Attentive fingertips brushed across my skin lightly, arousing me from my slumber. Everything was feather-light. The graceful hands caressing me quivered gently upon my flesh. I sighed happily, so perfectly at peace with the situation. Everything was right. Just perfect.
A soft voice breathed into my ear, "Oz, My oz, wake up." Who was calling me? A deep tenor voice reverberated through the room, bouncy around the walls. Comforting, but…wrong. Why was it wrong? That voice called my name again and again, drifting further away each time. I wretched open my eyes, suddenly aware that I was no longer being cradled to a strong chest. The glowing warmth fell dead into a ghastly chill, like a dungeons deadly whisper. It was dark, filled with a shying murk. Fog drifted between my fingers, and held like cobwebs. What was this place? Cackles filled the air. A set of dolls encircled me, laughing madly in a ridiculing snicker. They were so tall, seeming to grow higher and higher by each moment. Perhaps I was shrinking? Either way, I did not have much time to ponder upon that. The floor fell from underneath me, and a rushing sweep of air began to descend. I tried to grasp onto any crevice of the mountainous doll pile, but they all swatted at me playfully. I fell, toppling through the dark, menacing hole.
I landed on a moving clock hand, turning counter-clockwise. A glow shimmered around the floating object. I slipped as it moved ever quickly. Another dashing attempt to hold on failed completely and I fell once more farther down from the light into the dank cleft. I plummeted onto a lumpy floor of patchworks. Luminosity leaked from beneath my feet, beckoning me to stay, and gaze at its seduction. I turned away. A black figure sprang into life from the shadows; sprinting further down into the abyss. He chuckled in the same deep chuckle as the man before in my dreams. I jumped and followed him with a yearning and guilt churning in my stomach. An ache began to throb within me, but I ran feverishly neverless. Once I reached the shadow-man, he tumbled into a ball, seeming to be ailed by excruciating pain. I tried to untangle him enough to see if I could help, to no avail. After what seemed like hours of failed attempts, he collapsed onto the ground. I saw what had harmed him. A burning thorn from a nightshade was lunged into his side. He seeped black, sticky blood. He groaned and then fell into a lethal sleep.
As I wept tearless sobs for him, my surrounding changed dramatically. Instead of darkness, a background of a mirthful manor was around me, and the grayscale shades lifted into color gradually. The ground of patchwork was a quilt upon a bed, reflecting subtle light filtering though the bay window overlooking the garden. I looked down upon the stranger, grotesquely curious to how he changed as well. The sight froze me. An emotion of disbelief, and fear thrilled through me. The "stranger" was sprawled out beside me on the quilt, his rich scarlet blood still soaking through the white. His mass of ink-black hair shadowed his face. I lifted my quavering hands to touch his forehead lightly, and grazed his bangs. I was too worried of what lie beneath them to uncover them. I silently prayed for a different face to be upon this man, for him to not be-. I took a deep breath and uncovered him.
Searching golden eyes met mine, and, through parted lips, a hoarse, "Oz" was whispered. Before any emotion stuck me, the man closed his eyes, and crumpled in upon himself ineptly. No living man could contort himself in such a position. I was frozen. My hand was still raising his curls, my eyes still looking at him, not seeing. Gil. Gil was. I began to scream, recoiling from the pain that racked ferociously though my figure. Gil was, Gil was- Inhuman strings of sounds splintered though the air, but I couldn't hear it. It was just him and I. Except he….he was……