seen since they were bathed in a warm womb.
Fred grinned suddenly. It sat stock still on his face and his teeth glinted in the ash gray light. His eyes did not hold the warmth that George was so used to; long replaced with a coolness provided by death. His neck creaked and his head flopped, like the bones had evaporated.
'Hullo, George.' Said Dead Fred, his shoulders and body moving and doing a full turn - though his head laid where it was and their gaze never split. His neck twisted, and George could see the pull of skin. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the back of his hazy mind. He had a heartbeat stuck in his ears, fast and frightened. Fred's head flopped the other way.
'Guess what?' He staggered over to him, and George could not move. Not even when the deathly image of his twin leaned heavily and unsteady against him. He couldn't feel bones beneath the layer of skin and muscles, and he wondered how Fred was standing.
'W-what?' He stammered, and was surprised to find his voice was watery and weak - near a breaking verge. A certain coolness licked his cheeks and he realized that altogether he'd been crying.
Fred did not smile for he was already grinning, but his lips seemed to twitch and the grotesque angle of his head was resting on his shoulder now, and gaping lips moved up and up to his ears.
'I'm deh-'
The sentence never got an end. The talons released him. George jerked up in bed, letting loose a cry of alarm and patting himself down to make sure there was no limp life against him - that he was whole and not dusty with burning bodies and soot and death. His heart felt wild, refusing a tame beat, and his head was swimming with all sorts of pain. He couldn't identify just one - they were splattered all over like stains on a crumbled down wall.
He looked to the window where rain lazily scaled down the pane, fat drops sometimes interrupting the trails of others and making it their own. The room was quiet, a blessed change from what George now realized had been drums and thunder and wails in his dreamscape. Then something stirred, and George's head turned towards it. Half way, he stopped, ultimately denying himself the glance.
'You alright?' Asked Fred, sleepy , sombre, quiet. His eyes never strayed from George's form. He knew because he could feel it.
'Just peachy.' George murmured forlornly as he laid back against the perspired-on sheets and turning so his naked back was to Fred's portrait in order to bade all thoughts of him from his mind.
Outside, the rain still hushed the city into silence.