Nightmare or Dream? || Solo
Characters: Emma- Leigh Carick
Time Frame: After Curfew
Location: Emma's Room
Words: 769
The room radiated navy blue and the distinct smell of iron. Emma looked around, searching for the source of said smell and also wondering why it was so dark. The light never turned off in her apartment. In the back of her mind a small voice told her that it didn’t exactly look like her apartment. It was smaller and colder and definitely bluer. She failed to hear this voice as she walked down the hallway and peaked into her room.
Someone stood behind her and it was as if her entre world slowed down. An arm wound its way around her neck and she felt a gun pressing into her back. “If you make one more move, I’ll kill you.” Emma trembled, forgetting everything that she had learned about defending herself. She was a scared little girl hiding under her bed during a thunderstorm again.
He pushed her toward the bed and his hands started moving placed she knew that they weren’t supposed to be. His breath smelled like iron and she wondered if he was here all along. Watching her. Waiting for her. She screamed out for her mom, but he punched her, making her nose bleed. Tears spilled out of her eyes as she tried fighting him, but it was useless. He was too strong.
Then his hands touched her there—in the one spot she swore she would never let a man touch unless she allowed them to. Her face shifted, her brown eyes growing hard. Her hands curled into a fist and she didn’t know how but she managed to pull away from him. She kicked him and beat him until suddenly she was standing above his body with a gun in her hands.
She looked at his face and froze. Hard brown eyes, a round face, and a small nose. He looked like her. He was her father. They’re eyes met and she remembered her mother’s words. He looked like the devil himself.
“It’s about time you fucking son of a bitch.” And her finger pressed down on the trigger…
Emma jolted awake, forgetting where she was as she kicked and punched the air. As she took in her surroundings, she managed to calm herself down. “It’s just a nightmare, Carick. It’ll be okay.” She put a hand over her heart, for once not finding the feeling of her heart racing to be fun in the slightest.
It wasn’t as if she should be surprised by it. She had the dream often, but with different variations to it. Sometimes she killed him and other times she could never manage to get the strength to fight back and she suffered the same fate as her mother did. And then on rare occasions, she beats the shit out of him before he could ever take her to the bed. The last one always makes her feel great in the morning.
When she was younger, she’d always wake up crying. “Mommy,” she’d say. “Daddy is coming to get me.” Her mother would soothe her and assure her that such a thing couldn’t happen since he didn’t even know that she existed. And she would go back to sleep.
It’s different now though. She doesn’t cry when she wakes up anymore, even though it hasn’t changed much since she was a child. Emma didn’t know why that was. What changed since having the dream as a child? She did. She was in Division now, training to be a killer. Sometimes when she started questioning her training, she imagined that she was actually training to kill him. That they would track him down for her and she could finally put her nightmare to rest.
She rolled onto her side and brought her knees to her chest. Did that mean that it wasn’t a nightmare for her anymore? Is that why she didn’t cry about it when she woke up? She thought about killing him ever since she found out about what he’s done. She was twelve years old and would draw a picture of herself pushing her father off of the roof. Her mother would tell her that vengeance wasn’t the answer and that if she was willing to forgive him then so should she—except her mother never did forgive him. And Emma kept imagining his death at her hands. A therapist once told her that she put a new meaning to the Oedipus Complex.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As her mind started to drift back to sleep, she had to wonder: was is really a nightmare or was it a dream?
