Chapter 3

Caged In

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Someone was laughing.

It was a high-pitched sort of laugh, like a child's, and it was all around. I could hear it on all sides, above and below—inside me. I could feel it reverberating in my chest, but I wasn't laughing.

I wasn't.

A cold drop slithered down my back, tracing the route of my spinal cord. I wanted to sob, to scream, but I just stood there. Numb to anything that wasn't that small sensation.

Oh, you alone, mad child.

A squeal almost made it past my sealed lips. It was this again. Always this.

I tried to struggle, pictured myself ripping myself from a thousand invisible threads wrapped around me, imagined how I could overpower this thing that was over me. Nothing worked. Nothing ever did.

Tendrils touched my mind, soft, tender, then sharp. I didn't react.

Still think it's worth it, don't you? Waiting?

My gaze slipped away, unfocused, but I didn't mind. There wasn't anything to see in this cold, black hole.

I felt the threads tighten around me, warm blood dripping out where they cut into my skin. Not real. Not real.

Isn't it, though?

Not real. Not real. No.

No.

I'm more real than your little friends, girl, the voice seemed to chuckle, amused. If you'd only let go—we could have such fun.

I whimpered inside my head, terrified.

Not real. No no. Help. Not real.

He sighed, a gush of air that pushed through my body and left me empty. Lonely.

You are so boring when you get like this.

I was suspended in silence, left without feelings, for only a moment. Then came the fall.

Forever and only a second.

I knew exactly how it would end, knew that I would be alright, unharmed. But when it came, that feeling of slamming back into my body, a feral scream ripped out of me and it was all I could do to crush my panic against the pillow.

I lay face down, suffocating my fears for longer than I'd like to admit. I cried and shrieked and let out all that had been coiled inside me in the nightmare. My hands dug into the fabric of the pillow until my nails poked holes in it, and even then I screamed.

I was sweating and out of breath by the time I calmed down. Ashamed.

This had been one of my worst Wakings yet. They were only getting worse.

I rubbed a hand against my eyes and sat up, my feet dangling off the edge of the bed. It was chilly outside and, even though the heater of the house was on, I could tell the floor was cold.

It was bliss when my bare feet touched the tiles. Sensation. I let out a breath—I could feel something apart from the numbness.

I made my way downstairs slowly, carefully, and my legs were still shaking when I flipped the kitchen light on. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and turned on the tap water. Germs and diseases, Dad would say, and then he would shake his head like he just couldn't deal with me.

He never did.

I gulped down the water. I was always thirsty after one of these nightmares, ever since that first time so many years ago.

"Audrey?"

I almost dropped the glass.

Mom stood at the door of the kitchen, framed by the darkness of the living room. Her face was a mosaic of worry lines.

"Honey, are you ok?"

I tensed instantly at her tone, all sweet and concerned, the tone you use to calm a dog before you put it down.

I forced a small, tired smile. "Just needed some water."

"Did you have a nightmare again?"

Yes. Yes.

"No, Mom. You know I haven't had them in a while." I reclined against the kitchen island, my legs pressing against the wood.

Mom looked only slightly less on guard. She tightened the wrap she had on over her shoulders and stepped closer to me.

"You are ok, right, darling? You would tell me if anything was—" Pause. "Wrong?"

She meant my head, of course. I could see it her eyes, sad and a little frantic, like she couldn't believe her daughter was going to do this to her again.

I wasn't. I definitely wasn't.

"No, Mom." I squeezed her hand, barely colder than mine. "And of course I would tell you."

She smiled at that. It was a pretty smile that didn't reach her eyes and made her look younger. She put an arm around my shoulder for a moment then let go.

"You should go to sleep, Ace. We're going shopping tomorrow."

I nudged her. "That would be today, Mom."

But I went back to my room all the same. The night lamp was on, a soft purple light that did nothing to keep away the shadows. It'd have to do.

I closed the door behind me, whispering a 'good night' in case Mom was quietly waiting to see if I really would go in. I heard the door to her room click shut a second later.

I plopped down on the windowsill, too restless—scared—to go back to bed. I got goosebumps almost immediately. Maybe an oversized shirt wasn't the best thing to wear to bed on cold winter nights.

Especially if you are prone to nightmares.

It wasn't really snowing outside, but the naked trees were swaying with the force of the wind and, every now and then, I could see snowflakes drifting through.

I wondered if this was thanks to Jack.

I could still see him so clearly in my mind—his bare feet and outdated clothing, his blue hoodie, his white hair. He'd looked so out of place and completely comfortable. It had been a real effort to pretend he wasn't there after I'd so blatantly stared at him. I had felt his eyes on my face, like the weather itself had shifted with his focus.

I bent my legs and rested my chin on my knees, like Mom always told us to do when we were rattled.

'If you can comfort yourself, nothing can hurt you, darling,' she'd say. And I would believe her and things would be ok.

But it wasn't working now. It hadn't been working for a long time.

"It would be so much easier if I didn't believe," the words came out like blasphemy, but I knew, deep down, that it was true.

If I didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa, I wouldn't be having the nightmares. If I couldn't see them, things would be better. So much better.

And now Jack Frost, too.

I hugged myself tighter. Someone else to believe in, someone else who wouldn't care that I even existed.

I glanced at the bed, the soft glow of the night lamp making the sheets purple. There was an image in my head, a memory I was supposed to have forgotten. My parents had paid for expensive drugs to erase these sort of things, and it had been for nothing.

I had been six and I'd just woken up from a nightmare I couldn't remember. I remembered being sleepy, disoriented, and… a mouse.

There had been a mouse on my bed.

I was so young then, so fearless. I'd looked at the rodent, seen his little hat before I could even think of screaming. And in his tiny, tiny hands, a tooth—my tooth.

That's when the really bad nightmares had started.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, willing the tears to stay in and the desperation to go down.

I fell back asleep there on the windowsill, lulling myself with thoughts that would not go away. And above all of them was nothing but a blanket of fierceness and frustration.

I had to be strong. For Claire and Leo, for Mom, and even for Dad. I couldn't break down again, couldn't leave them like last time. I wouldn't leave them like last time.

It wasn't their fault I still believed.

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A/N: I think I may have to change the rating of this story...

To the reviewers who don't have a FF account: Thank you for your lovely comments, I wish I could reply to each of you individually.

To everyone else, I'll reply after I put this up.

Tell me what you think, yeah?