#thread: nightmares

[laslow]

Nightmares

continued from here

Her easy confidence grates on his nerves. That arrogant, self satisfied way she carries herself, the familiarity she dares greet him with. 

Hands curl into fists at his side. His name in her mouth sounds warped, syllables twisting into something ugly. He hates it, hates how he detests his own name in that moment. 

She stands and he can’t fight the tremors wracking atrophied muscles. His body is still weak from his time locked in the dream, and it takes every ounce of strength not to sink into the nearest chair. 

Brown eyes snap up to her own, defiant to the last. No, his years haven’t been peaceful. He’s fought and won yet another war. Grown older while his friends have only aged mere months. 

He will not cry. 

“You don’t deserve anything from me. Stay the hell away. You wear my friend’s face but you will not fool me.” 

> @fellincantation

[thewrongsorts]

@candere​ from “you woke up screaming.”

Lily's hands cupped James' face as if she had to make sure he was truly there. Alive and breathing. Her nightmare had been so vivid. It always the same one. They were at home, happy and peaceful, Lily was about to tuck Harry in. Then the doors burst open and Voldemort himself enters their house.

In her dreams, James and Harry were both killed, leaving Lily hysterical, begging for death herself because it would be merciful instead of forcing her to live on in a world where she just lost her husband and child and would be forced to live in a society where her kind were considered second-class citizens.

She tried to be nonchalant about it, a quivering smile on her face, but her green eyes were wet with tears and she knew she was fooling nobody. She never wanted to be the reason James looked at her with such worry. Her thumbs brushed over his dark cheekbones. "Just the usual nightmare." She was going to need more time to get over this terrible night where all three of them had just survived because of something akin to a miracle. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I know he's gone now but.."

A loud sniffle then caught her attention. "And I woke Harry." She wiped her tears with the sleeve of her nightgown and walked over to the crib where Harry was bawling his eyes out.

“I know.” James leaned over to press their foreheads together, hands coming up to squeeze hers for a moment before settling over her cheeks in a gentle mirror of the way she was holding him. “It isn’t easy,” he admitted, kissing along the corner of her mouth until the sound of their baby’s wails draw his attention abruptly away.

He followed her over to the crib and scooped Harry up to deposit him in his mother’s arms. “Shhh, Abhi. It’s alright. It’s alright.” Wrapping an arm around Lily’s shoulders, he ran the other hand over Harry’s hair and hummed gently— an old lullaby half-remembered from when he was little, words lost to time.

She wasn’t the only one with new, vicious recurring nightmares, and he knew their dreams ran along the same lines. They’d come so close to losing everything... Cloudy as his own memories of that night were, he still saw Lily’s and Harry’s lifeless bodies behind his eyelids every time he closed his eyes. 

As the little one’s cries started to dwindle, James ducked down to kiss Harry’s forehead, then nudge his face into Lily’s hair.

“We’re all alright, yeah?”

[dragon-kiddos]

Nightmares (Open)

Kana had always been an easy sleeper. As a child, he was never plagued by nightmares—even during the war, he slept soundly through the night. Only a few times in his life has his rest been interrupted by a nightmare, and they only ever happened after a particularly traumatic event. The first time he ever took someone’s life; the first time he saw a loved one injured nearly to the point of death; the end of the war. Every time, he had a good reason to have his dreams tormented by monsters.

Not this time.

The monastery was a safe place, a secure location. He knew this. He saw the guards standing by every time he so much as left his dorm; he heard the discussions between the knights and the staff members during their off time; he sees how skilled his fellow students are with their weapons. He knows he’s safe.

But his mind likes to play tricks, it seems.

There are only flashes of tangible concepts: the horrified faces of his peers, the knights holding their weapons in trembling hands, the heavy tang of iron on his tongue, the disgusting scent of blood in the air. There’s a familiar tugging at his heart—the very same one that he felt in those few seconds before the first time he turned into a beast. It’s different than how it feels to turn with a dragonstone; more instinctive, animalistic.

Feral. 

Kana is awake before his mind can process it; he hears himself crying before he recognizes that he’s no longer asleep. Thrashing about wildly, his nails nearly rip through the sheets of his bed as his blankets are thrown off into forgotten corners of his room. 

“Mama! Mama! MAMA!” 

Tears burn his cheeks, the memory of a beast eating away at his heart. Will no one come to carry his woe away?

[xweofmanyfaces]

continued from here with @theacerbicprince

     She hadn’t meant to wake him but she couldn’t sleep, her nightmares had been too vivid this night. The lights too bright, the screams too real, the smell of blood too strong. She could still hear crying in her ears when she had come into his room, just needing to be with a person. Waking up alone after dream of that night often shook her to her core and were too hard to deal with. But she thought maybe being with him would help.

