This one's for Roza-Dimka-Reader. Welcome back!

Drabble:149

Her 'gift' made itself known when she was 12 and she dreamt the death of her brother-then a guardian-in a Strigoi skirmish.

In her grief over her only sibling's death, Yeva had forgotten her dream, but she remembered it later, when another of her dream foreshadowed another event in her life. This time, it was very vague-she saw snow and darkness and water, accompanied by a cold feeling of numbing dread.

Dismissing it as a simple dream, at first she paid it no heed. But during her school's annual winter camping excursion, Yeva got separated from her friends and toppled down into a well. Looking up from the water-logged shadowy bottom of the well, she saw her dream realized. Snow, darkness and water. She thought she'd die for sure, but one of her diligent instructors found her and rescued her before the hypothermia could do its worst to her.

From then on, Yeva paid close heed to her dreams, some of which she only saw in abstract notions (which she'd realize as clues when her hallucinations reached fruition) and some she saw in razor-sharp details. She tried sharing details of the occurrences with her peers and instructors, but that got her nowhere. People started looking at her weird, and calling her crazy behind her back. In a way, Yeva knew she was going crazy because no one else she knew had her 'visions', and no one else's 'dreams' rendered them unable to sleep, night after night.

Over the years, Yeva's visions showed her many things, from a prospective Strigoi attack on her village (where casualties were minimized when the village elders listened to her panicked explanations and took appropriate defensive methods, instead of dismissing her as crazy), to dreaming of meeting her partner, the man who fathered her one and only child, Olena. She dreamt of new beginnings and depraved endings; she couldn't control her visions, but a little bit of foresight helped her avoid travesties of both personal and professional kinds, several times.

But with the visions came depression. Unable to stop some tragedies from occurring due to reading the situation wrong , Yeva suffered through severe depression, which only worsened with age. She secluded herself from society when it became too much, only coming out whenever necessary, and suffered in silence when her hallucinations showed her horrors of events occurring sometimes oceans away.

Her daughter helped tremendously, taking care of her and looking out for her, but it was Olena's children who offered her the most solace, especially the boy. He had grown up at Yeva's knees, treating her with fascination, instead of uneasy awe (which her other grandchildren sometimes displayed). He read to her, and fed her, and cleaned her rooms when she'd be suffering from the worst of depression, and never showed her an ounce of derision.

So when she dreamt of the boy's best friend getting his throat ripped apart and dripping blood over darkened alleys, she knew….

She knew Ivan Zeklos was slated for death, and she also knew if she shared the news with her grandson, he'd only amp up Ivan's guard, and not walk away. So, in her selfish desire to spare him his life, she pretended that she was on the brink of death, and urged Olena to summon her son back home.

When Dimka arrived home, he immediately came to Yeva's room and sat down with her. Her vision had left her distraught enough to make it seem as if she were really sick. She accepted his kiss on her forehead with relief, succumbing to sleep as soon as he started reading to her. As she slept, she dreamt of a rose, shedding its dark petals and becoming vibrant, and she heard Dimka's golden laughter, a laughter which had lost its carefree edge years ago...

Yeva woke up to silence, and she knew.

Ivan was dead.

But her Dimka was alive.

And he'd have happiness, sometime in the future.

So what if she'd have to bear the burden of Ivan's death on her conscience? For Dimka, she was all-too-willing-to pay the price.

This one refused to be unsaid, so here you go, lovelies!
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