The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

#136 Warming Up

[Apollo]

Apollo suddenly inhales as his eyes flash open in the night, disturbed by another nightmare. But he becomes even more startled when he hears a loud thud on the floor and his senses are on full alert. As his eyes adjust to the darkness of his room, he tries to pinpoint what made that sound. He spots something near the foot of his bed and picks it up blindly. He becomes relieved to know it was just his phone.
He suddenly remembers.
He was up late watching videos and he must've fallen asleep with it in his hand and dropped it when he woke up. He sighs in relief and sits up in his bed, trying to shake the dream from his mind. It does begin to fade, but the fear was still there. A difficult feeling to ignore. He tried to distract his mind with anything else he could think of, but it didn't seem to be working. Nor could he return to sleep. He feared if he did, the visions would just come back and disturb him even more. Frustrated and tired, he decides to keep himself busy in some way.
He turns on his phone and looks through an endless stream of recent posts and videos on various social media platforms before taking notice of his phone battery. He sighs and reached for the cord near his bed, plugging it in and setting the phone down beside him. He fights the urge to continue scrolling, knowing if he did his phone might overheat while it's plugged in. He sits there silently and thinks to himself for a long moment. Until his eyes glaze over his computer sitting on the desk. He gets up and sits down in his desk chair, turning on the monitor and letting the computer rev to life. The bright display blinds him and he frantically mashes the brightness key until he brings the brightness all the way down so he could see better. He scrolls through other sites here and there, plays a game for a long while until he notices light starting to peak through his blinds. He checks the time displayed in the corner of his screen and realizes he's been up since sunrise. Still tired, but he dares not go back to sleep. If it's already this early in the morning, why bother going back to sleep?

He keeps playing his game until he notices he's getting hungry and quietly walks downstairs to make something to eat. As he stares at the open fridge, he struggles to decide what he feels like making for himself. It's not like they don't have plenty of food, but nothing he thinks of seems to be satisfying enough to eat. He settles with making something simple and the minute he starts cooking, he hears Sophia trudging down the stairs, yawning loudly and noticing he was also up.
"Hey Sophie."
"Oh hey..." she yawns again. "How are you up so early?" she moves over to one of the barstools in the kitchen and sits down, resting her head lazily on the counter.
"Uh, I woke up at like, almost four in the morning and I just couldn't go back to sleep so... I've been up since four in the morning."
"Oh no, really?"
They both laughed.
"Man, how do you just wake up in like, the middle of the night and not go back to sleep? How do you just..."
"I honestly don't know, dude. I just can't. I actually- I had my phone in my hand actually and it scared me because when I woke up, it fell out of my hand and I was like, what the hell was that?"
"Oh, that's what made that sound. I thought I heard something fall over and I thought maybe it was something falling off my desk or something."
"Nope, that was my phone. See, this is why I got the thick, durable case because this thing, for whatever reason, does not wanna stay in my hand."
"Well, it's definitely working 'cause that thing hasn't cracked or shattered at all."
They both laughed again. Apollo continues to make breakfast for himself and Sophia since she was up. As they eat together, Sophia's head perks up suddenly.
"Hey, you think we should bring some food out for Teri?" she wonders. Apollo looks up from his phone, not listening the first time.
"Hm?"
"I said you think we should bring some food for Teri because I don't think she ate anything yesterday when we came back from the lake."
"Oh yeah. Yeah, maybe we should. I mean, I know she was kinda upset so she probably just wanted to be alone for a while, but we can go ask her if she wants anything." Apollo agreed.
They finish their food and headed out to the treehouse to meet everyone else. They found the Twins hanging out by themselves, talking to each other and wave at Sophia and Apollo as they appear from below the tree.
"Hey, you guys are out here pretty early."
"Yeah, we just came by to see if Teri's feeling any better." Apollo explained.
"We haven't seen her come up yet, but we're not sure if she's still asleep or if she just doesn't want to come up yet."
"It's okay, she did sound pretty upset. We should just give her some time. But we just wanted to see if she wanted to eat something because I don't know if she did yesterday or not, so..." Sophia wondered out loud.
"No, she definitely hasn't, but maybe we should wait until she actually wants to talk to us. But can we get some food?"
"Yeah sure, I can make something if you want." Sophia agreed.
"Are you gonna go back to the house? I'm just gonna stay here and make sure Teri's okay." Apollo said to Sophia.
"Yeah, that's fine. We probably won't be gone long."
The Twins jumped down from the platform and followed Sophia back to the house. Apollo watched them go before looking back at Teri's pond and approached it carefully. The pond itself wasn't actually that deep so you could easily see everything in Teri's room. Apollo leaned over slowly, spotting Teri's colorful tail drifting slowly across her bed. She saw Teri's head look up and stiffened. She quickly waved a hand nervously as a kind hello. He saw her moving off her bed and stood back as her face rose out of the water.
"Hey Apollo."
"Hey... you feeling okay? The Twins... told me you were a little upset about yesterday. We just came by to make sure you were feeling alright."
"We..? Is Sophie here?"
"She was, but the Twins went with her to go back to the house and get something to eat. We were gonna ask you if you wanted something too."
Teri shook her head slowly, "No, that's okay. I can wait until they come back. Thanks for asking though. You were right though, about before. I did sorta... lash out at them yesterday while you two were gone for that moment. I should apologize to them."
"Yeah, you probably should. But I was just wondering, and I don't mean to pry or anything, you don't have to say anything but... why were you so upset yesterday?"
Apollo sat down in the dirt. He recalled overhearing her shouting at the Twins before, but was curious about her actual reason as to why. Teri sighed, but she didn't hesitate.
"It's just... we've been doing this for so long now and we're not any closer to figuring out... anything. This all started when my Mother left and we all met each other. That... Demon has to be a part of it somehow, but I feel like everywhere we go, it's always two steps ahead of us. And all those creatures keep trying to hunt us down and... I don't know, I guess I'm just starting to... get a little tired of it all. I haven't really been sleeping well either." she explained in a soft tone. Apollo sighed, understanding her exhaustion.
"Do you... do you get nightmares sometimes?" Apollo asked. Teri nodded solemly.
"Yeah... not all the time, but sometimes..... Do you?"
"Yeah, I do actually. I didn't use to have them so often, but I think... somewhere after we met and we started fighting all the Shadovians and stuff... they've sorta been coming back." Apollo admitted.
"Are they scary?" Teri asked worridly.
"Sometimes. I don't... remember most of them, but some of them have kept me up at night. I really don't sleep very well. I'm... not sure if I've ever slept well before, it's hard to remember."
"Does Sophie know about this?"
"Oh, she does. I tell her about it sometimes, but it's not like there's anything she can do to help anyway. They're just dreams, you can't always control them. Sophie knows more about this kind of stuff than I do."
"She knows more about dreams and nightmares? Does she ever tell you about any of it?" Teri asked out of curiosity. 
"Um... I don't know if she's ever told me about any weird nightmares before. I think she's only ever told me about weird dreams when I'm with her. I... huh, I really don't know if she has ever told me about any of her nightmares before. Well, like I said, she knows more about the meaning of dreams and stuff like that. She doesn't have trouble sleeping like I do. She just complains that sometimes she finds it hard to stay asleep. She definitely sleeps in longer than I do..."
"Dreams have meaning?" Teri wondered.
"Well, yeah, Most dreams reflect what you're actually feeling based on whatever's happening in your life. Sometimes they try to tell you things you never thought about before, but not directly. If you can figure out what they mean, then you might be able to solve problems in the real world. Sophie knows more about that stuff than I do. I mean, I know some stuff, but she's more into that sort of thing. It's pretty interesting actually."

