Ad Astra Per Aspera [2] - Band of Brothers

54 | nightmares

" True love is staying strong the good, the ugly and the bad."

- Unknown

✰✰✰

Hazel was loving falling asleep next to Joe more and more - she had already loved it, but now each night she could cuddle comfortably into his side and fall asleep to the gentle beats of his heart or the rising and falling of his chest. 

Just the two of them in this quiet little room. 

Hazel let her eyes travel around Joe's childhood room in the darkness - she could imagine a teenage version of Joe, sitting in the corner reading his comic books, sitting at his desk, most definitely not going homework, or standing in his mirror before his 9th grade dance as he tied up his tie. She could see every inch of who Joe was in this room and it made her heart happy, like her heart were actually smiling. 

Hazel softly let out a sigh, cuddling Joe's shirt closer around her body before snuggling her head right into his warm side and letting herself fall asleep to the gentle thrum of his heart.

" Hazel!"

" Hazel!"

" Hazel!" She couldn't breathe, she couldn't. Her heart rate was abnormal too - each thump was louder than the last. And she couldn't feel anything. All she could see was a bright light above her, glowing down on top of her, getting brighter and brighter with each beat of her racing heart. The only thing she could feel was the stinging in her side, like she were being stabbed over and over, and the complete utter anguish and pain that accompanied it. 

Cries escaped her mouth as shells rained down above her, falling faster and harder with each pump of her heart until her screams had been swallowed up whole. And all she heard were those shells, falling around her as if it were casually just raining outside and she was in the middle unable to escape with the bleeding wound that felt like stabbing in her side. 

Blood rushed through her ears, spilling down to her arms, covering her fingertips in crimson blood, making them sweaty and sticky and frozen. She couldn't protect her wound anymore. With each agonizing step forward, her heart rate grew louder, just like before. 

And then she was screaming through the flying shells, begging for some sort of safety, an asylum, a home, full of hope, someone to take her from this nightmare of too many vulnerable memories that she never wished to touch again. But now they were spread like that blood all over her fingertips and it scared her. With each memory, her heart raced faster - and she couldn't control it, she couldn't stop it, nothing could. And finally she screamed.

MAKE IT STOP!

Hazel shot up in bed, cold sweat trailing down her face, the back of her neck covered in a thin layer of sweat and her entire body shaking. She was shaking everywhere, the tips of her fingers white. Red splotches in her palms. She had squeezed her hands too tight - blood.