The Other Ring.

Dreams and Pain

SATURDAY 1:00 A.M.

Daria shot straight up in bed, heart pounding, as the final image of her nightmare faded into the dark hotel room around her. Turning towards the one source of light available to her – the window, which was starting to show the grey glow of pre-dawn – she saw Jane's figure silhouetted against it, head down, staring at the hands folded in her lap.

Daria: Jane?

Her voice still morning-hoarse.

Daria: What are you doing up so early?

Jane: I had a nightmare.

Saying it flatly, bluntly. Her voice quivered.

Daria: Yeah, so did I. I guess it's not so surprising, considering what's been happening to us. What did you dream about?

Jane took a deep, stabilizing breath, then began.

Jane: I was standing in someplace cold and dark, and wet. I was waist deep in water, and the ground was muddy, so anytime I stepped I had to yank my foot up. Not that there was a lot of room to walk; there was a stone wall all around me. I could feel it with my hands, though I couldn't see anything. The walls were slimy with algae, and the whole place stank. As far as I could tell, there wasn't any roof, and all I could see above me was a ring of light, just like the one at the beginning of the tape. I panicked, and tried to climb up and out of the place, but I didn't get anywhere, and the rough walls just tore the skin off my fingertips. Finally, just before I was going to really flip out, I woke up. That was hours ago now.

The whole time she was talking, her gaze did not leave her lap.

Daria: That definitely sounds disturbing and I'm sure Freud would have lots of things to say about it, but why didn't you just go back to sleep?

Jane: Because I haven't told you the worst part of it yet.

Jane replied, her tone heavy. Then, silently, she held up her hands so that Daria could see them in the light. The fingers were bloody, all the skin missing from each one of their tips.

Daria: Good God, Jane!

Daria was shocked out of her fatigue and any sense of restraint. She knew this was impossible (though her sense of what was and was not possible had already come under considerable strain these last few days), but her brain couldn't deal with that yet, so it resorted to more pragmatic matters.

She jumped out of bed and ran over to Jane, taking her hands gently and examining the wounds.

Daria: These haven't even been washed. You need to clean these, and bandage them, right now.

Jane: Sorry, I didn't bring my first-aid kit.

Daria: I'll rip up some of my clean socks to use for bandages. While I'm doing that, wash your hands in the sink.

Obediently, Jane did as she was told, but while Daria was tearing her socks into strips, she heard a cry of pain from restroom, followed by a plea for assistance.

She stepped through the door to find Jane fumbling with the soap, unable to hold it without it slipping from her blood-slicked hands. Without words, Daria took one of her hands in hers, and with the other started to rub the bar of soap along her wounds.

Daria: There has to be some rational explanation for this.

Daria muttered, half to herself. Now that the pragmatics were being taken care of, there was nothing left to distract her from the more disturbing implications.

Daria: Maybe you clawed the wall or the bedframe while you were sleeping.

Jane: Sorry, amiga, they're clean as a whistle. I looked.

Daria: Well, there has to be something. Dreams just don't become real.

Jane: Maybe the mind makes them real.

Daria: Great theory, Morpheus.

Jane: Man, I wish this was the Matrix. I could take that blue pill and forget any of this ever happened.

Daria: There are other blue pills that can do that.

Jane: Yeah, I can get a prescription for them, and maybe a room like yours. Ow!

Daria: Sorry. I wish we had some disinfectant.

Jane: A bottle of bourbon does sound like a good idea right now.

Daria: Oh, no. (Daria said emphatically.) The last thing I need right now is alcohol. My dreams are strange enough, thank you.

Jane: What was your dream about?

Jane asked, as Daria turned off the water and began to wrap her fingers with the strips of her sock.

Daria: It started with me waking up in this room.

Daria saying it slowly, remembering, almost reliving, the vivid dream, half-afraid of what was going to happen next.

Daria: I needed to pee, so I went into the restroom and turned on the light, but instead of seeing my own reflection in the mirror, I saw someone else. (She shivered involuntarily.) It was a little girl, about ten years old or so. She was dressed in a flowing white dress, and had long black hair that fell to her waist, framing an extremely pale face. She made me look like I have a tan. She wasn't ugly – in fact, she was even kind of attractive – but there was something about her that seemed very wrong, very eerie. She even looked familiar to me, like someone I had seen before, out of the corner of my eye. I walked up to the mirror and tried to meet her gaze, but I couldn't quite make eye contact; there was something hideous in her stare, and I just didn't have the courage.

Her pulse and breathing had quickened, and Daria had to pause to take a few calming breaths. To this point, the dream had seemed almost mundane, and yet, even in her sleep when she was experiencing it for the first time, she had already become quite uneasy.

Daria: I asked her who she was, and she didn't answer, just kept looking at me as though she were examining an insect pinned to her card. I asked her what she wanted, and she still didn't answer, but she smiled.

Daria stopped abruptly, and swallowed. The memory of that smile had made her heart nearly stop, she felt.

Jane: If you don't want to go on. (Jane looking concerned) that's fine.

Daria: No, I'm all right. It's just still a bit disturbing. But that smile, Jane – it was like nothing I have ever seen before. It was pure evil, hatred, malevolence; that's the only thing I can think of to describe it. I could tell right then what she wanted – she wanted me dead, and she was going to enjoy every minute of it. Then she reached out from the mirror and grabbed my arm, and started to pull me in. It was like being touched by living flame; I've never felt anything like it. I screamed, and then woke up.

Daria finished tying up the bandages on Jane's fingers, and just in time; her hands were shaking so much that she could barely finish the knots. Jane was staring at Daria's arm.

Jane: It looks like I'm not the only one with a souvenir from a dream.

She said quietly, almost in a whisper.

Daria: What do you mean?

Daria replied, puzzled, and not sure she wanted to know the answer.

Jane took Daria's arm and pushed up her sleeve, tilting her forearm into view. There, formed from what looked like scar tissue from a long-healed burn, was the print of a small hand.