He was afraid that if she closed her eyes they would never open again.
The hallway was dark. It was always dark. This is how it always happened. He knew he was asleep because he was in the hallway and the hallway only existed in his dreams.
He took one step and listened as the sound echoed off the walls. It bounced off the closed doors and drifted into the darkness. Despite the dark, the man knew the walls were immaculate and perfectly clean here. It had to be.
Knowing he wouldn't wake up from the semi-nightmare until he walked the hallway, the man set off, looking for the open door, the only open door. It was the only way out of this dream. He knew if he didn't push the door open, he simply wouldn't wake up, he'd sleep and walk until his dreamself pushed the door open and peaked inside.
His trek tonight seemed to take forever and the man contemplated where he was. He knew it was a hospital and he knew what he'd find when he glanced in the room, when he finally reached it. A million questions buzzed through his head as a million unfamiliar emotions raced through his heart. Who was the mystery girl in the room? Why did she look so familiar yet he had no idea who she was? Why was she never awake and why couldn't he ever talk to her?
Warmth passed through his body at the thought of her, a proud, rich warmth that pressed against his heart. He loved her but not like he loved the woman who slept on beside him outside the almost-nightmare-corridor. It was different, more pure and simpler than anything he'd experienced with his wife. Fear of losing the girl tugged at his heart and denial crept in, pushing the fear away and keeping it at bay as it always threatened to over take him as he got closer to the room.
Joy and terror roiled around in the mix of emotion in his heart,
The door finally appeared and the man stopped, taking a calming breath. Maybe today, maybe today she'll open here eye. Maybe today held all the answers for him.
Pushing the door open, the familiar site burned his retinas. A dark room, a single spotlight illuminating your typical hospital bed. There was a young woman in her late teens laying there, her redish blonde hair familiar in an unfamiliar sort of way. It tugged at his memory but he couldn't place it. Her skin was pale and shallow, her breath almost non-existent.
As the man watched her chest rise and fall, a flicker of movement caught his eye. Her eyelids had fluttered. Stepping into the room, he watched in amazement as the girl opened her eyes, a mirror of those of the woman he slept next to every night, palest green, murky like a shallow pond in the woods yet deep as oceans. Those eyes were unmistakable.
The pair stood there and stared at one another for what seemed like eternity, joy and relief flooding through the man, love threatening to overwhelm him. Then very slowly, her eyes started to droop and that familiar panic that permeated his dreams started to return.
He was afraid that if she closed her eyes they would never open again and she'd be lost to him forever....
His own eyes flew open and he was surrounded by the familiar darkness of his own bedroom, the shallow breaths of the young woman replaced by the deep breaths of his sleeping wife. Rolling over, he stroked the red hair off her face and settled his hand on her swelling belly.
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