A Survivor's Guilty Dream

Blake's small footsteps echoed loudly in the silent lobby. The high ceilings made him feel small in comparison as he walked towards the corridor indicated by Athena. He looked back to ask her where the bathroom was, but she had already disappeared to her room. He realized he would really be on his own, he supposed it was a feeling he should get used to.

He walked down the stark white corridor and looked in the first room he came across. Stale air rushed past Blake as he opened the door, a musty smell filled his nose as he gazed into the room. Everything within the room was covered in a visible film of dust, the bed, dresser, desk, floor, all had a thick layer of dust covering them.

He thought the negligence of a completely furnished room was odd but supposed it was a guest room no one had bothered to clean. Blake closed the door and continued to the next.

He began looking into the rooms, searching for an empty one he could claim for himself. A feeling of unease followed Blake as he continued looking in the rooms lining the corridor. He couldn't quite place the feeling, but it kept him from entering any of the rooms.

He continued looking into the rooms, a sense of dread grew within his chest as he continued his search. After searching several of the rooms, he found all the rooms were somehow similar….. not in their appearances or decoration, but in their feeling.

Many of the rooms had desks with open books and paper scattered across them, some had beds that were unkempt and rooms that were disheveled, while other beds and rooms were neatly organized.

Some rooms were filled with frills and pillows and some were filled with weapons and equipment. The only connecting factor was the blanket of dust that covered each room. They looked as though they had not been touched for a long time but somehow seemed…..alive, as though they were a single frame of a scene or a single page of a book.

This feeling caused his stomach to turn sour and he wanted to stop looking in rooms altogether. Eventually, he found what seemed to be a guest room at the end of the hall, which was completely stark aside from the amenities that could be found in the other rooms.

He didn't know how close the sun was to setting, but the weight of everything that happened to him over the day caused him to feel extremely tired. He could only manage to take off the backpack and cloak before falling face-first into the bed.

He quickly drifted into a deep, but fitful sleep, filled with nightmares. The manor was too large and the walls too thick for his terror-filled screams to be able to wake Athena. Leaving him to suffer through his terrible nightmares alone.

It was pitch black, Blake could only see a blood red moon shrouded behind the veil of storm clouds. He could hear nothing but the distant thundering of a storm, which seemed to be drawing closer.

He breathed heavily as he looked around trying to get his bearings. As he desperately looked around, It began storming above him, sprinkling him with slick, warm droplets.

The lightning flashed and something moved in the corner of his eye. His eyes darted in the direction of the movement, but couldn't see anything in the pitch-black dark. Blake's panicked breathing drowned out his own thoughts, only silenced by the ear-shattering crack of thunder roaring above him.

The storm began pelting him with sheets of heavy droplets, some of which leaked into his mouth, filling it with the warm taste of iron. He spat it out in disgust, but the taste lingered in his mouth.

A haunting laugh echoed over the thunder and falling of the rain, a cackle that was all too familiar to Blake. The lightning flashed again, revealing the silhouetted figure of a beautiful woman. His stomach dropped and was filled with dread as the lightning faded, along with her silhouette.

He turned to run but found his feet were stuck in place. He tried desperately to rip his feet out of whatever held them, but found his legs were like rubber, refusing to listen to him. He pleaded with his legs to listen, but they were deaf to his pleas.

As he furiously pulled at his leg in an attempt to free them, a flash of lightning revealed what held his legs in place. Blake froze in place, forgetting his attempt to free his leg upon seeing what held him. It was his mother and father, his dead mother and father.

He stood paralyzed, staring blankly at the rotten faces of his father and mother as looked back up at him. The undead corpses of his parents held his ankles in an iron grip, crawling closer, dragging their bloated bodies behind them.

He stood there in appalled horror as the maggot-ridden hands of his dead parents reached upwards, grasping at his face. This revived Blake, he began swatting the rotting limbs, trying to free himself from the grip of his undead parents. He screamed in fear, but his voice was muffled, making no sound.

Lightning flashed over the blood-red sky, illuminating the ground with a red tinge. This red huge outlined the tide of corpses of his undead familia as they crawled over each other in an attempt to reach Blake.

He began to cry in sheer hopeless terror, the shock and pain from seeing his dead parents and familia proved too much for his heart to handle again. He closed his eyes as tears mixed with the rain falling down on his cheek.

A hand softly caressed his chin, he cautiously opened his eyes, hoping to find Athena had come to save him. To his dismay, he opened his eyes to find the beautifully deadly Freya smiling down at him. His eyes were wide in fright, screaming silently as she watched him with delight. He could feel several hands gripping his legs, climbing up them as he stood petrified by fear.

"Can't you see it?" Freya asked in a psychotic tone.

Blake's eyes darted around frantically before he realized what she was talking about. He looked at Freya and noticed she was covered with slick, crimson blood. He looked down at his hand and saw they were stained with the same color. Freya rubbed Blake's back soothingly as the thick, crimson liquid poured down on them both, drenching them thoroughly.

She tilted his chin up towards the sky, causing the iron-tasting liquid to drizzle into his mouth. He spat out the blood, the taste quickly made him nauseous after realizing it truly was.

Freya scowled as he did, finding his resistance somehow….distasteful. She gripped his jaw and forced it open, quickly filling his mouth with the hot, crimson liquid. He choked on the blood, he tried spitting it out. Instead, Freya kept his jaw in place, filling his mouth once again.

