Dual Reality

                Darkness surrounds me. I stand alone, arms wound around myself  in an attempt to banish the growing fear in the pit of my stomach. The fear of the unknown. The fear of being alone.
         Breath warms my ear, ruffles my hair. My arms hold tighter, my eyes clamp shut. Frigid fingers tease my skin. A brush on my arm, a tug of my hair. Please let me be dreaming.
         A soft, piercing scream penetrates the air to my left. I gasp, but don’t dare move; don’t dare acknowledge the dark figure with bright eyes standing in front of  me. A louder scream behind me, I see the reflection of another figure in the first one’s decomposing eyes. Crippling pain erupts in my side, my arm and I go to my knees, blood trickling softly to the ground.
         My gaze moves up the shadowy figure to it’s face. The figure meets my stare and my heart flies as fast as a hummingbird’s wings when I see it’s rotted hand reaching toward my head, like it might caress me. Another scream of yet another demon and my fear drives me to my feet, my instincts hurdle me into sprinting. Black air rushes by me, they are  following.
         Only for awhile. Hope blossoms in my chest as an old house comes into view, though  it’s dilapidated appearance and grass overgrown above my knees make me rethink my assumption that I will be safe there.  At the sight of it, the figures shriek and soar away, leaving me in blessed silence.  I slow to a walk, my feet dragging across the grass,  and leaving slicked-down footprints behind me.
         A child’s giggle resounds from the back of the house, the sound as sweet as ringing bells. My spirits lift as I speed toward the house, my mind reasoning with itself. What harm could befall a child? Even more, I must be okay, for who would commit such a horrid act as to kill me in front of such innocent eyes? Perhaps it was my panic talking, but I believed it, optimistic as ever.
         In the backyard the grass was even taller, a dim light coming from a lamp sitting on top of a brick wall to my left, connecting to one side of the house. In the middle of the yard was a small yellow and white playhouse, a wire fence wrapping around it in a circle, the gate hanging open.
         Sticking out of the playhouse door were a pair of tiny blue, white and red sneakers, slowly kicking from side to side. The source of the giggling. I creep to the window, rest my arms on the windowsill and lay my head on them and discover a baby boy of about three years old  coloring in a book by candle light. As I watch him, every few minutes he looks up to stare into the flames, eyes far away from his crayons.
         “Hey, baby.” I croon gently, so as to not scare him. He whips his head around, brown hair falling into big brown eyes set in an adorably angelic face.
         He smiles a sweet grin, then turns back to the dinosaur he’s coloring a startling shade of blue. I beam back at him, a short- lived  peace filling my heart.
         Suddenly a man’s voice roared across the yard. I straightened and took a step back as he neared.
         “Boy, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times!”
My eyes grow as the man reaches out and snatches the boy feet first from the little house. My arms fly forward toward the baby, but I find I cannot move farther than an inch in front of me. Too far away, the man is shaking the boy, screeching in his little face, and the baby’s cries shatter my heart as all I can do is stand. Useless. 
         Then he’s swinging the boy by his feet in the direction of the wall, and I’m the only one who can hear my horrified screams as I see the boy’s small body crash into the bricks, his delicate skull no match for the force. I sink to my knees once more, sobs wracking my body, as the world goes black and a few seconds later I awake to the same scene, only the boy now fourteen. Only now the act involving the fists of a creature once known as a friend, and the cold steel of a gun. Again, I cannot move to save him. Cannot see his face, for the blur across it, like a fingerprint on a newly developed picture, shrouding his identity from my view. Who is this boy my heart is reaching to? Another scene ended, my vision again goes black.
         But of course, I awake again.  This time it’s different. There is no outside threat. The playhouse is gone. The grass is cut, it’s midmorning, the sun beginning to rise. The boy now about the age of nineteen, maybe early twenties, everything about him screams out in familiarity, which does and doesn‘t startle me. What’s not different is that I still can’t see him clearly, his figure blurred. Same boy, I am sure. What I don’t understand is the sense that he is not just some random person anymore.
         The doorway to the actual house is flung open carelessly. He’s sitting against the doorframe, half in, half out of the house. Everything about his stance  is screaming in a melancholy relaxation, even to the lit cigarette he’s holding between his fingers. Everything seems fine, until I look to the ground. Every inch of the house and the grass surrounding it is doused  in kerosene.  The cigarette is put out under his feet now, replaced with a sliver lighter he clicks on and off.
         My vision blurs and comes back, giving me a now crystal clear view of his face. My heart explodes into a million pieces. My tears flow.
         “Ayden.” I whisper brokenly, as the familiar bond comes over me, restricting my movement.
Ayden stares at me, his eyes full of longing…a look that holds all the darkness in the world, yet I can see the light of the life he once knew, the life when I still meant something, fighting to find it’s way to the surface, to reason with the madness that has taken over. And losing miserably.
         I shake my head, my own eyes pleading with him, with the darkness. “Please…please…don’t do this…you don’t have to…Ayden…”
         He hears me, doesn’t look away. His eyes betray what his mind cannot say, and the lighter flicks on. He gets lost in the flames, far away from this world. He looks up again, his arm slowly moving toward the floor, the wood foundation of the house.
         “No!”
Glowing flames race across the floor, over the grass, around the door .
         I scream,  violently struggling against my invisible chains,  desperately trying to save him.
         The fire engulfs the house, scorches his body. He screams, the sound worse than any pain in the world. I fight harder.
         “Ayden!”
         As fast as they lit, the flames die away, and I can move. I fall forward, but don’t stop moving until I get to his side, beating at the flames.  He’s too far gone.
         The little life in his eyes ebbs away as I hold him, my sobs now the only sound. My heart dies as I lay my head against his chest, the world goes black.
         
         ~*~

         Until the real light of the sun wakes me up. My heart still flying, I cry in relief to find it was just a nightmare after all.
              “It was just a dream…” My broken laugh lights the room, not mine, I realize. Ayden’s. I roll to my side carefully, wrap my arms around his torso, kiss his forehead. He stirs, smiling softly.
         “Hey.” He greets me good morning, getting up and going out into the living room.
         I slink out of bed, go and shower. When I come back, Liam is making breakfast and Josh still passed out on the couch.
         Ayden is waiting at the door. Leaning against the doorframe. Putting out cigarette under his shoe, he flicks his lighter on and off, a faraway look in his eyes. My heart stops at the familiar scene.  I force it beating again, and walk across the floor to where he stands. I take my bag from his hands, replacing it by interlocking my fingers with his own. A half-smile flicks across his face. The faraway stare is still there. He’s not all on this world, I know. But now we’re walking away from the door into the morning light, to the car, to school. That’s all I need from him.
         Hope.
              I’m ever the optimist.