Draw Me In

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Nineteen – A Vision Dark and Cloaked

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*~ I think I know what's on your mind
A couple words, a great divide ~*

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The water is full of cold around me, and my clothes stick to my skin. But no matter how much my mind wills, my body won't – can't – move.

Terrified, my widened eyes stare up at the inky blackness – not so much night sky as empty void. My lungs are bursting, filling with air and sound, but they never break the surface.

Of course it's then that I realise I'm not floating on top of the water, but sinking under it.

Panic, hot and thick, floods my blood.

But the ache completely bypasses my lungs and goes straight for my heart. My insides recoil in pain, but to the outside world I remain hidden, soundless, under a starless sky.

Then suddenly I'm not there anymore. I blink, and I'm blinded by white before everything settles, and I'm at home – my childhood home. Looking down, I can see my bare feet, pale legs and ugly knees. My arms are uncovered – my shoulders see-through. I'm wearing a . . . towel?

But that doesn't matter, because abruptly, the world starts to flicker. Colours warp and shapes melt into the ground, leaving things lineless and undefined. Panic sweeps through me as I watch my mum's special vase disappear into the rug, before that goes, too. My hands reach out to grasp the tale-end of knitted blankets and sweet-smelling candles. But it's too late.

The empty below dissolves everything, and I start to run, afraid I'll disappear, too.

"You're going the wrong way."

My mind skids to a stop even if my feet don't, and I watch as Rose and Alice hover just out of reach – ghostly figures that stay the same throughout all the motion.

I shake my head, my gaze darting to the vacuum behind me. My feet push harder. "There's only this way," I say, voice high and shrill with hysteria.

Before I can run any further, the floor suddenly starts to slip out from underneath my feet. A burst of terror fills my heart as I start to free-fall, and a soundless scream escapes me. I'm not underwater anymore, but the air has stolen my breath.

I close my eyes, ready to shatter.

But my landing is soft.

Sound returns, and gasping is all I can hear for a long time.

When I pull myself alive again, it takes me a minute to recognise the room. But when I do my skin starts to shiver like I'm cold, but in reality I'm everything opposite.

I'm in the red room.

The dim-darkness swelling all around me makes my cheeks flush with heat. My heart is so, so loud, and each beat seems to sync itself with the heavy thrumming of the walls, the couches, the carpet. Sensation on my hands draws my eyes downwards, and my mouth drops at the sight of guitar strings, winding themselves around my fingers.

A quiet chuckle from the shadows makes my head snap up.

"I bet you'd sound beautiful," the disembodied voice murmurs, as hushed and heated as the lights. "If you let me play you."

Trembles skirt along my skin, but not from the cold. Tangled up hands are ignored as I bring them to my chest, gripping the towel so tight I should feel cuts from the strings, but they grow soft, slipping live rivulets of water down my wrists, sliding against my skin.

I don't ask. I already know who.

The shadow persists for a minute before he steps out, sticky white t-shirt and drippy hair falling into frost-sharp, darkly-dimmed eyes. His mouth glimmers in the low; a secret red smile in a secret red room.

Close.

Kept.

"I'm not a toy," I whisper-shiver. "I don't want to play this game."

Then behind him, just for a moment, I see my mother; younger and smiling, arms held out to steady –

Tall and crystal-clear. Formidable. His closing steps towards me merge her into the wall, until she's just a photo in a frame.

Around me the world grows dimmer, until there's only this, me and him, under the spotlight – a kind of blue, everything else in shadow. He is silhouetted, shining, as he falls to his knees in front of me.

Low notes on a bass staff drop from his mouth when he says, "I want to make you sing." His hand rises, fingers finding flesh as he unscrolls music-making on my red, flushed, hot. "I'm not playing with you." Mouth close, sweet and heavy, honey dripped into my ear. "I just want you."

My eyes close as I struggle for breath, my heart thundering and aching in a different way. My skin sizzles from his touch, little sparks of flame binding his body to mine. I feel strings on my back now, gliding up and down my spine this time. Shudders tumble through me as all the blood surges to my skin, singing.

Lips parted, feather-soft. Achingly gentle vibrations stir at the lightest touch, and I breathe in the words he gives me in a kiss.

"I need you."

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"No!"

My heart rips itself out of my chest as I resurface into reality. Body moving before anything else can, it catches up to my heart and floods my system with a too-fast tempo. Everything is shaking, everything is spinning – skin and sense fleeing. The darkness in my unopened eyes makes me feel sick, and I ache.

I can feel the water pressing me down, pulling me under, see the fading of things I knew so well into nothing – and then falling, falling, and then . . .

I gasp-breathe, shivering but cold like I wasn't then – drenched in sweat.

When I finally manage to pull my eyes open, it doesn't help much – I feel displaced, unsettled. It's too dark to see anything, and for a moment more the shivers under my skin increase, worried that the dim-darkness has managed to seep from my mind and into my world.

I clutch at my chest. No towel.

Noises that couldn't escape then threaten to bubble over now, but they peter out into silence before they can pass my lips.

It's okay, I think-tell myself. It was just a dream.

A dream, I repeat, forcing my tense body to lie back again. My eyes won't shut, though, not now that they're open.

I pull the quilt to my neck, then my chin. Finally, I just duck my whole head under it, until all that dark isn't above me.

I fall asleep feeling close, kept.

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*~ I go to sleep
And imagine that you're there
with me ~*

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A/N: well...

Sorry about the length! I just felt that I couldn't add anymore to this chapter without changing the mood. For me, when I have a weird/unsettling dream that wakes me in the middle of the night, the feeling I have then is completely different to how I feel about it the next morning. I guess because it's fresh in your mind, the things you feel in your dream leak out into that little pocket of night time quiet.

I hope that made sense to someone! Basically, I just wanted to swamp you guys in weird feeling for a chapter. Hope it worked!

Thank you for reading. :) I'm cream crackered, so I'm off to bed. Sweet dreams. ;) xo