Life with Vashyron was good, but it was far from perfect.

It was nothing to do with him; he was perfectly nice. He was more than nice, and the more time I spent living with him the more I grew to sort of like him. The problem was me.

I usually woke up through the night with headaches; bad ones, and I knew that it was an after effect of that night. Being shot in the head, although I was still alive, had definitely left an impression. It wasn't exactly physical, either. I knew that these headaches were being caused by memories of the pain. It was all in my head. That knowledge, however, did not give me any relief from the pain I often woke up to in the early hours of the morning.

It didn't help that I had been given my own room, either. Whenever the pain came, I was completely on my own. Vashyron had bought me a bed and put it in what was previously a storehouse on the roof. It was still filled with a few boxes and various junk, but it was comfortable enough for me. I was just happy to move off the sofa.

The problem with this was that some nights the pain got so bad I was concerned for my health, but I had no choice but to suffer through it alone, not wanting to bother him, and knowing that even the short trip downstairs to his room would make the pain even worse. It wouldn't allow me to sleep, and hiding it from him was becoming difficult. I was quickly wearing down.

Some nights it got so bad that I nearly broke down into tears, but I was stronger than that. I had suffered through a lot worse, and after surviving almost certain death, I wasn't about to let something like this bring me down.

That was when the nightmares began.

I don't know if it was the headaches that triggered these horrific visions or not, but it was like my mind had reacted to the stress and the fatigue, breaking down the barriers I had just started to form around memories of my past.

They started off as quiet voices, and sometimes blurred images of people I didn't really remember, but they started to escalate, and soon they became recurring dreams, the images clearer and the sounds more intense. Some nights I would wake trembling, and would sit awake for hours trying to calm myself, only to play the dream over and over in my mind, burning the images into my brain.

They were images I never wanted to recall; images of blood, so much blood, and fire, and darkness, and silence, and corpses...corpses of people I used to know; people who had families, and friends, and happy lives...lives that I ruined.

Lives that I completely destroyed.

How can there be a God in a world with people like me?

I awoke immediately after another one of these nightmares to my heart pounding against my ribcage, the sound echoing in my ears. As usual, I spent a good few minutes staring at the ceiling before deciding to move at all, finding that when I did, the shirt I was wearing was sticking to my stomach with sweat, and my cheeks felt hot. Not only that, but the searing pain behind my eyes was back with full force, causing a wave of nausea to hit me as I sat upright.

I decided to stay still for another minute or two in fear of once again vomiting on the floor of Vashyron's house, but this seemed to have no effect, and I quickly stumbled to my bedroom door, fumbling with the handle, before taking the steps two or three at a time as I ran downstairs for the bathroom, not having time to close the door before my head was over the toilet.

Once my stomach had emptied itself not once, but twice, and the pounding in my head had worsened, I settled for a rather uncomfortable position with the top half of my body leaning against the toilet bowl, and my arms draped over it, holding onto the seat to keep myself upright. The floor was cold, and it was dark, but in my current state both of those things were good.

Those good things didn't help, however. My vision was still slightly blurred due to the pain, I was still in a cold sweat, and now my stomach was aching. The only slight relief was that throwing up seemed to have eased the nausea.

What's more, I was still feeling sensitive because of the nightmare. All-in-all, I was not in a good state, and I was at the end of my tether.

I realized exactly how weak it had all made me when I couldn't stop myself this time from starting to cry, and I noticed that I was shaking once again. The problem was that when I had started, it was hard to stop, and all I could do was try and stay quiet.

It was like all of the emotion I had been bottling up was coming out at once, and it was taking all of what little strength I had left to not completely break down into full-blown sobbing.

This sudden lack of control over my body and emotions had triggered something else, too, and I was soon even struggling to breathe properly. It was like I couldn't get enough air into my lungs, but my body wouldn't obey me and take a deep breath. All I could do was take in short gasps of air, and the more I panicked about it, the worse it got, until the point where my chest was unbearably tight, and it hurt even taking a small breath.

