Lost Girl

Chapter Four: The Reality

Eve Darlene sat up and for a moment couldn't be sure where she was, or what was real.

She had been dreaming, she knew that. But the dream receded even as she took in her surroundings, as though the dream and the reality couldn't coexist even in the infinite space of her own thoughts.

She looked around, and saw her room exactly the way she remembered it: small and cheap. A dingy box in a somewhat larger dingy box that was the fifth-floor walkup apartment she shared with her mother. There was a mirror, about two feet long and two feet wide, tacked to one wall. A window on another wall, one that allowed a view of the neighborhood and was for that reason something to be avoided.

As she took in her surroundings, the dream faded. There had been a fight. A murder. Three strange boys killed by a faceless man. And then, after the murder, another person came. A woman?

Then the dream was gone. Its effects lingered, however; Eve realized that her heart was beating far too fast for safety. Even as the thought crossed her mind she felt her throat tighten. White-red heat flared across her windpipe and she suddenly felt as though someone had encircled her chest with iron bands. Her breath started coming in shallow gasps that allowed little oxygen to make it even as far as her rapidly closing throat.

Eve fumbled in the darkness, feeling for the orange crate that served as a bedside table. Her fingers brushed the rough wood. She heard a low thud as she accidentally pushed the digital clock off the upended crate and it fell to the ancient carpet. She started to panic. Where was it?

Then her fingers found it, the smooth cylinder that bent at a right angle. She pulled the inhaler to her, put it in her mouth, and activated it. Two quick puffs. Pfsh-pfsh.

The medicine went down as it always did, like a cool fog with a faintly soapy taste. Not Eve's favorite flavor in the whole world, but much better than suffocating in her bed. The asthma had always been bad, as long as she could remember, but lately it had gotten worse. Like something inside her knew that a time of terror was coming, a panic-place of fear that would choke her breath and end her life.

Her life....

Eve's hand dropped to her chest. She felt there, almost probing, more than half surprised to find the black sweater unmarred, the flesh below it whole.

(Gaping holes. Hearts cut from their bodies. No blood. No blood no blood no blood because there was NO BLOOD MOMMY NO BLOOD AT ALL –)

Eve's breath started to hitch again and she forced the words out of her mind. They had come with images, flashes from the dream that had awakened her in the first place. A beautiful guy – yeah, guys didn't like to be called beautiful but sometimes it was the best word – and then two other guys, equally beautiful.

And then...

(Heads flying through the air, eyes closed, teeth –)

... nothing.

The dream was gone. Gone again, and this time she sensed it was for good.

Still, it took a few minutes before Eve felt her heart return to its normal beat-speed, going from a techno beat to a dubstep pounding to its normal, relaxed trance tempo. She was sweating, too. Though part of that could be that it was warm outside, the apartment's air conditioning was non-existent, and she was wearing a long-sleeved sweater. She thought about opening the window, then decided against it. Spring had come in the last week, raising temperatures in the area a good fifteen degrees, so it was likely every bit as humid and smothering outside as it was in here. Besides, there were no bars over the window and even though the apartment was on the fifth floor she didn't feel like waking up to find some gangbanger in her room trying to earn his stripes by raping her.

The sweater had to stay on, of course. She always wore long sleeves, unless she was bathing or showering. Even then, she never looked at herself if she could help it.

She wiped her sleeve against her forehead, mopping up some of the sweat that beaded there. She moved slowly – once she had caught her eyebrow stud in the loose weave of a sweater and had thought she was going to die before she got it untangled. Nor did she want to find out what it would be like to yank out the loop that hung from her left nostril.

Even dry, she felt like her skin was clammy. Damp. As though the dream hadn't merely attacked her mind, but had metamorphosed into a virus that would kill her.

But no. Death wouldn't come for her in her dreams. That would be too easy. And nothing in her world – nothing – was easy.

Eve shook her head. Her raven-black hair fell over her brow, covering her eyes for a moment before she brushed it back impatiently.

"Get a grip, chick," she muttered. "Just a dream."

She looked around the room one more time –

(and it doesn't mean anything I'm just looking around not checking for intruders or strange shadows made flesh)

– and then allowed herself to go limp and fall back to her pillow. The pillow was wet and she had to turn it over. She smacked it a few times to fluff it, though whatever fluff the pillow might have once had was long gone, and then turned on her side.

She closed her eyes.

"Just a dream," she said again.

But sleep refused to come.