In the dream, I was walking to what is called Raven's Nest (a cabin on the farm owned by a Hollywood star whose name I shall omit). Lucas was standing next to the shack behind my room, and he was staring at me with just about every ounce of jealous yandere in his expression he could muster.
I tried walking to him, but tripped, and as I fell; I woke up, cold.
I layered on the clothing in the spring heat, heat I would normally wear a loose shirt and shorts in, but today nothing could make me warm.
I had breakfast with my father, fetch my computer, and lock my door.
The door doesn't unlock again, and a cold dread seeps through me, and I tell Chris with heavy apologizing.
The chaos followed me like the wind did.
I couldn't concentrate during school. I remember home, and what would have happened if I was at home, and when Chris offers me porridge I think it's a test, and decline. At home, if I was in trouble, I couldn't eat out of stressed nausea.
I dissociate, have a full-blown panic attack that hurts more than hell - hurts like my heart is being ripped out, hurts like I can't breathe, hurts like I can't see - and when it's over, I'm left crying, and no one is around to witness it, and I'm grateful for that.
I text my best friend. Tell her about the dream. She's scared for me. I'm scared too, but more excited. I tested something, and was pleased with the results.
See - Papa and I have a theory that a way to draw Lucas out of hiding is to make him jealous, and if the previous night with Owen drew him out that easily, the theory might very well be true.
However... I felt anger from him. Anger I've never felt before. Lucas is angry, so angry, and it's directed towards me. Maybe if I play on this anger of his, he'll finally come out of hiding. This is what my best friend is scared of - that I'll hurt myself dancing with the devil.
After school, I tell Owen about the dream and he gives me a funny look and says, "You two have a really weird relationship." I remind him softly that I devastated existence because of Lucas. He doesn't reply.
We go for a walk. We walk to Raven's Nest. I stare at the spot Lucas stood, willing him back, into my waking state, but he is not there, and Owen and I continue walking without hassle.
We talk about 'us'. I tell him that if I dissociate and start going into 'that territory' again, he needs to stop me if I don't stop myself. He agrees. Every time I remember anything that happened, my entire body squirms. I'm glad we have come to the agreement that we will not continue this dangerous path.
We walk into the veld, and I start smelling corruption in the air.
I've always had the Sight, up until my sixteenth birthday when it vanished. This fact terrified me. I know what is out there, and I can still sense them, but I cannot see them.
I'm not afraid of what I see. I'm terrified of what I can't see.
And the corruption in the air is strong, woozy, and sickly sweet. I smell it like a shark smells blood.
But nowhere can I find the source of it, and when Owen climbs up onto the rock next to me, I lash out and punch him out of terrified reflex, followed by heavy apologizing. We walk back home.
We spend the evening sitting in deck chairs, me reading Game of Thrones, him failing at playing a chess game against himself.
At page 90, I theorize that Jon Snow is not truly a bastard, and that he is the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.
My reasoning is that Jon's 'father', Eddard Stark, only loved one woman more than his wife and that was his sister, and he never spoke to his wife about his sister, and the only other woman he never spoke to his wife about was Jon's mother.
In the early scene where King Robert visits the Stark Crypt to pay his respects to Lyanna, he speaks about how he 'vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to Lyanna', and I immediately assumed rape.
Then I connected the dots, and I have yet to see whether my theory is true or not.
At around the hundredth page, on Dany's wedding when she receives the Dragon eggs, I theorize that, contrary to the words of Illyrio, the eggs have not turned to stone over time and that they will hatch under the care of Dany, though for what reason, I cannot yet supply.
I rather like Khal Drogo. He seems a good man, and a good husband to his thirteen-year-old Stormborn bride.
A much better husband than her brother would ever have been. I hope he gets what he deserves - A slow, painful death that satisfies the reader.
Still full from my late lunch of an English breakfast with my father, I skip dinner (surprising, I know) and instead play guitar. I find a tune I came up with years ago, one I called 'Melody of Sleep', and as I played it, I could feel the eyes watching me fall closed, and I could feel the distant forest sleeping.
I spoke to Owen. It was dark, and I was feeling watched, and I was scared, so we cuddled while watching YouTube aimlessly. I spoke to him about my life at home. The pain. The trauma. And how it was never really acknowledged, how I lived on constant doubt of what I witnessed to the point where I would forget chunks of events, that I as constantly living in the shadowed fear of my family.
The decision to live with my father, who terrifies me and who I despise, for six months being a difficult choice easily made. I'd do anything to escape from the I was forced to call home.
I told him about the letter I wrote for my mother when I tried to kill myself, and how the only response to listening to the song had been my stepfather (who has raised me since two and whom I love dearly) telling my mom in a hushed voice in the room next to mine at night that I was sick, that the song is insanity.
My mother never truly heard it. Never heard the hurt behind the words. I sang it to her above a crowd full of people, her eyes the only place I looked, even as I asked her to sing me to sleep, even as I told her my biggest fears, a feat that took my entire body to complete.
I played the song to Owen. Then, exhausted, I asked him not to fall in love with me. People tend to do that after seeing my darkness.
I was too tired to ask him to go home, and fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning at half past eight, my phone out of batteries, the door open, Owen gone though I do not know when, missing Lucas more than anything.
I wish my Lucas was here.
- the Dreamcatcher Girl, In the Middle of Nowhere