😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨 BWAHAHAHA! Nightmares! For both of my muses, Abner and Kildare!
send me 😨 to see how your muse appears in my muse’s NIGHTMARES
It started with Zé, then Unca Kildare and so, so many others.
Dugan heard what Abner had said. Not all of it, but what he did hear were horrible things. Things about where certain people came from, about who they loved and who loved them in return. Now, every time he appeared in his dreams, his uncle said these things to him.
Afraid. He was much too afraid to repeat them. The boy didn’t want to even think about the cabin, the one his uncle swore up and down that he was welcome in. Everything hurt. It didn’t make sense. And now the cabin was dark and big, and so were the woods outside, and the engines whirred and the bears clawed at the trees and now Unca Abby looked exactly like Grampy.
He wanted to run. He wanted to climb and kick around rocks and smile and laugh like he did when they met. But now, Dugan couldn’t see Abner’s face, always shadowed, but the hurtful words grated like gravel.
“He has sadly a lot of influence from our father, but I suppose that happens when parents play favorite and punch some stuff into you.”
Sometimes, he remembered that too. Yet another reason to run, another reason to wake up in tears.
They were different. They were both different.
Kildare mumbled, the vibrancy of his voice long gone. Sometimes Dugan thought back to the childrens’ shelter. Thought back to a time where he was convinced that the only people who loved him were the porcupines that poked their heads out from the trees.
And Unca Kildare was a hopeful parent, one of few who wanted a forever child. A forever child for a forever family. He wasn’t sure why the strange duck was in Manaus, but for a short while, it made him hopeful.
But it never lasted. A social worker would spot him eating grass, or spouting bad words. Not the kind that Unca Abby has said, but it was enough for other grown-ups to gather around, and drag him off for “disrupting the peace” so to speak.
He would try to run after him, but someone else always caught him first. He’d kick, scream, bite. But it was never enough for the others to let go. Because the boy was too much like him, and he was too different. Different like Dugan. Too much of a hell-child. Too much of everything.
The Coot was always shaken. Hands fumbling in the midst of night-terrors, voice wavering, too weak to fight off cries of hearsay and insanity. Head lowered. Maybe a whimper or two.
That’s how Dugan woke up that night. It wouldn’t be the last.
