Aye's Nightmare

I opened my eyes. My movement seems to be a little off. I wonder why? I tried to recall anything that made me feel like this but nothing came up. I heard a noise to my left and turned. I recognized the shapes in the Light. Seems like there are more than normal. They seem to be quiet...nervous? Nervous. That is another word I now know. I guess I am getting my memories back slowly.

Where is Mye? She was there with me when I started feeling bad at the party. So where is she? I need to find her. I was feeling the bad kind from the party. I yawned before settling back down again. Maybe the Light knows where Mye was?

I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I paused, confused as to why I'm not making any noise above a whisper and definitely not words, before running my tongue through my mouth. It felt fine, so what is wrong?

I poked at the back of my throat with my tongue and once again felt nothing. What is wrong then!?

I felt myself getting angry. Anger...Have I used that word before? Well, no matter. Right now I just want to make a sound with my mouth louder than a whisper.

I reached deeper into my throat with my tongue and felt something. It was sort of sticky and clunked together. Huh, those are two new wo-

WAIT! I need to fix my throat! Not worry about learning new words! How do I get this lump clean? My tongue can't get around it. Also, I'm feeling kinda bad. My vision is blurring and turning grey. My limbs were weakening and I took a step forward, reaching for the glass that was a part of the Light. I was feeling another kind of bad. This one was crushing, taking up as much room as it can. I felt something warm come out of my eyes. It is the liquid that prey produces sometimes. Tears. Though mine also came out sometimes as a sticky red liquid. I recognized that as blood. Did I get some on me somehow? No, it is coming from my eyes. That ain't right. Is it? Do prey drip blood from their eyes as well? Well, I've seen it happen twice but they weren't shaped like tears. They were more of a stream and it happened when they received a big blow on their head. Do I have a wound on my head?

I reached up and felt nothing. Unfortunately, it seems that in checking, my strength left me and I stumbled on all fours, well threes since my hand is still checking my head. The liquid came together beneath me and I dropped my hand down so I don't fall flat down. I saw myself in the liquid. My eyes were different. They were white and my normal eye color was back. I have slightly different eyes from Mye now. I just needed that sharp pupil and the color to be purple and red and I'll be just like her.

I noticed then that my horns, sharp teeth, and my black markings were all gone. In fact, my tail was different too. It was much too short and it was just black and sharp at the end. My arm spikes were gone and I felt much...Weaker.

I tried to call for help, speaking both in words and using my normal cries, though my normal cries sounded different. They sounded like I was using words. I sounded like prey. Will Mye even recognize me like this!?

The bad feeling grew more and more and I finally recognized what it was. Fear. I was scared. It felt so bad that I curled up, crying and making sounds similar to what Mye's friend and the prey made with the tears and blood coming non-stop from my eyes. It was then I realized that I was breathing very badly. Breathing. That is another new word. I never had to breathe before but now suddenly I do? It makes no sense. However, I can tell that what is happening right now is bad. I needed to breathe. If I don't...something really bad happens. I think...I think I become non-moving prey. I become dead. Now I remember that word. I used it once or so before forgetting its meaning. Now I feel that if I stop breathing, I will become dead. I will become non-moving food.

I felt cold yet warm at the same time. Nothing was making sense anymore. All I could think of was Mye...and how the thing in my throat was blocking me from breathing good. Then everything went dark.

....

I woke up with a start, breathing heavily. Panting. That is what I am doing. I looked around my room. It was dark like it normally is and the Light was dim. Despite that, I could see the shapes moving around. I felt better at that. The Light was still here.

I moved my tongue back down my throat to check if the liquid was still there and felt good when I felt nothing there. I was breathing fine, my tail was looking at me, giving me a worried look. Worried. Yet another new word. My arm spikes were still there and I wasn't crying...until a black tear fell down. I was crying. Unlike before, my tears were black, red, and yellow. I could tell though that the red tears weren't blood though. It was something else. I felt more relief.

I sat down, my tail wrapping around myself, and I continued panting, looking up at my ceiling. I learned that word from Mye when we first met. I continued to sit there for a while before remembering,

MYE! WHERE IS SHE!?

I looked around my room, my eyes casting a red and yellow glow. My eyes were yellow and red now. Why is that? Well, that isn't as important right now as finding Mye is. Important might be another new word.

Not finding her, I crouched down, facing the wall I escaped from earlier, my claws digging into the ground causing it to crack a lot. Before I could lunge through the wall, the food door opened up and a familiar scent hit my nose. I spun around and tackled Mye. She smelled better than usual. Wetter too. What does wetter mean?

"A-Aye!?"

I felt myself shake when she said my nickname. It wasn't the shaking I did before when I was cold though. No, this was a warm and happy shaking. I was crying and making a weird high-pitched sound close to the happy sound I make when Mye touches me good.

Why do I feel like I thought something wrong? Oh well.

"Next time, don't leave without telling me. Okay, Mye?"

Mye nodded and continued to rub my head. I wrapped my tail around her, bringing her closer, and felt myself slowly start to go to sleep again.

....

Aye was back asleep again, though the visible tension in her was still there. She was shaking and her tail was still wrapped around me tightly. Tears were falling from her and every now and then a soft whimper escaped her lips. I tried to shift myself out of her embrace but stopped when I felt my skin touched a razor. I froze and looked at my right arm. Her grip was tight but soft but her claws were activated fully and when I moved her claws sliced my skin like a thousand-degree knife through hot melted butter. If I had panicked, her claws might have knicked an artery. I felt myself sweat as I looked at her spikes. Was it just me or was there now a deadly gleam to them. Also, why does it look like black steam is rising from her?

Ah. I'm probably ain't going to be moving anytime soon.

I sighed, accepting my fate before slowly sitting down, making sure I don't cut myself on Ava's sharp claws and spikes. After a while, she stopped twitching and crying and seemed to settle down at a nice relaxed pace. I even managed to get into a semi-comfortable position. And now with the threat of not getting sliced up if Ava suddenly twitches, I came to a conclusion.

Before I had a hidden look at Doctor Pallapine when Ava first hugged me and it was clear that he had no idea what was going on. In fact, he even looked worried. I wonder if Ava had a nightmare. It is possible since Ava seemed to be extremely shaken. I guess even Zenars have nightmares. I wonder what it was about? Ava has no problems with killing people and she has slept it off plenty of times. Maybe it was the party? I've never seen her like that before. But for some strange reason, I felt like that wasn't the case.

That was when I noticed it. Before Ava mimicked it with small and rather subtle but irregular sounds, more like bad muscle memory than anything fluid, yet now it was consistent and heavy. I am talking about Ava breathing of course, and she was breathing like someone who had drowned before.