In A Heart Beat (a Castle Fan Fiction)

Chapter 6: Inside a Writer's Dreams

Bright white was all he could see. He felt cold and warm but not the slightest bit concerned about the fact that he was alone, in an empty space, filled only with light. He skin was all that dressed him and his eyes were filled with only light. The room was empty of everything but light. Behind him, in front of him, all around him all he saw was light. It was as though he’d been sucked into a void of emptiness. As he looked down, he saw that he stood on a single blue circle of bright light surrounded by a metal circle.

Nothing moved, nothing was around him. His breath was like ice, and froze in the air as he breathed, yet he felt no frost in the atmosphere. His feet felt as though they were standing on nothing, yet this nothingness was moist. His eyes blinked and his hair swayed in the non-existent wind. He took a step forward. Nothing changed. Another step, this one bringing him to the edge of the blue, and to more nothingness. His curiosity pulled him but another step ahead, where he was now on the gray, and something changed.

“Hello Richard.”

Behind him, a voice he knew, yet didn’t, called to him. Her sweet yet rough tune sang as though mimicking the one he truly longed for. “Remember me?”

As he turned to see a woman with fiery red hair and determined brown eyes, a drop of blue ink began to drip to the floor in front of him. Another fell as he spoke her name. “Nikki Heat?”

“That’s right. But I’ve got to hand it to you; you’ve really outdone yourself this time. This was never the end I pictured for myself being an unfinished note in your resting head.” She took a step to the left, leaving the same blue foot print as the next drip had. As it all began to pool on the blue smoky mist, Rick took a step toward her.

“Am I-.”

“No,” she said, leaving another blue drip. “I’m here to make sure you don’t do exactly that. You see, I have to get my ending, and, with you being the target of a serial killer, I have to protect you.”

“Where’s Beckett?”

“Gone. You see, she couldn’t protect you well enough in the first place, which is why you dreamt me here and not her.”

“No, I want her, I want Kate. You were always just a lesser version of her, an excuse for me to stay on her cases, a way for me to-.”

With a flash, she was at his side, her whispers in his ears, “You need me. You want me. I. Make. You.” As she disappeared, she was replaced by a pool of blue ink that melted to the floor, staining Castle’s skin. Once again, he was alone in the empty room, this time met with the smell of work with no play. The white light, blue light, and blue ink were all he had. To escape the stain, Rick took a step back, and off the edge of the gray platform.

Black filled his eye now, as though someone had shut off the lights. The once blue floor now lit with red showed the seemingly black puddle as he heard her voice once again. Richard. He turned around himself, straining to see his imagination’s false figure.  A foul sound came around, followed by Kate’s sweet call. Castle? He called back, “Kate!?” Instantly, what ever held him up now dropped from under his feet, sending him falling with no hope of stopping. As he fell, the walls around him were filled with Kate’s voice, and images of her he’d seen over the years. They flashed memory after memory of her beauty, her smiles, and her eyes. All at once, they turned to the sight of Kate standing in the corner of a hospital room, crying harsh tears of pain as his friends came rushing in, trying as hard as the nurses to get her out of there.

He hit the floor as the image faded to black.

Now, the room was covered in a jade paint and the floor in a yellow colored carpet. This was a room he knew well from the past, but puzzled at why he was here. Ghostly sounds of childish laughter and crashing metal filled the air. As he looked into the distance, he saw himself, a child of maybe six, playing with matchbox cars in the corner. His childhood bed shaped as a car and his car posters all reflected well in his memory. As he stood there, he heard something from behind, and turned to see his mother in the doorway. She called to him, “Richard.”