Huge thanks to Highb100dsonly for helping me get this story a bit more accurate!
Your heart pounds in your ears as you shoot up in your bed. You're breathing heavily and shaking. What just happened? You haven't had nightmares in years. Did you just watch yourself die? No, you watched a girl die and then you were killed. Holy shit.
You run your trembling hands through your hair. Why are you shaken up about this? It's just a dream. The images start to come back to you and you clench your hands I'm your hair and squeeze closed you eyes as if you could escape them.
They come at you full force. The memories of a child that isn't you, but you feel his pain and fear as if he had lived inside you your whole life. He is apart of you, a memory long forgotten, a memory you weren't meant to live with, a memory you don't want to live with.
Your mind feels like it's about to explode. What are you even thinking about? Is this another dream? Like fucking dreamception or something? Slowly you open your eyes and look around your room. It's your room and nothing seems different. Glancing over at the clock you notice it is four thirty. So much for taking a day off. You decide to get up and reward yourself with a long shower.
The warm water pours over your shoulders and washes away the grogginess from your brain. After a few moments of letting the water pound against your back, you feel your muscles loosen and the stress from the dream lessens. Once you start thinking straight again you realize why those images scared you. It wasn't the fact that it was a nightmare, it's the fact that you knew what was going on. That dream wasn't a figment of your mind; it was a figment of hers. God damn it.
Her world. How did it get into your head? She told you about it, what four, five times? And not in that much detail either. Those people, with horns and grey skin, it was her. She died, right in front of you.
That thought makes your stomach sink and you rub your eyes wanting that forgiven felling to leave. This job is messing with your head. It was a dream; you should have forgotten it by now. Why does the image of her limp body keep flashing through your mind? Do you subconsciously want her to die or something?
You step out of the shower and decide just to go to work. Stop your mind for thinking maybe. Or maybe you just need to see her.
Coffee in hand, you get ready faster than you ever have and you're out the door by five thirty. You're a little early, but plenty of others have seemed to have started their rounds, so you decide to start without Kanaya. You'll get shit for it later, but it's not like she does much anyway.
You walk to the room you normally start at, but you're trembling again. Fine, you'll get this over with right away. You march right to Teresa's room and try to get your body under control. She's alive, you reassure yourself. It was just a dream, it doesn't mean anything.
When at least your hand stops shaking you step into the room as normally as possible, but she notices instantly how early you are. She doesn't say anything, just stares without seeing. How early does she wake up? Does she always look this tired?
You find yourself at the side of her bed rather than doing your tasks. It takes a moment, but a smile soon spreads across her face.
"You had a dream didn't you?"
When you don't answer her smile doubles in size.
"It was about me wasn't it?" She wiggles her eyebrows and laughs at her own joke. "Seriously, what did you see?!" She looks so hopeful; you almost don't want to pop her bubble.
"You, me, a city." It's a struggle to keep the emotion out of your voice.
"And?" She presses, "What happened!"
You hesitate before answering and she takes the chance to reach out and grab your hand. You don't pull away for once.
"We died."
Her face drops. "We were wearing yellow right?"
"Yeah."
She gives your hand a squeeze. "Of all the things you could have seen, you saw that. I'm sorry."
"Fuck you." Is all you manage to say as you rip your hand out of hers and go to get her pills.
"Do you believe me?"
"No."
"Why?" She practically whines.
"It was a dream, no fuck that, a nightmare, which was created by listening to your god damn rants day in and day out about how wonderful your little world is. What ever I saw wasn't your happy little world. It was probably foreshadowing what will happen to me if I keep listening to your bull shit."
You slam the bottle down and hand her the pills. She flinches and takes them.
"It's not always happy."
"Oh, really? From what I collected it's your little paradise where you don't have to face the harsh reality of life."
She shakes her head. "It can be a horrible place. If it was my paradise, don't you think I would be able to see? I can't see there either. My life is more real there than it is here. Here I'm not allowed to see the outside world and they don't allow me to dream off to my real life where things actually happen." Her voice starts to rise. "It's not my fault I can see both worlds! Why does no one believe me?! They want me to forget about my other life, but they won't let me live this one! Is it so wrong to want to live?!"
Tears start falling from her eyes. You go against everything you stand for and wrap and wrap your arms around her in a hug. Why are you mad at her? She's right; it's not really her fault.
"I don't know why you want me to believe you." You start as she clings to you. "I don't think I'm Karkat. I mean, I saw everything from his point of view, but he's so different. We are two different people. He's much younger than me, what like thirteen was it? And he has accomplished so much. He really is a leader, he wants to protect his friends and he's done a pretty good job so far. Losing you left him paralyzed. He didn't know what to do. He's the one you want, not me." You pull away from her. "He loves you."
She grabs you sleeve to hold you where you are. "Do you love me?"
"I'm not Karkat."
With that you leave the room not wanting to listen to her anymore. You're glad you got that all cleared up. You can now function the rest of the day without her plaguing your mind, right?