Just as black spots started to appear in front of my eyes and I was sure I was about to pass out, I felt a cool, gentle hand on my back, and heard Vashyron's voice. It sounded distant, but I knew it was him.

"Calm down. You're gonna be okay. Just take a deep breath."

His words seemed to give me back the strength I needed to regain control over my body, and I took what felt like my first proper breath in a very long time; but it wasn't enough, and I continued to shake, struggling to take another deep breath.

He stayed completely calm the entire time, and I felt him sit down close beside me, his hand still on my back.

It was the first real human contact I had felt in years.

"I know it hurts, but you have to try and breathe normally."

At that moment in time I was too weak, both physically and mentally, to be able to calm myself down. Usually I was the strong-willed type, and had good control over my feelings and actions. Not this time. I just felt too tired to fight anymore.

Just as that thought left my mind there was a hand on my jaw, and my head was pulled around, forcing me to look at him.

His face was slightly blurred through the tears in my eyes, but I could still make out the expression on his face.

He looked...concerned...sympathetic, even.

"Take a deep breath."

I did.

"You're having a panic attack. I know it feels horrible, but you can get yourself outta this if you calm down."

He turned my head back as I looked away from him again, embarrassed that I was making myself look like such an idiot in front of him.

"Look at me."

I managed to take another deep breath, and this time it seemed to relieve the horrible, tight feeling in my chest somewhat.

"You're gonna be okay."

Those few words were what brought me back completely, and I was soon breathing normally again. Once I was calm, I suddenly realised how silent it was in the house. It was probably still the middle of the night, yet Vashyron didn't seem to mind that I'd woke him up so early for the second time since I'd been living here. He was still sitting close to me, his hand held loosely around my jaw. His fingers were cold, but it felt nice.

It was nice to have someone care about me for once, even if it was a person I barely knew.

At this thought, I couldn't help but break down into tears once again, this time actually sobbing. I just wanted it all to go away; the pain in my head, the sleepless nights, the visions, the constant guilt I was living with. All my life I had been living with the thought that nobody cared. My parents didn't care, wherever they were, the people who brought me up didn't care, the other orphans, who kept their distance from me, whether I wanted it or not...they didn't care.

Yet here was this man, this stranger who had tried to kill me, sitting on a cold bathroom floor at who knows what hour in the morning, looking after someone like me who didn't deserve it.

Didn't that mean he cared?

He seemed slightly shocked at my sudden breakdown, and I felt his hand quickly move from my face. My first thought was that he was going to go back to bed and leave me alone. I was used to being alone. He had obviously grown tired of how pathetic I was being, and he was about to leave. I even felt his body shift beside me, immediately assuming he was getting up.

That thought meant that I was completely unprepared for what happened next.

He pulled me towards him, causing me to lose my balance and fall against his chest, before his arms were around me.

I couldn't have reacted even if I knew how.

It was completely out of my comfort zone. People never touched me. They never even came close to me.

I expected him to say something, but he didn't. He stayed silent. It was comforting; the fact that he seemed to understand why I was upset, and didn't feel the need to talk about it. It was exactly what I wanted. I needed some kind of comfort, but without someone trying to pry into my thoughts and feelings, and that was what he was doing.

But how?

How did this man understand me so well without knowing anything about me?

We stayed like that for a good few minutes, neither of us saying anything, but it calmed me down completely, and eventually I gathered up the strength to move myself away from him, quickly tidying myself and flushing the toilet.

I was quite embarrassed to have someone looking after me like that, especially when he was doing so much for me already.

"...I'm sorry..." I managed to mumble, my voice sounding weak and croaky.

He shook his head, patting my shoulder gently as he stood up.

"You don't have to apologise for anything," he said calmly, helping me up from the floor as I was still a bit shaky, "Come on."

He led me out into the living room, motioning for me to lie down on the couch, before covering me with a blanket.

"You need anything while I'm here?"

I shook my head slowly, suddenly finding it very difficult to keep my eyes open.

"Well, if you do..."

I didn't hear the rest of that sentence as my body gave in to sheer exhaustion and I fell asleep, thankfully to my first dreamless night in weeks.