Darkness Falls - Chapter 5: Dreams

"I don't do this to myself; I swear. It happens in my dreams."

Glancing over at Cain, X shook his head, sighing. The five of them, X, Alia, Cain, Caroline, and Zero, were seated in Alia's apartment, a nervous, uneasy silence falling over all of them. Except maybe Zero… he hadn't seemed concerned with what had happened to Caroline. More like he was angry. At her.

"If you didn't do it," X said finally after a long pause. "If you didn't, who did?"

"No one. My dreams."

Zero sneered at her, snapping. "Just how stupid do you think we are? Dreams are nothing more than the over-active human imagination. They don't cause wounds to appear on someone's body. Why the hell did you do that to yourself?"

"Zero!" Glaring at him, X unconsciously clenched his fist, a low growl building in the back of his throat. "If you're not going to help us, then either leave or shut up." Alia placed her hand on his shoulder, but he ignored her. Zero had no right to be acting this way towards Caroline. She was scared, obviously, and he was only making it worse.

"Huh." Crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall, Zero scowled but said nothing.

"Caroline-"

Everyone turned their attention to Cain as he began to speak.

"Caroline… you claim that you didn't do this. That no one did it to you. I'm not saying that I don't believe you but…" He hesitating, unsure of what to say next. "But… I don't how that could happen… could you… explain?"

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They wouldn't understand, even if he tried to explain it to them. She had no right to be here, no right to hold their attention. She was nothing more than some stupid girl trying to get attention. Worse yet, she was tainting her name. She was ruining her name. When he saw her, he saw the other, and it was becoming harder to tell them about.

She had no right to be doing this. No right to do that. No right at all…

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"Ex… plain?" Caroline bit down on the inside of her lip. Explain. How can you explain something you don't even understand?

"It's… I can't explain. Iris would be able to do a better job-"

There was a collective gasp, or maybe a hiss, in the room when she said that. She ignored them.

"-but I'll try…

"She's told me that it's because of who I am. And because of who my family is. I have these dreams that I'm in an old house. And I'm running through it, but something's chasing me. And it's dark, so I can't see where I'm going. And then I'm falling. And whatever was chasing me tries to grab me, but can't, and I just fall some more.

"Then, I'm no longer myself. I'm this woman… Iris has told me that her name is Kirie. And that my mother was named after her. But I don't understand; something to do with a Himuro legend. Whenever I ask her about it, she just smiles and says it's not time for me to know. But I'm this woman, and I'm tied in front of this gate. And this man is shouting out 'Kirie, Kirie' over and over again, but it's hard to hear him."

Caroline paused for a moment, trying to remember what else happened. It was hard, harder than she would've ever thought, to explain what happened in her dreams. They never made any sense, though Iris insisted that there was meaning, and that it was important for her to remember. And to never tell anyone, unless she trusted them.

Iris had the funny eyes, and she trusted her. So it made sense for her to trust them. And Iris told her that she should trust Zero, even if she felt like she couldn't.

"… and is that the end of your dream?"

Looking up, Caroline stared straight into Alia's eyes, shaking her head. "No…

"I'm then me again. And there are these ropes, wrapped around my wrists, ankles, and my neck. And there's this horrible pulling sensation, and the ropes are rubbing against my skin, and it hurts and it feels like I'm being pulled apart. Only I can't really scream. And there's this round mirror that's glowing so bright, it hurts to look at it. Only something dark touches it and it shatters. And Iris tells me that I need to remember that, and that I need to pieces, only I don't get that. And then I see Kirie, but she's disappearing, and there's a gate behind her. And it's opening. And then… I don't wake up. But it ends. And Iris is always there."

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"Finally, the damn thing is out. Can we go-"

His voice was cut off. There was a horrible shattering, cracking noise. And then a pain, burning pain throughout his entire body. And a laughing…

"Malice… is free…"

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Alia didn't know what to do. For one of the first times in the Spotter's life, she was at a lose for both ideas and words. Those dreams she described could easily be passed off as a mechanism used to hide Caroline's self-infliction tendencies, or she could even be at the point where she truly believe they were causing them. But she kept on mentioning an 'Iris', and even if they weren't the same, the fact that Iris had just died…

She glanced over at Zero to see what his reaction was. Nothing. No emotion showing on his, no fist clenching, nothing. Which meant he was struggling not to fly across the room and strangle the girl.

"Caroline…" Someone needed to ask her. Someone needed to end the silence. It was started to gnaw around the edges of her mind, bouncing her thoughts around. Alia shook her head. "Who is Iris?"

"I don't know," Caroline responded, slightly embarrassed. "She said that she didn't want to be dead, but she needed to be, and she understood that now. And she has brown hair… long brown hair… and she told me that I needed to trust Zero."

Several things clicked in Alia's mind at once. One was that, while it still didn't mean that the Iris she was referring to was their Iris, necessarily, her description did fit her. Another was that, if something didn't happen to stop him, Zero would try to strangle Caroline for what she had said.

Thankfully, something did happen to stop him. Unfortunately, it was something that no one really wanted to happen.

Iris appeared.