BRAVADO - Larry ✔️

8. What are you doing to me?

My nightmare started like it always did when I closed my eyes.

I was in a narrow garden on a frosty winter night, the only light coming from the large house a few meters away. In my dream I was small, around the age of 6 maybe 7 as I stand in the garden barefooted and feeling out of place, like I wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

A sense of fear washed over me as I ran to the side of the garden, where a line of apple trees were. I used them to shield me and keep me out of sight if anyone were to glance out from the lit up house.

I didn't understand how or even why I was there in the first place yet a feeling of needing something grew as I hid behind an apple tree, illuminating it in a blue hue as the moon shone down on me.

I looked up at the bright red juicy apples hanging from the tree and my stomach growled as I looked up at them with big eyes, my dark brown curls getting in my eyes as I do. I reach up on my toes to grab it, just grazing it slightly as I fall back with a huff before jumping up to hopefully grab the apple.

"What are you doing?"

I bolt upright as I pant, looking around me. My heart racing as I try to figure out where I am. I look down and realise I'm sitting in a bed that I know for sure isn't mine.

I struggle to take the covers in my hands, feeling their soft texture. Something I never had growing up and certainly not now that I'm older. I push them away as I look down at my body and gasp at the littered bruises and cuts that mark my skin, the thoughts of the night before flooding back to me along with the dull pain.

I lift my hand over the large bandage wrapped around my side, realising there's not as much feeling of pain as I remembered.

I look back up and around the room slowly, my eyes taking in where I am when the familiar room seems to jog my memory. My face contorts into a confused frown at this. I was in Louis' room, more importantly-I was in Louis' bed.

Just as I was about to throw my legs over the bed and onto the floor, the door in the corner of the room jiggled before opening carefully. I froze at the sight as I watched the intruder, my heart racing at the sight of Louis coming into the room.

When Louis' eyes landed on mine I couldn't bring myself to look away. I didn't make a move to get up like I was planning to and Louis closed the door quietly, his eyes not leaving me either.

Visions of Louis snapping the soldiers neck in the rain filled my mind and my eyes closed at that, not looking at him anymore as I turn my head to the side. Louis continues to look at me, the wheels turning at the back of his mind as he tries to figure out what it is I'm thinking and frowns when he thinks he realises what it was I was thinking about. He pushes it aside and walks forward closer to me.

My eyes open and my head turns to him quickly before I flinch back, expecting him to hit me for running away or drag me out of the bed and back down to solitary confinement, where I should be at this time.

Louis only pulls up a chair in front of me; sitting down in front of where I now sat over the bed, taking his gloves off roughly before throwing them down on the locker beside me. I watched as he did this with slight fear in my eyes as I bit my lip, not saying anything that would provoke him further.

He turns back to me and his hands immediately go for my bandaged side, unwrapping it quickly and roughly as I wince, my eyes widening in fright.

"Wait don't-"

This is it. This is where he has had enough of me and is finally going to kill me but I'm wrong. Louis unwraps the whole bandage and pulls it away from my body where some large black bruising appears on my skin. Louis places his hand gently over the swelling in concentration as his other hand held my upper arm steady, a wave of energy emitting from his hand.