     When he turned over she froze on the edge of the bed, just staring at him like a cat that had been caught ruining the sheets. But when he pulled the blanket up for her, silently inviting her in, she sighed in relief. She moved into the middle of the bed close beside him and moved without thinking, curling up to his side and laying her head on his chest. “Mhm,” she said softy, her arm coming up to wrap around his middle as she got comfortable, not thinking anything of it-friends cuddled right? “I didn’t want to be alone after that,” she whispered, not wanting to be so loud that she wouldn’t be able to hear the sound of his heart beat in his chest. 

[deepseededfirewithin]

Nightmares || Lachlan & Kana

Sleep had never been something that came easy for Lachlan. Unless he was soundly curled around someone, sleep was a concept he couldn’t grasp. It was grains of hand through outstretched fingers. A few specs remain but the majority slip through and fall to the floor. As he slowly regained consciousness, Lachlan became aware of a few things. His sleep at not come because he’d taken someone home for the evening. His arms hurt and his head throbbed. All of this had the makings of a Fae hangover, but Lachlan didn’t drink Fae blood on the regular and couldn’t remember choosing to do so last night. 

He grunted softly and squeezed his eyes tighter. His head really hurt. He shifted, moving to bring his arms down, but the clink of chains and the sudden resistance told him that wasn’t going to be possible. His eyes snapped open and for a moment he didn’t understand what was happening but it all came back to him in a rush. The fight in the bookstore and the large man. He’d stabbed him with something. He remembered the piercing pain and nothing else. 

He had no idea where he was or who the man was, but the fact that he was chained up was plenty enough to tell him he was in trouble. This wasn’t his idea of fun, that was for sure. As the room came into view he heard a sound like water and glanced to his side to see a large tank and a girl suspended in it. Not a girl, but a mermaid. He recognized her, slightly. Her features were distorted in the glass but he was sure it was, “Tanis?” He said, his voice croaky like a bullfrog. 

@kanaxfau

[heartofchonsin]

☮

For a moment, Say’ri thought that the pointed chin and wide brow of the man who shook her awake was Yen’fay. Tears pricked her eyes, and her throat was raw - had she cried out before she woke? - but as she came to her senses she recognized Laurent, whom he truly was.

“S-sir,” Say’ri said, sitting up as she addressed him, forcing a weak smile, “I am unhurt... ‘Tis not your duty to care for me.”

[lady-alsielle-blog]

@multimuseparade

Her hands were still shaking.

It wasn’t such a bad dream, really. Just Mother’s face, cheerfully regal. They were by that pool. The Moonless Pool. Mother’s hand rested on Ceto’s shoulder. Mother smiled, her teeth perfectly pointed and tipped red. She said something, but her words got trapped in an underwater, blurred sound. Her face twisted into an angry red shout and she pushed Ceto into the pool, into the inky, dark waters.

That thing, that creature from before came to her. Hairless, with eyes too big for his face and teeth as sharp as an angler. His body as big as a whale. His skin see-through, with veins and beating heart all aglow. He’d reached for her, stroked her cheek with his giant finger and hummed. I warned you.

Smaller creatures with shared appearance and just as frightening, swarmed her. She felt their claws and teeth digging into her skin, ripping her apart. She woke up screaming.

The queen said nothing as she rolled over, moving closer to the other. She threw an arm over Ashiya’s waist and buried her face in the woman’s side. It wasn’t such a bad dream, honestly.

Her body was still shaking.

It was... unsettling. Seeing her this way. Ceto seemed so unflappable, so unafraid, so poised, so self-assured--in a way that Ashiya found she almost envied. What kind of nightmare had the power to leave her, of all people, in such a way? Screaming herself out of a sound sleep, trembling like a frightened child in her arms, apparently unable or unwilling to even speak...

With some hesitation, she lifted her hand, sliding it into Ceto’s hair. She stroked gently, soothingly, hoping it provided at least some comfort.

“I-it’s alright,” she stammered. “It’s alright. Whatever you saw, it’s over and done with now.” Of course, she couldn’t know. She couldn’t know what she’d been dreaming about. It simply... felt like the right thing to say, in the moment. “Do you think you will be able to get back to sleep? If not, I can... certainly keep you company, Your Majesty.”

[femalehumansamulet]

(Screaming in sleep meme) Sam tries to shake Tamimah awake, but nothing is helping. He slaps her face lightly a few times, but still nothing. So he yells rather loudly, "Tamimiah, wake up!"

It was the yell that woke her. Tamimah sat bolt upright with a gasp, nearly bashing her head against Sam’s. She was breathing heavily and her pulse raced. A sense of abject terror and horrible pain lingered from her dream, but she couldn’t remember what the dream had been about.