It's not unusual for me to be woken up very, very late at night or very, very early in the morning—whichever way you prefer to think of it—by the pit-pat of feet on our cold tile. They have that same sticky kind of sound that all feet on tile sound like.

It's also not unusual for my door to be cracked open after Ari's gotten his water and for a small head of hair, ruffled by sleep, to poke in from the doorway.

"Nightmare?" I ask thickly. His head bobs quickly.

With the agility only a child terrified of the dark posesses, he steps in, closes the door, and leaps onto my bed. This time, Ari overshoots and catapults straight into my chest and we both let out a huff of air.

Ari has the beautiful mind of a dreamer, but that doesn't automatically provide him pleasant dreams. Too often he is woken by screams coming from his own mouth. His dreams are awful, yes, but he can describe them to me with perfect detail, and they are beautiful.

Too many believe beautiful and terrible to be antonyms. Too many are false.

Beautiful and terrible.

"Wanna talk 'bout it?" I ask thickly. Too often, his nightmares have given me nightmares. I don't know how he stands it. I like to think I help a little bit.

To my dismay, Ari nods his head yes and jumps right into his summary.

"I woke up—in my dream, obviously—and I hurt everywhere. I also... I hated someone so much, Max. It felt like fire was coursing through me, I hated them so much. but I also loved them. I resented them and admired them and loved them and hated them so much." Ari pauses. "It felt like I was being pulled in a thousand directions all at once. It was confusing and it hurt."

I just pull him closer to me. Ari curls into a smaller ball.

"I put my hand up to my face," he continues, "but I didn't have a hand!" His voice begins to thicken. "I had claws and fur! I had paws!" Ari starts to bawl and I rock him back and forth, hushing him gently. I may not like little kids, but Ari's hardly a little kid.

"That's why I hurt, Max," he sobs, "because I was... a... a freak!"

I wince. That hits closer to home that it should, I think, because I know Ari is terrified that his dreams make him a freak, an outcast. Sometimes I wonder if the Council of 15 knows that his greatest fear is to be a freak so they send him those dreams. Of course, though, he's only scared of being a freak because of the dreams. It's like the paradox of the chicken and the egg.

Once Ari's calmed down a bit, he continues. It doesn't take long. Jeb doesn't like crying and now it's ingrained in the pair of us that pain is just a message—we can choose to ignore it. Ella is more of a mama's girl, though, and, as much as I hate to put down my family, she just isn't as tough as me and Ari.

Pain is just a message.

To cry is to be weak.

Those were my first words—those two sentences. I said them when I was seven and my mom burst into tears and locked herself in her bedroom for the next two days.

I remember Ari's first words. He spoke much earlier than I had; his first word was when he was four.

I remember he used to follow me around a lot. He also fell a lot and cried a lot. I would pick him back up, tell him to stop, and tell him pain was just a message; we can choose to ignore it.

"You gonna quote Max when you're older, huh, Ari?" Jeb had laughed. "It'll be ingrained in you by then."

Ari had looked at Jeb and squeaked, "Quote?" curiously.

At least that one didn't make my mom cry in her room for two days.

"I got up to look at myself in the mirror," Ari continues, unaware of the path my mind had taken down memory lane. "I didn't look like myself. My eyes were yellow, like an animal's! They had a look in them, one that said I wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone. And it was me! I was a murderous, unhinged freak!"

"What did the bathroom look like?" I interrupt. When he gets like this it's best to keep his mind off the worst of the details.

"It was... cold," Ari just says. "All white and bright lights. Something bad had happened in there."

"Bad like what?"

"Bad like death-bad," he says solemnly. Jeez, there just isn't a good refuge in this dream, is there?

"The tile was white. Salt-and-pepper-looking, but mostly salt." He pauses to yawn; always a good sign. "That was the only non-white in the bathroom except for me."

I start to rub the kid's back with the hell of my hand. Now he's calming down; he won't be awake much longer.

"Then there was Jeb," Ari says, his voice growing fainter as he snuggles into my covers. "You were in some sewers. You were flying."

Now that catches my interest. "How was I flying?"

"You had wings," Ari murmurs. "But you hated me. I hit you and you hit me so hard I broke my neck. Then I woke up."

