Those infernal nightmares again.
Calondra sat crouched over the kitchen table, the heat of the coffee being her only tie to the real world. Her mind wandered off, back into the dreams in which she had awoken from an hour before.
A horrible past that had never existed. Pain, loneliness, despair. And that leering face of a man who would stroke her face, before his hands would move lower. She would watch her family and friends die before her eyes, their blood on her hands. It was all her fault. Had she been good, had she been perfect, they wouldn't have had to be wiped from the Earth. They could have lived.
Every so often, Calondra would wake up from these, clutching the sheets to her chest and breathing with deliberate force. Usually, she would rush to check that this world was real, hug her loved ones close to her chest and breathe in their sent. This time, she woke up to a lonely bed and out of fear, refused to check the bed of her son. If she saw an empty bed there too, there would be nothing left. Her heart would be torn.
So, she sat there. In the back of her mind, she could hear the clock ticking away. An hour. And then another one. How long had she been sitting there? The coffee had grown cold long ago.
Suddenly, the door to the apartment creaked -they kept meaning to fix that but there was always something broken - and Cal's head shot up. Her eyes begged for the sight of the man standing in the doorway and within a moment, she had flung herself up from the table and into his arms.
" C-cal. What are you doing up? " Archibald asked although he quickly hugged her in return. She was always so thin, so tiny, that there were times like these when he realized how precious she was. As if in any moment, she would shatter and float away.
" ... I just...couldn't get to sleep. " She mumbled quietly. Cal feared to tell him the truth. That she had been afraid he had left her. Or that her dream was real. The last thing she needed was for Archibald to think of her as foolish.
For a moment, they stood, holding each other: The young woman with dreams that shook her whole body and the man, her husband, exhausted from the late hours. It was peaceful, quiet, and the two spoke in perfect silence.
It took them both to notice that another smaller body had joined in on their hug. Looking down at their son, Archibald and Calondra just smiled warmly. The apartment was falling apart, work was hard, but they were happy. In one another's arms like this, there was no reason not to be happy.
