Under The Sea

Chapter Eighteen

I shot up, back rigid from fear, wet strands of hair clinging to the back of my neck, eyes filling with warm salty tears. I looked around for light, for hope that the dream had only been a dream, but all I could see was darkness. It dripped off of everything in the room. I watched it roll in a molasses like way down to the floor. It dripped into my eyes blinding me so much that I could not regain my sanity. I felt my hands tremble, my breathing was deep and hollow as if every breathe I took was not really air. My chest constricted in a painful twist from breathing so abnormally. It was the dark countanance of the nightmare that approached me and stole my sanity.

I could still see my parents and Jacin lying impaled with looks of terror forever molded onto their faces. I could still hear the screams of my people who were burning, their screams swallowed by the roaring of the fire. The tears that had once been filling my eyes were now falling freely down my face leaving a trail of fire.

I could still hear Dale's harmful words echoing through my head; when you left you caused a lot of pain for a lot of people.

I turned my head to the side only to watch his sadistic smile appear from the darkest depths of the darkness. I yelped scrambling back and hadn't realized how close to the side of the bed I had been until I was tumbling down in a flurry of burning tears and pain filled whimpers. The wound in my side felt as if it were being attacked with a hot sword. A loud cry escaped my lips as my eye brows furrowed in pain.

My body quivered. My head ached. All I could see was the desolation of my kingdom, of my family. I curled into a fetal position on the ground hoping the darkness would swallow me and save me from the guilt and the shame that I felt.

I felt Aran jolt awake, "Forest!" I heard from somewhere above.

"Aran, I-I can't breathe," or maybe I could breathe, or maybe I was already gone. I felt warm strong arms scoop me up, cradling me. Calloused fingers wiped my tears away.

"You're okay, you're okay," he said softly. But everything wasn't okay, Dale was a physchopath and my family was in danger.

"Just breathe Forest, can you do that for me? Just breathe." I tried to breathe normally, but the tears only came faster. "focus on my voice sweetheart, it's just me, you're safe, I won't let anything happen to you."

Slowly, my breathing became normal again, my body stopped shaking, and I started to focus. I was still shaken by the nightmare I had had. I sat enclosed in the arms of my mate, trying to calm my racing heart, trying to clear away the ice cold remnants of the dream. The wound in my side ached terribly, as if the last shards of the nightmare were piercing it.

Aran and I sat enveloped by the darkness; him cradling me, and me sitting quietly in his lap. Tears still stained my cheeks, but these tears were simple tears, they were neither tears that left a hot trail of fire, nor tears that nearly drowned me.

"Shh, it's okay," he planted a feathery kiss on my head, "I'm going to place you on the bed so that I can turn on the light okay?" Aran said softly. I nodded.

I sat on the soft bed, fisting my hands in the silky sheets as Aran switched on a lamp. He came to sit by me and studied me cautiously, as if he expected me to break.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I didn't respond, I just stared straight ahead.

A long pause ensued, "Forest?" I felt his hand caress my face, and I flinched. His hand paused and slowly moved away from my face. It was a while before I found my voice, "It was a nightmare, I saw my parents, but they were dead in front of me, and my kingdom, it was burning. I don't know how but it was burning, my people were screaming. Everyone was dead, a-and it's all my fault. If anyone gets hurt it will be all my fault," I choked on the words that were so difficult to say, "everything is my fault." A lone tear slipped down my face solemnly.