Pixal woke gasping for breath- her arms flailing out as her chest rose and her eyes shot open. She sat up, grasping at her surroundings, the sheets of her bed crumpling as her grip caught onto them. She was in her room- alone in the dark and in no danger. Her breaths slowed as she gazed around at her surroundings.
It had just been a dream.
She slumped back in her bed, holding her head in her hands- her heart beat still racing as she sat. Her door slowly creaked open, a friend standing on the other side. He was hesitant to enter.
"I heard rustling. Everything okay?" Lloyd asked, his voice hushed.
Pixal scrunched her legs together beneath her comforter, straightening up to look at him. "I was just… dreaming about him."
Their eyes both drifted towards the ground.
"Why are you up?" Pixal offered.
"Couldn't sleep." Lloyd sighed, leaning on the door. "Never can on nights like this."
"Like what?" She asked, her mind now drifting from to terror that had woken her.
"Do you hear the rain?" Lloyd asked, looking over at the window. The soft patter of raindrops sounded almost silently on the other side. Just loud enough to hear, and just soft enough to overlook.
"What's wrong with the rain?"
Lloyd stepped into the room, leaning on one of Pixal's bed posts. "…Nothing good ever happens in the rain."
Pixal matched Lloyd's gaze, staring at the blinds clumsily hiding the outside, and concentrating on the sound of the water. The sound scoring moments of betrayal, heartbreak… loss.
"Are you gonna be okay?" Lloyd asked her, her eyes darting back to him.
She gazed at him, her mind going blank as they stared at each other. She made no attempt to answer him. Her head simply sunk, her hand moving to rub her wrist.
Lloyd sat down at the foot of the bed, folding his legs and ruffling his hair, already a mess from his attempts at rest. They sat in the silence filled by the rain, each one not reaching the courage to look at the other, and not finding the words to speak on what consumed their minds.
"What… were you dreaming?" Lloyd asked, hesitantly.
Pixal crossed her arms, looking up at the ceiling.
"If it isn't too much," he added.
She sighed, closing her eyes.
"It just… it all felt so real." She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "I was in the middle of this winter storm, and Zane was lost. I had gone out to look for him. And I'm out in the snow, calling for him when I come to a lake." She opened her eyes, staring blankly at the space in front of her. "The lake is frozen over, so I begin to cross it. I'm about halfway over when I look down…" Her eyes glossed as she bit her tongue for a moment. "And below the ice… there he is. And I drop down, and I bang on the ice, hitting as hard as I can, but I can't break it." She took a deep breath, the first tear leaving her eye as she blinked. "He's right in front of me, and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, but I can't get to him. I end up laying on the ice, crying, and when I look back…"
Pixal clears her tears, reaching the end of the story. "He's gone."
"You okay?" Lloyd asked, offering eye contact.
She nodded. "Yeah. I guess it's just hard to believe that he's really… gone. It seems like every time he has some way of coming back. Of making it all better, you know?" Her attempts at blocking her tears continued as more continued to spill out.
"Yeah," Lloyd sighed, his eyes drifting as he thought back to his friend. "I mean, I've had to pretend like it's all been fine before, and it's always ended up that way." Lloyd's eyes began to water, wondering if the rain was really to blame for his lack of sleep. "I guess I think if I keep on pretending, that it'll work this time too. I don't know, it just feels like something that could never be real. Like it's all some sort of-"
"Nightmare." Pixal finished. "… and we're all just waiting to wake up."