Arthur lay awake in the silent dark, staring at the ceiling. Despite fatigue, he found that the longer he worked in dreamscapes, the harder it was to fall asleep. His mind simply wouldn't shut off, and this was especially true tonight, after the most stressful job he'd ever worked.
He envied Yusuf and Eames, slumbering heavily and dreamlessly. How could they still sleep, after everything? But of course, while the job may have preyed on their minds just as it did his, they didn't have additional insomnia caused by the thought of a small, dark-haired architect sleeping peacefully on the other side of the wall.
The bedside clock's glowing numbers told him that it was nearly three in the morning. At this hour, the entire hotel was swathed in a silence so profound that every tiny noise – the usual creaks and groans heard nightly in an older building, the footsteps of a fellow insomniac in the room above, the soft tap of a moth at the window – could be heard clearly.
The silence was abruptly broken by a soft moan coming from the adjacent room and Arthur sat up, startled. As he listened carefully, he could hear the sound of rustled sheets, and then a low whimper.
Ariadne was dreaming, and judging by the sound, it was not a pleasant one.
Arthur knew quite well how awful such nightmares could be, having suffered several himself after his first few forays into shared dreaming. That was before he stopped being able to dream naturally at all, and he still wasn't sure what was best – the absence of all dreams, even pleasant ones, or the presence of dreams interspersed with night terrors.
Another pitiful sob echoed through the walls, and, unthinking, Arthur rolled out of bed. He pulled on a t-shirt and crept to the architect's door, gently pushing it open and stepping silently inside.
The room was dominated by a giant four-poster bed, draped with lace curtains and covered in a puffy white duvet. Curled up in the exact center, tangled dark hair contrasting starkly with the pale pillows, was Ariadne. Small sounds of distress were issuing from her throat, and she was shaking slightly, but clearly asleep.
Arthur didn't seem to be in control of his own feet, which carried him to the edge of the bed.
"Ariadne," he whispered.
Her only response was to curl up tighter.
Arthur debated whether or not to wake her, but a particularly pathetic cry made up his mind. He reached out and took her shoulder – which was distractingly bare, except for a thin tank top – and shook her gently.
"Ariadne, wake up!"
Ariadne was falling.
She was in Limbo again, at the top of a hundred-story tall building, and unlike last time, her bullet had strayed off target and missed Mal's heart. Cobb's beautiful, imposing – and dead – wife had come after her, teeth bared, and Ariadne had been pushed off of the balcony and into thin air.
She had time for one cry before the wind snatched the breath from her lungs. Last time, she hadn't been afraid, but now – now terror filled every cell of her body.
She was accelerating faster and faster, spinning wildly out of control, hands grasping as if there was something she could seize to slow her fall. With every excruciating millisecond that passed, she was getting closer and closer to her death on the unforgiving concrete below, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop herself.
Time seemed to slow as she neared the end.
Ten stories.
Five stories. Four. Three. Two. One…
Ariadne awoke, gasping.