"Wait, what?" I demand but he's fast asleep, even snoring a tiny bit.

What kind of kid has nightmares about being a freak whose sister hates him, has wings, and then, of all things, kills him?

Maybe there is an element of truth to Ari's fears, maybe he is a little odd. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a freak, though.

As if something's telling me that my little brother is just that—my little brother—my curtains flutter, shining moonlight down onto Ari's peaceful face for a few seconds. At least, it would be peaceful, if not for the small creases he has in his forehead even while sleeping. He looks, well, angelic, for lack of a better word, as his golden hair falls over his forehead in a gentle wave and his features aren't twisted with fright, exhaustion, or anger—the most common expressions he wears.

It should concern me that my seven year-old brother acts older than my eleven year-old sister, but it doesn't. Maybe if we had been raised differently it would, but the lines had always been clearly drawn: Jeb's- Ari and me; Mom's- Ella. I love Ella and Mom, I really do, but they just can't relate to me like Ari and Jeb can. Well, sometimes Jeb.

It's hard to explain.

I guess Ari and I were meant to be warriors, soldiers. It's not like we had a choice. For some reason, Ella got one, though, and she chose the path I wish I could walk on.

Eventually Ari's steady breathing lulls me to sleep.

I dream that I am in a sewer. There is a clump of hair in front of me. Curious and repulsed at the same time, I pick it up.

It vanishes.

Drip

Just a few feet away I spot another clump of fur—and I've realized that it's fur, not hair.

The process repeats again and again until I hear a faint voice calling my name.

"Ari?" I yell.

"Max?" is his faint reply.

"Ari?"

Drip

"Max?"

"Ari?"

"Max?"

Drip

I turn a corner of the twisting maze some call a sewer and instead of Ari, I see Ella.

"Ella!" I start to hurry towards her. "Have you seen—"

Almost slipping on the damp floor, I stop short when Ella turns around without moving her legs. She's rotating.

That's when I notice her purple, swollen tongue, and that her toes are barely brushing the ground. A rope hangs around her neck and her neck hangs at an unnatural angle.

"No!"

Drip

Whirling around, I gasp with surprise when Ari's nose-to-nose with me. I hadn't heard him creep up!

"You found my fur!" he cries, pointing to my arms. Suddenly I'm holding a huge pile of brown, stinking fur. I cough and inhale some by accident. Ari starts to act as a vacuum as the fur starts to drift towards him but I can feel the fur in my throat, an uncomfortable tickle.

Drip drip drip

I'm hacking, trying to get the fur out with my fingers, as Ari cackles wordlessly. A clump brushes against my hand and I pull.

Drip drip drip drip

The world is starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges and my mind feels like it's floating away or maybe stuffed with cotton—

I yank and yank and yank but the fur seems to go on forever and then it pops out but it's stained red and sticky and wrapped around something slimy and pink—the fur yanked my heart out through my throat.

"You okay?" Ari asks with fake concern.

Drip drip drip drip drip drip

I collapse onto my knees, hacking up blood, unable to draw breath.

There is a hissing noise behind me, or maybe like paper rubbing against paper, but I can't even kneels anymore and I flop onto my stomach. My eyelids are getting heavy.

Ari kicks me over so I can see what the source of the noise is.

Ella is holding the rope, spitting insults at me—or trying to, at least, as the words are garbled as she chokes on her swollen tongue.

Dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip

Moisture of some sort starts to run over my fingers in silky skeins. Ella's neck is purple-blue with indents from the rope and unable to hold up her head. It flops back and forth lifelessly.

I try to draw in a stuttering breath but a salty, coppery liquid flows into my mouth instead. I'm sitting in a pool of blood, unable to move, suffocating.

DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP

"You see us, Max?" Ella hisses. "You see what you—"

"Max!"

For a second I am weightless. Then I am one with the floor.

"Time for school," Jeb says harshly. He must've already called me. "And as for you—"

My bed creaks and I can hear Ari's feet hit the ground immediately. Perfect little soldier, I think groggily, raising a hand to rub my aching head where I'd bashed it onto the ground.

"You need to stop running to Max when you're scared. Suck it up and take the fears head on like she did. Max never ran for help when she was scared."

"Yes, sir," Ari says meekly.

I never had anyone to run to.