Chapter 6

Lily lay sleeping, tossing and turning from the nightmares that haunted her dreams. The dreaded memories were all coming back to her in the form of terrorizing nightmares. All the running and screaming that she had tried to forget were now coming back to her ten times worse than before.

I woke up with a start, panting, sweat dripping down my face, hands shaking. My breaths came out rattled as I tried to calm down. I sat up and looked out the window at the moon that lit up the room in white silhouette.

I stood up, listening to the sound of my bare feet as they hit the floor, listening to the tap tap tap as I walked down the hallway. I turned on the water in the shower, letting it heat up and then unbuttoned my nightgown, letting it slip to the floor.

I stepped into the shower, enjoying the feeling of the hot water sliding down my back. I washed away the sweat from my nightmares, the shower helping to soothe my nerves. I sat down and laid my head against the wall, letting the water run down my back again, letting myself get lost in my thoughts.

At the time I wasn't really thinking about it, but now I wondered why Joseph had come over to my house. And also, how did he know where I live? At the time I was just happy to have a distraction and a way to get away from Derick, so I wasn't really thinking about it then. But now I was thinking about it, and I don't even know why I had wanted to get away from him.

Joseph seemed to know Tom, but Tom didn't tell anyone that he was staying here, so he couldn't have been here to see Tom. He didn't know Derick, so that only left me. And I didn't give him my address, so how did he know? Ugh, the trusty process of elimination has failed me, it left me with more questions than answers.

I let out a sigh, and turned off the water. I stepped out of the shower, and wrapped a towel around my torso. I stopped for a second, feeling a bit dizzy, but it passed quickly and I went back to what I was doing.

My hair almost seemed longer when it was longer when it was wet, it clung to my back and shoulders, and tickled the backs of my legs. I pulled all of my hair back, letting it fall down onto my back again. I turned to look at the bathroom mirror, rubbing away the fog to reveal my small figure framed by my long hair. I leaned in, looking at my face and running at the small dark circles under my eyes. The night terrors had left me exhausted yet wide awake at the same time.

My eyes locked onto their reflection, staring into their pools of green, the emerald color glistening in the light like a jewel. My eyes are the only thing that I found pretty about my appearance. My hair was a plain potato brown, and to me my face wasn't very attractive. It wasn't ugly, it was just average and plain. The only defining features were my eyes, and the length of my hair, which fell a little past my waist.

I loved my eyes, they looked just like my mothers. When I was younger I used to pretend that she was in the mirror instead of my reflection when I was missing her alot. But I haven't done that in a while, it's more of a childish delusion now. I turned away from the mirror to start getting dressed, slipping back into the nightgown.

"Why do you let him treat you that way?" A voice said from behind me.

"W-who said that?" I said, frozen in place.

"Behind you" It said.

I slowly turned to look behind me, and saw my reflection staring at me. Except it was staring at me, arms crossed, an annoyed expression on its face. What the hell, that's not how I was standing. And it was moving and talking on it's own.

"Now tell me why you let him treat you that way." It said.

"Of course you don't" It said, shaking its head. "Why didn't I realize that sooner. I'm your subconscious, so of course you don't know, because then I wouldn't be here talking to you."

"What are you talking about though. No one's been treating me badly. And how is my subconscious even talking to me." I said, really confused.

"Listen honey, you're dreaming, that's how we're talking. You have a really high fever, and then you passed out when you got out of the shower, you also hit your head when you fell. This is a fever dream. Your mind, for some reason is trying to deny the fact that this happened, so now you're dreaming about what you were going to do. But since you're here, I'm going to make you listen to what I have to say before I get suppressed again."

"And that would be?"

"Why do you let Derick treat you the way he does? We both know… well at least I know that he's not a very nice person to you sometimes. So then you get mad, and hurt, and upset. But as soon as he comes crawling back with all his lies, and apologies, and sweet words, you stupidly forgive him. Why do you let him do that to you… to us? It's abusive and toxic, it's not healthy."

"But it's not an abusive relationship, he doesn't yell at me or hit me. All it is is small fights and disagreements, all couples have those. And besides, he loves me, and I love him."

"Do you? Do you really, truly love him? Because I think that you love the fake version of him, the one that's always sweet and kind, the one who constantly feeds you bitter sweet lies. And you never seem to see what he really is when he gets angry, or even when he says things that hurt you."

"I don't believe you, he's not like that. I don't understand why you're trying to make me believe something that isn't true."

"Why do you think you have the fever in the first place! He's the one who caused it."

"How could he have caused that? You can't just magically give someone a fever."

"It's that stupid necklace that he gave you. You were just to dumb to see that it was an amulet, one that was infused with dark magic. And that's why you have a fever, the dark magic is reacting to your pure magic in a bad way. And whatever side effects that come from not wearing the amulet are making the fever worse."

"Well there's nothing that I can do about it since I'm unconscious."

"Ugh, you're hopeless. Fine, if and when you die, then it's your own damn fault. Cause I tried to help you, but You're to dumb to listen!"

She vanished, and the world went dark.