Dreams were not on my list anymore; my list of things which made me feel better. It was getting shorter all the time it seemed, and every so often I’d have to cross something else off.
Now, the fog had faded a bit – just to mist now I presumed. I could make a little of my surroundings, even if it wasn’t much. I was stood on hard stone, and I could feel that. There was almost a maze around me, though there were frames with plants climbing them scattered everywhere – they looked fragile. The mist clung to them lightly, with everything fading past them. If I squinted, I thought I could see a little more. There wasn’t any sound around though, which was disconcerting to say the least. Though overall, I had to say it seemed serene.
The problem was, that didn’t reassure me in the least.
Since that dream when I’d started running – a good week ago would be my guess, though I wasn’t’ keeping track – I’d realised that I was unsafe in my dreams. Rena could see them. Rena could control them. Rena could make them, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that was what was going on now. After that time, the dreams had changed, though it only seemed to be gradually.
That would explain why they never seemed to count as any real amount of sleep as well, I’d worked out. If it wasn’t really my dream, just as place I was brought to in my sleep, then I wouldn’t be resting. I might seem unconscious, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t have much control here either. I worried I was only beginning to realise what Rena could do. I’d never really worked out what it was she did. Calix was Prince of Darkness, Rena was something else. Whatever she did, I’d always known it was something to do with dreams and alike, somehow related to light as well I believed, though that may be wrong. She had some kind of influence over people, and their thoughts. The people in her ruling were the telepathics and the psychics – the ones who worked with the mind.
I didn’t tumble over here though, which meant something must be different. I was at a complete loss as to what I was doing here, but at least it didn’t hurt. I never really thought about moving – as soon as it occurred to me that I ought to do something, the thought just sort of…vanished.
I decided that I must have been here for a while. I was never entirely sure how long it had been, but I knew I hadn’t just gotten here. And considering that everything around me seemed to be familiar by now, it must have been a pretty long time… I thought so anyway.
As I watched the space before me, I saw something move. Well, it didn’t move exactly, its existence just shifted. Nothing distinctly left one place and stopped in another, but there was something different. After a short while I realised that I was watching someone appear before me. It didn’t take much to realise that this was Rena – even before I could see her light brown hair tumbling down her body of her soft blue eyes watching me it an almost motherly way. Just as the hatred at this look shot into my mind, it was drained away again. Apparently, violence at the moment wasn’t an option.
She tilted her head a little to the side, almost like a small child confronted with a problem, though the distance in her eyes was much more mature than that. Her eyes always read different to the rest of her body. And right now her eyes read pity. Almost. I wasn’t quite sure what the word was – she wanted to help me, but I wasn’t helping myself, and she wanted to know why I didn’t want to get better. I’d seen the look before, just not recently.
“Why aren’t you happy, Ashlyn?” she asked me quietly, not lightening her gaze.
Somehow, I knew I should respond. I wasn’t quite sure what was running through my mind at that point – everything seemed slowed down. Until something solid formed in my thoughts, it seemed empty, though I knew that wasn’t right.
I wanted to snap right back at her – I could feel the response in my throat, though something stopped it. I had a feeling that something was her.
There was a long time when we just studied each other. Well, she studied me – reading my thoughts and keeping them controlled. I didn’t like the feeling, it was as though what I wanted was just out of my reach, and no matter how hard I stretched for it, it was almost a little further away.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” she asked me, innocence playing in her tone. “You don’t have to see him at all.”
“What do you mean?” I asked simply, surprised when the words left my lips. “I do have to see him – there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
“You have to be near him physically,” she reminded me. “You don’t actually have to see him at all. You haven’t seen him at all recently, have you? And you’re fine.”
I couldn’t say anything. Whether it was her control that did it or the simple fact that I was too stunned for words, I wasn’t sure.
“He’s close to you,” she explained. “Every night. Even if you don’t realise it – there’s only a wall or two between you and him. You are near to him, even if you don’t have to see him for anything to happen. So you got what you wanted. You never have to see him or speak to him again.”
“That’s not what I wanted,” I said, realising it for myself. She looked at me but I didn’t look away. My hand ran through my hair as I thought, a gesture I thought I’d grown out of. I shook my head a little as I did it, another motion I thought I’d abandoned.
“Then what do you want?”
I had to remember when I answered that I wasn’t only admitting to Rena what I wanted; in essence, I was confessing it to everyone outside of these walls. My eyes flicked away from hers for a brief second, and although I couldn’t see far around me, it didn’t take much to imagine why. She wanted to keep me here and stop me from running. Somehow it did. I didn’t even want to run. I could only see a peaceful curiosity in her eyes, though I knew that, outside, everyone would be hanging on the answer; just waiting to hear my reply. In that moment, I had to decide whether I was finally going to give in to it – to them – or if I could face another phase alone. I shouldn’t have answered the way I did, but I simply couldn’t think of another reply, not when I knew what was riding on the answer.
“I just want...” I trailed off. “I want to go back. I want to change it all.”
After a few seconds, I realised what I’d done, and everything came crashing down inside me. My eyes flicked back up and I felt my fists clench beside me, shaking. Something about the alarm in her eyes told me this was more than she was ready for.
How dare she do that? Make me answer? How could she? Those words weren’t my doing, that was her influence, and that just wasn’t right.
She closed her eyes and faded quickly from my sights, dissolving into the mist around us. I collapsed to the ground but it felt more as though my legs had simply given up beneath me than anything else. I felt my body shaking as darkness started to surround me, and I felt myself begin to drift into a real sleep.
