In Your Dreams || Benny Weir COMPLETED

chapter forty one

All Mary could smell was smoke.

The trees were bare, branches have broken and burnt off, the sky was painted an orange red. She couldn't breathe, her hands trembled. "Hello!" She screamed, so loudly her throat ached.

Only silence followed. Still, gut wrenching silence. There wasn't even a single bird chirping. The smoke was getting thicker by the second, Mary's eyes watered and her throat was closing up.

She coughed and coughed, trying to catch her breath but she couldn't. She fell to her knees and took desperate gasps, but it didn't work. The smoke started to become dark, her body was heavy; so heavy. So tired.

"Mary!" She heard Benny's voice, but it was so far away, and she couldn't move anymore. She tried to keep her eyes open, but they were fighting her, determined.

"No." She whispered. "I-I h-have to try..."

Mary's eyes shoot open from the sound of her own cry. Her hands were shaking and sparking like crazy, worse than they have before. She jumps as a book on her nightstand flies off and lands with a loud thud on her floor. "Shit."

She swallows down a lump in her throat, but it sits in her gut. Ever since Benny and the others got stuck in those private dimensions, Mary was constantly on edge, and her nightmares have been occurring more and more. She was terrified to even think about what they could mean.

Once she had forced herself to get up and actually be a functioning person, she felt slightly better. She felt even better when she opened her door to leave and saw Benny standing there with a coffee. "Special delivery." He grins.

Mary wanted to cry happy tears right then, it's like he could read her mind all the way from his house. "You have no idea how badly I needed this." She replies. She leans up to give him a small kiss while taking the coffee from his hand. "I figured, you've been like a zombie lately, I'm taking a wild guess that you're having nightmares again?" Benny suggests.

She nods sluggishly, taking a long sip of her coffee. "Unfortunately." He frowns slightly, "what happened in this one?"

She shrugs, adjusting her jacket then shutting the door behind her, "I don't even know. I was walking down a street and everything was like, on fire. Even the sky was red. Then there was a lot of smoke and I couldn't breathe, it was really weird and disturbing."

Benny tries to hide the worry in his face, but Mary could spot it from a mile away. "I'm sure it's nothing to be worried about." She reassures him, "at least for right now."

He cracks a small smile, then takes her soft hand in his cold one. "I hope so. But," he pauses to turn her to him, "I wanna make sure you know, that no matter what, I will protect you."

She smiles softly at him. It scared her how much she loved and cared for this boy, she knows one day it'll nearly kill her. It also scared her that he felt the exact same way.

"And I will protect you right back."

Once they got to school, they noticed something peculiar nearby.

Mary leans closer to Benny, "why is Ethan holding a flower and talking to himself?" Benny looks at her and chuckles. "I think he's practicing what he's gonna say to Sarah."

She instantly rolls her eyes, "oh right that bet you guys made last year before I met you. How much money was it again?"

"100 dollars, which reminds me," Benny grins and walks over to Ethan, leaning against the locker behind him, "you know, just for you, I'll take my 100 bucks in dollars."