Spindle Wood (COMPLETED)

Chapter 78

It was uncommon for Pat to dream. Usually, he was so happily exhausted from the day that he fell right into bed and fell right into sleep. It felt like a blink of the eyes and then it was suddenly morning.

On the rare occasions he did dream, it had never been as vivid as this.

He was stood in some part of the forest. He didn't recognise where it was but something told him it wasn't far from his house.

He turned around. It all looked the same.

He turned around again.

The same trees, casting the same shadows over the same ground. There was no moon. And yet it was so bright he could see the shadows the trees cast. They looked like awful monsters.

Pat shook his head. No, that was silly. Monsters weren't real.

He could feel yellow, evil eyes watching him.

Footsteps made him whirl around. It was Logan.

Something in his chest eased at the sight of the prince. His hair was short again, for some reason, like it'd been freshly cut. His shirt was untucked and his bag was slung over one shoulder. It didn't look like Logan and yet it did, so it had to be.

Logan smiled at him but said nothing. Pat couldn't speak either. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, apart from Logan.

They were finally doing it. They were running away. Together.

The scene changed. The darkness of the night in the forest was flooded with warm colours. Sunlight flooded through the windows of a small cottage that looked like it was straight out of a picture book.

The same thing that told him the forest was close to his house told him this was a cottage in Dover. His cottage.

He was sat in his cottage. Just sat. Maybe he was reading? He couldn't tell. Something out of the corner of his eye was bothering him.

It was a great black thing. Not great as in it was big but it was great. Great and hulking and... there. It was just there. Pat couldn't tell what it was, couldn't turn his head to look at it. But it was a great big black thing. And it was just fuzzy on the ends of his vision.

"Pat."

Logan. Pat looked up at the prince. He was different again. He was more tanned and his hair was longer again, more like the length it was now. Pat smiled at him.

Logan grinned back. "Look what I got." He held up a net.

It was the black thing again. Only this time it was smaller. Thinner. And cracked all along the side. Pat knew immediately it had been thrown out of a window. Somehow, he knew.

It was shaped like a large teardrop, thicker at one end but pointed sharp at the other. Something glinted on the pointed end, something like metal. It was a dark brown, the wood grain black as night. It hung in the net awfully, like a dead thing. A dead body.

Pat felt fear dim the sunlight and warmth in the room. Which was weird, because he wasn't scared.

"Don't you want to touch it?" Logan asked, holding it out towards him. The light behind Logan dimmed down to blackness. "Touch it! Touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it."

Two bright blue eyes appeared behind Logan, who didn't seem to notice. It wasn't Logan anymore, though.

The voices were all around Pat now. Urging him to touch the black thing in the net.

Pat heard a scream and saw, out of the corner of his eye, the twin of the teardrop in the net being thrown out of the window.

Touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it-

Pat shot up in bed, trying to heave a breath. It was difficult, he could barely breathe.

Pat ran a hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut so tight he could feel his eyeballs vibrating. He swallowed and opened his eyes. Finding his glasses on the bedside, he pushed them up his nose and checked his surroundings.

He was still in his room in the cottage in the wood. He was still in his bed - the bed he'd had since he was 8 - and there was still that crack in the window from when a bird had flown into it too hard.

The rafters were still covered in the same cobwebs and the floorboards still creaked the same under his bed. He was still 15.

Everything was the same as it was before. Pat wasn't running away with Logan yet.

Slowly, he put his glasses back on the table by his bed and lay down. He hugged Smoke tight for comfort and drew his knees into his chest. He shut his eyes and tried not to cry.

Was Logan in danger?

reactiontolife wanted a dream sequence of Pat and Lo running away (and who am I to deny her anything?) so I did one better and made it a nightmare. Enjoy.
Bye,
Blaize