GRRR.
I hate it when they're looking at me like this. It's like they're silently telling me that no matter how tough I act around them, they know it's just that: an act.
Which, unfortunately, is the truth.
I'd do anything for this crazy couple, and I know they know that, too. But since I'm also the type who'd rather choke on Cerberus' spit than admit such things out loud—-
BAM!
I slam the door shut on their faces again, and with a louder bang this time, but my parents only laughingly call out good night. I can even hear the two traitors talking smack about me as their voices fade away, and the sound of it is so, so priceless I'm tempted to do something so unnaturally sentimental like turning their pointless chatter into my ringtone.
It's my first weekend back with my parents since entering Rosethorne, and the day we've spent together has been so gloriously normal that my heart aches a little just thinking about it. There's Hugh boasting he's a good cook like usual just before serving us burnt popcorn. There's Leslie insisting we play Resident Evil despite being the biggest scaredy-cat, and then there's me trying to avoid their kissing attacks, just like how I've been doing for so many years.
I used to take days like this for granted. I think we all did, and it was only when life had gotten really, really ugly that my parents and I realized just how precious days like this were.
Not counting my chemical issue with the professor, life is starting to look really good right now, and that's what terrifies me. I don't want to be pessimistic, but days like this rarely last, and the fears persist even as I snuggle under the covers.
I want to believe a happy-ever-after is in the cards for me, and I'm still in the process of convincing myself when my eyes slowly drift shut.
Tomorrow, I think sleepily to myself. I can work on being more optimistic tomorrow, but for now I need to sleep, and the moment I do...is the moment everything goes wrong as demons under Hypnos' command come flying back.
Shit.
They start pounding on the walls of my subconscious, just pounding and pounding and pounding until my sleep is shorn of its defenses, and the demons are finally able to sink their poisoned claws into my dreams.
I'M TRAPPED IN A CAR engulfed by flames, and seated next to me is a girl whose hair is falling off in clumps while her skin melts away from her bones. Hideous as she appears, her features barely recognizable as fire gorges on her flesh, I know I can't be mistaken.
I know it's Cen, and I'm absolutely sure it's Cen because of her eyes.
His eyes.
Those red eyes will never stop haunting me, just like the blood on my hands can never be washed off. I know I'm no Pontius Pilate, but a part of me will never stop blaming myself.
So many people have died because of me.
So, so many—-
And now...
They're here, too.
Standing in a circle outside the burning car I'm trapped in, all of them grotesquely mutilated and their necks bents at an odd angle, just like how I last saw them—-
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
It's that vile sound again, and I find myself frantically covering my ears because I don't want to hear it. I don't want to remember hearing it because that would also mean remembering what I had seen...and was unable to prevent.
I never ever want to remember, but the sound just keeps getting louder—-
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
That snapping sound their necks made on the day the man with red eyes killed them one by one, hopping and snapping from one victim to another like he's in a fucking race—-
Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap.
My lips part in a silent scream, but there's nowhere for me to go, and my horror mutates into mind-bending terror when I see Cen shapeshifting into a human-sized frog with red eyes—-
Its fingers latch around my throat just as its deformed lips, now black and burnt to a crisp, slowly start spelling out words in a croaking hiss.
my life for your heart.
my pain for your joy.
I curse you with my last dying breath.
Chapter Three
I wake up in the dark, my heart racing, and my body cradled against the invisible body of my god.
Sssh. I'm here now, moraki mou. It's just a dream, just a dream.
He's right, of course. It really was just a dream, and even though I can still hear the sound of Cen's curse echoing endlessly in my mind, I know that, too, isn't real.
That part of my life is over.
Cen is dead...just like all the other people she's pointlessly tortured and killed.
All of those people in my dream—-
Then and now, all of them truly and irreversibly dead, and remembering this makes my eyes start to sting.