"What?" I staggered back. "How can you be…," but I trailed off. This was the man that everyone had warned me about, the man that sought out to destroy the kingdom of dreams and cover it in complete nightmares.
As I moved back, he moved forward, leaving a poor moaning Cal to himself. He reached out for me. "I'm your father Raina. Why are you so afraid?"
I looked at him. "How am I even supposed to know you're my real father?" I wasn't sure how much I should reveal to him. Maybe that he was the master of nightmares and that I was trying to avoid him at all costs. No. Not the best of ideas.
"But I am Raina." He smiled, it was almost wicked. "I can see it in your eyes Raina. The same darkness that looms over myself."
I shook my head. "I beg to differ, sir." My stubbornness was climbing out of me, even at a time like this.
He chuckled. "Yes. Well I suppose you get THAT quality from your mother."
But I wasn't laughing. He noticed and suddenly got quiet and sighed. "Step aside Raina. I need to finish off your brother. He wasn't meant for this world. Step aside, or even better, finish him off with me." He walked up to face me. "I'm not going to hurt you Raina."
"I know." I said, still not moving.
"I'll say it again. Step aside."
"No."
'Raina.' I heard someone speak in the background. 'Just let him do it.'
I was still looking at our father. He stepped up to me, looked at me a moment, with almost remorse in his eyes and slid past me faster than my eyes could follow.
As I turned he leaned over Cal. Placing his fingertips on his forehead, Cal began to scream.
"Stop! Stop it!" I ran over to try and pull him off but he pushed me off him in one swift motion, quick and over-powering.
Cal was screaming and screaming. I couldn't do anything. I got up again and he pushed me down. Again, I tried, tears streaming down my face, blood on my hands, Cal's blood I realized. He wasn't just crying tears. He was crying blood.
"He's dying! Stop it!"
"You need this, Raina. He was meant to be in a world of nightmares, like me, like you. We can converge him. He's fighting this, and as long as he fights it, the closer he'll come to death."
"He's your son! He's your only son!"
"A son of betrayal, is no son of mine."
"Betrayal?" I screamed furiously. "If anyone really betrayed someone it's you! You left mother. You let this consume you!"
"It's too late for that. It couldn't have gone any other way." He dismissed it, but I could tell he wasn't entirely unsure.
"No, it really could have."
Cal was folding from the inside out in pain. He looked at me and I knelt over him. 'Stop this.' His eyes told me. 'Let me die, but do not let me convert.'
"Don't distract me, Raina. This ends now!"
I tried to pull him away but gave up and thrust myself on Cal, intertwining both mind and body, though I knew it wouldn't protect him.
'Raina, no!' Cal screamed through his last breaths. He was choking, and blood dripped from his mouth. 'Let me die! Let me die!' He was trying to push me off him, but I held tight.
'Not alone.' I replied, as the silence slowly surrounded us, and we fell, into the deepest of sleeps. The suffocation of death.