He couldn't breathe, the blood filled his lungs, he tried desperately to suck in oxygen, but only succeeded in sucking blood down his windpipe. Cold hands gripped all over Blake's body, gripping his face and dragging him to the ground. Freya watched with gleaming eyes as he choked on the blood filling his throat, he coughed up the blood, which only furthered his struggle for air and filled his lungs with more blood.

"AHHHHHH!!!!!" Blake woke up screaming and covered in sweat, coughing. He looked at his hands to see if there was any blood, he couldn't tell in the darkness. He breathed heavily as he looked around in the dark room. The disorientation of waking up in an unknown place did little to calm him, his heart was beating loudly in his ears as he looked around the pitch-black darkness.

A sliver of light shone from under the door of the room to the hallway outside and Blake bolted towards the door, flinging it open. He ran through the stark corridor and past the ornate lobby towards the grand central doorway in the middle of the lobby. He quickly opened the door and ran into the room.

The room was extremely large and had the potential to be luxurious. Instead, any beauty it had was buried by the excessive amount of trash covering its floors and grime on its surface.

Countless empty wine bottles covered the ground, shards of glass and garbage made walking through the room a challenge in itself. This didn't hinder Blake in the slightest as he wove through the trash in his dash for safety.

Unmarked boxes as tall as Blake were stacked haphazardly throughout the room, creating a labyrinth of trash. Although Blake barely noticed the state of the room, or cared, as he wove through the maze, his adrenaline was too high for him to take notice. He reached the side of Athena's lavish bed and jumped onto it. Colliding with a mound of empty bottles and half-eaten snacks.

The sound startled Athena, who swiftly woke up and pulled a blade from under her pillow. She pressed it to Blake's neck, screaming.

"AHHHH!! I'LL KILL YOU!!! ......Blake? What are you doing?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?" She asked as she withdrew the blade from his throat

Tears began welling in his eyes, they began to overflow as his adrenaline wore off. He threw himself at Athena and hugged her, crying into her lap.

"...What...are you doing…?" She asked in confusion, not knowing what to do in this situation. She patted his back awkwardly as she said.

"Hey… what's wrong kid? You have a bad dream or something?" She asked jokingly.

His wailing worsened at the mention of dreams, sending him into a fit of uncontrollable fit of crying in her lap.

She looked at him with uncertainty, her hand lingering above his head before stroking it soothingly. She spoke with a soft tone that sounded foreign in her mouth.

"Shh…..It's ok….just cry until you feel better….It'll be ok..I'm right here, don't worry."

She kept whispering assurances to Blake until he was finally calm enough to speak. He explained what happened through quivering lips as his retelling forced him to relive the terrifying nightmare. Athena smiled slightly before saying.

"Ah, so it was just a bad dream…?"

His fingernail dug into Athena's back as his body shivered uncontrollably. His voice was shrill and quiet as he muttered.

"No….it was a nightmare…"

He choked the last word with a tremor in his voice that threatened the flow of tears once more. Athena sighed and lifted the cover of her bed, sending bottles rolling off her bed as she said.

"Fine...get in, you can sleep with me tonight…..but only for tonight!"

He quickly scampered under the cover and into the safety of Athena. She smiled as he did, finding his childlike behavior somewhat refreshing until she realized.

"Hey! Take your boots off! Don't get my bed dirty!" She commanded, which was ironic given the state of her room and bed.

Blake obediently took off his boots in fear of being chased from his newfound refuge. After completing his order, he tried scooting next to Athena, but she glared at him with a warning in her eyes before pointing to the other side of the huge bed.

Blake reluctantly moved to the other side of the bed, moving a cluster of bottles and trash out the way first. He settled into bed once again, fearing Athena's presence wouldn't be enough to keep him reliving that terrible dream.

Eventually, Blake would again find a fitful sleep, twitching, and moaning in his sleep. This continued through the night until Athena couldn't stand it anymore. She listened in annoyance as Blake's agonizing groans resonated through the large bedroom.

She sat up and turned the crystal lamp on and looked at Blake to berate him for being so loud. She stopped short when she saw the utter fear on his sleeping face. His tears flowed unconsciously while he was dreaming, his body continued to twitch as he was stuck trying to run from whatever plagued him.

"Dam…. fine, come here you crybaby." She said sadly.

Athena pulled Blake to her side of her bed and held him in her arms once more, she stroked his back soothingly as she whispered quietly to him.

"There there….it's ok kid…..it'll be ok…"

She felt something on her cheek as she comforted Blake, she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand. She looked at her hand, feeling a wet sensation, she looked and found the remnants of a single tear. She felt around her eye to see if any more had fallen, but found it dry as the desert.

She murmured to herself while she spoke aloud to Blake. "It'll be ok kid…..it'll be ok."

Athena felt something on her waist, Blake had turned towards Athena and was hugging her tightly. She chuckled aloud and smiled at his sleeping face. His expression was one of bliss, he was no longer twitching or crying, he seemed to sleep peacefully when next to Athena.

She leaned over to turn off the lights, then settled into bed next to Blake's sleeping figure. He clung to her as though he would die without her touch, which made Athena smile a small grin.

She hugged him to her chest and gave him a good night's kiss on the forehead before they both went to sleep. No nightmares could raid his dreams when he rested in Athena's arms and he slept peacefully until the break of dawn.