You step into a room brightly lit from an unknown source. This room is a bright white with some sort of glowing gold radiating from the corners. Fine furniture is spread throughout the small room and a man, tall and thin and dressed in dark greens and browns, stands in the far corner, his eyes averted from your face. You step closer cautiously and his gaze falls on you. He looks distressed, like he’s in some sort of pain. Internal, you think, because he seems to be in good health. As you step closer, you say his name, but no sound is heard. But you say his name again, you can feel it on your lips.
He smiles at you and takes a step closer. You’re close to him now, your feet moving you automatically to him, a familiarity about him. Your fingers touch his face and his eyes closed. It’s as if you touch physically hurts him. You quickly withdraw your hand, your eyes searching his face. His eyes open and he says your name, one of his thin pale hands slipping past your hip and placing itself on the small of your back, pulling you closer to him.
He tells you that he never meant to hurt you and his emerald eyes search your face. He watches your face change in confusion. You don’t know what he means, but you say nothing.
He continues. He says that he never meant to strike you and brushes the faint scar on your cheekbone.
Your hand comes up to your cheek and you can feel the small scar. How long has that been there? You’re not sure.
He says that he’ll make it all go away, the pain he’s caused you. The hurt. He promises.
You shake your head, not really sure what he’s implying.
He moves your fiery hair from your face and smiles at you. You push your cheek into his hand and close your eyes. He makes a small strangled noise, like your action pains you. Your eyes open and you see that his eyebrows have knit together and his eyes are beginning to gloss. He keeps your gaze as his hand moves to the back of your head. His face relaxes as you feel your eyelids getting heavy. You cry out as a white hot pain surges from his hand through your head. You look at him, his eyes reflecting your own pain and try to mouth the word “why?”, but before you can try to speak he crushes his lips against yours and the noise that comes from him is one of painful sorrow. Your eyes close as you lose consciousness and you feel his arms leave you as you’re passed into iron-clad arms.
“Take care of her. Take care of my love.” He says.
You sit upright in your bed, eyes wide open and mind reeling. Too real. That dream was too real. You close your eyes and flop your head back down on your pillow as your door opens and your older brother, Alastair comes stumbling in, still in his pajamas.
“What’s wrong?” He seems on edge.
“Nothing.” you say, eyes still closed.
“I heard you scream.” He says.
Your eyes open and you look at him.
“I screamed?” You ask, he nods and cocks his head to the side.
“Hm” you shrug your shoulders. “Thanks for the input” you turn your head on your pillow to face the large figure standing in your doorway.
“I’m just looking out for you” he answers and crosses his arms against his chest.
“I know.” you say and close your eyes again.
He leaves after a few moments, closing your door behind him.
Your eyes open and you prop yourself on your elbows, head back as you look at the ceiling trying to piece back together the dream. It was already fleeting from your mind, as dreams do. But what was left was this man’s face. Thin and pale with a strong jawline. Emerald eyes and dark hair that curled at the ends. You close your eyes and try to concentrate on the tiny details, but the more you think about them, the more they change. You sigh and push yourself up out of bed, swinging your legs around, your feet hovering over the floor.
Standing, you run a hand through your wild and ratted hair.
You glance toward the clock sitting on your desk. 5:52am. Today was your day off from work and you had planned on being lazy. You were going to sleep in until the sun was hitting your face, but it was still dark outside. You frown and silently curse yourself for not telling your brother about the dream. You had read online that talking about dreams made them go away. You had a fear that it would go away, aside from the pain and the confusion it caused, you didn’t want the dream to completely go away, you wanted it to stay because of the man.
You move to your dresser and pull out a pair of pants and an oversized sweatshirt. You’re already up, might as well grab something to eat, get some homework done, something. There’s no way you’ll be able to go back to sleep.
Walking down the hall, you hear Alastair in the kitchen. He never sleeps. Figures he’s up and already making breakfast, the television on. You sit down at the small table and watch him work.
“Hungry?” He asks, turning towards you.
You shrug although you could always eat. “Not really.”
He grunts and turns back to the stove, flipping the eggs in the small skillet.
You pick up the magazine laying on the table next to your arm. It’s from two months ago and you have already read it three times. Alastair demands on keeping it, something about commentary of the ‘alien invasion’ that happened in London.
“You have books you can read” Alastair says carrying his plate to the table.
You look up from the magazine and take in the amount of food he has on his plate. He is a big guy, but four eggs and a stack of pancakes with a side of four fruits seemed like too much even for him.
“What do you have, like, four stomachs?” you ask him, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“Cow.” You say, smiling and taking a piece of fruit from his plate.
He shovels in a forkful and nods, mooing with a mouthful accidently dropping food out of his mouth.
“Eww!” You exclaim “I don’t want to see it!” Alastair smiles brightly and shovels another forkful into his mouth. You look at him, disgusted, and stand up dropping the magazine back onto the table. As you head back to your bedroom for your school books, Alastair’s laughing follows you as you shut your door. You sit down at your desk open your history book. In your class, you’ve been learning about..oh god, you can’t even remember. You flip to the beginning of the chapter and start to read.
Throughout the day, Alastair checks on you, bringing you lunch at one point which you nibble at, trying to find a distraction from the boring text in front of you. Your eyes start to blur, making all the text run together, and you feel yourself falling asleep.
{This is going to be a weekly series. Hopefully it comes out every Sunday, but as Dayna and I are really busy, it may come out on a Saturday or a Monday. But we're shooting for Sunday!
Let us know what you think! ~JordiMeryle}