Hey, everyone. Here is the next chapter for you all. I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm so happy that you're all enjoying this story, I was a little worried about how people would receive it but it's something different and I enjoy being a little different. Reid is going to go through a tough time but I'll tease that somewhere in his mind will keep him safe for a while but that won't come till either the next chapter or the one after that. Enjoy and I look forward to hearing from you all.
Personal question - I've felt this weird anxiety for about a week and a bit, any tips on how to bring it down? I don't even know what's causing it. I'm looking for answers from anyone and from everywhere.
Thank you so much for all the reviews, you're wonderful and I just want to hug you and twirl you around forever. Thank you!
Enjoy and please review
All mistakes are my own
Reid sat up against the pillows of the hospital bed, he wanted to leave the hospital, he didn't want another sedative injected into his IV. Blake had called the others and he had made her only call the team and no other officers from the police department, he had doubts that his own team would believe him. The door opened and the team came in, JJ let out a small gasp when she saw his nose and face. "What happened?"
"His nose somehow got broke while he was asleep," Blake said from her chair.
"He broke it," Reid said as he looked at them all. "Close the door, I don't want the doctors hearing this."
Hotch obliged and closed the door. "Reid, what are you talking about?"
"Look," he began. "You're all going to think I'm crazy but I'm not. In the car, I probably screamed because of what was happening in my dreams. Morgan, I didn't tell you everything, when my younger self opened the door he shouted for me to look out, I turned around and barely dodged the knife. Unfortunately, the unsub managed to catch my chest and shoulder. I got cut by the man in my dreams and I woke up with the same wound. He killed the other victims and now he is coming after me."
"Reid, that isn't possible," Rossi said as he stepped towards the bed.
"I'm a man of science, Rossi," he sighed, hearing the disbelief in Rossi's voice. "You think I don't find this completely strange and impossible. Consider the facts, I was alone in the car and there was nothing around me that could have given me the deep cut to my shoulder and chest. I was with Blake in this room, sedated and yet my nose got broken. He punched me while I was asleep and trust me, I felt him break my nose in my dream. He's even adopted the name my mind gave him."
"What name?" JJ asked.
"The Dark Sandman, he seems to like the name. I know this sounds insane but I'm telling you the truth. He knows about all of you but he decided to come after me."
"If we were to say that what you're saying is true, why did he come after you?" Morgan wondered.
"My mind was the easiest to get into according to him but he's having difficulty inside of my head. It is true, Morgan. If I fall asleep again, there is no guarantee that I'll wake up. He's intent on killing me as a message to you all."
"People can't die in their dreams," Hotch shook his head. "There must be some other way he's doing it, people can't get killed in their dreams. That isn't possible."
"Think about the other victims. All of them in their own homes but killed in manners that cannot be explained. All the coroner's reports listed the causes of death but you can't explain how a man drowns in seawater when he is fifteen miles away from the sea or how a woman dies of injuries only seen after car accidents and hit and runs. The latest victim died of eight gun shots but no-one heard any gunshots, there was no gun residue and there was no sign on a break in. He's after me and so far, my mind has protected me. He called me strange because of it."
A silence came over the room as all of them thought about what Reid was saying. It was the best explanation they had so far. JJ couldn't deny what she had seen in the back of the SUV, cuts and blood just don't come out of anywhere. They also knew he wouldn't joke about these things.
"I can't believe I'm about to say this but, how are you getting away from him?" Hotch questioned, still in a daze at what they were discussing. If any of the officers at the station heard them talk this way, they would call all of them insane.
"My seven-year old self told me to run and to keep running, he sounded too smart for his own good."
"I wonder why," Morgan smirked before realising that he was agreeing with a world of dreams and killers who could strike in dreams.
"So, do you all believe me?"
The team all exchanged a look before Hotch let out a sigh. "Let's say, we are going with the best lead we have and that happens to now be you and this Dark Sandman. I find this almost impossible to believe but it makes sense in a strange way."
"If I wasn't in hospital with a painful shoulder and a broken nose, I'd find this all hard to believe too," Reid smiled gently. "I can't go back to sleep. Running from him is causing me problems."
"Like what?" Rossi said.
"The more I run, the deeper I go into memories I would rather not to go back to. I went back to the football field, Morgan."
"What are you talking about?" JJ wondered.
"Nothing he needs to talk about again," Morgan said quickly. "Just leave it at that."
JJ nodded and then turned back to Reid. "Why are you strange to him?"
"I think the others couldn't do what I'm doing," he explained, brushing his free hand through his hair. "He said he was born with the ability to do this. Hotch, he's enjoying the killing. We have to stop him because he's never going to stop."
"What does he look like?" Morgan questioned.
"He's wearing a white mask, I can't see his face. I think he's afraid though when he comes into my head."
"Why?"
"He said my younger self tried to put him under a bookshelf, I think he can die in the dreams too."
"Do you think you could disable him?" Rossi said.
"He changed a knife into an axe within the blink of an eye, I don't think it's safe for me to try to take him down. We need to find him when he's not in someone else's head or mine. I know this is one of the most craziest things you've ever had to accept but just go with it. Maybe we could have Garcia do a nationwide search for deaths like the ones that have happened and see if any of them had a personal connection. I find it hard to believe that his first few killings were not personal."
"Even if we find this unsub, we could never prosecute him," Blake pointed out. "We have no evidence against him and we wouldn't be able to even hold him in jail because we have no proof. How do you prove something like this?"
"We can't," Reid sighed deeply. "Look, we have to stop him. We have to put an end to him and use any means to do it, even if we have to kill him."
Garcia had listened to Morgan explain everything and found it hard to accept, she did know that her baby boy wouldn't say something like that if there wasn't a truth to it. She now had a full cup of coffee to keep herself awake and was waiting for the search to finish on her computer, she rolled her chair over to another screen and keyboard and looked at local dream myths and the cultures that believed in them. Her eyes looked over the information and she noticed that certain roots are believed to let people walk through dreams and control them. As her computer beeped, she rolled back over and found a list of names from the search.
"How many has he killed?" she shook her head as she looked at all the names.
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