Teri looked down at the water, thinking to herself for a moment before looking back up at Apollo.
"Do nightmares have meaning?"
"Yeah, sometimes they do."
"Do you think you know what yours means?"
Apollo didn't want to think about it, but he gave his most educated answer.
"If I had to guess... it's probably just stress and anxiety. When you're always fighting for your life, it puts a lot of pressure on you. I'll be honest with you, it's not an easy thing to manage, which is probably why I feel like that. The nightmares are probably just reflecting that."
"Hmm... that makes sense. But you and Sophie both work together a lot, does she ever feel that way too?"
"Nah, I don't think so. Everyone manages their feelings differently and..... you know, I can never tell what she thinks or feels, but she definitely handles it differently than me. Whether she wants to tell me about it or not, that's up to her to figure out. I never like prying into other people's business unless they feel comfortable talking about it. So, I don't really know if Sophie even does feel stressed like that or not, it's hard to tell.
"Huh... I think that makes sense too..... She acts a lot differently than you, but you two have similar interests. She really doesn't seem as... frustrated as I do."
"Well, if there's one thing I do know about her, it's that she never gives up on anything. I know she cares... to some extent at least. She's probably trying to figure all this out so we can move forward."
"Yeah... maybe."
"You know, it's okay to feel like that. We have been through a lot, so you don't need to feel like you always need to keep your head up. We all need some time to ourselves, you know? Maybe we just need to chill out for a while before diving into all of this again."
"Yeah... yeah, I think you're right. Hmm... I still feel bad for yelling at the Twins like that, I guess I was kinda upset. Maybe I do need to relax a little."
"You can apologize to them when they come back. I think Sophie will probably bring back some food. We can just chill out today." Apollo assured.
"Hm, yeah. I think that would be nice."