W.I.T.C.H.: The Bloody Throne

Part 29

It was a dream that Phobos rarely had, but when he did it terrified him down to the very marrow of his bones. In his dream, he was a child again, running through the dark halls of the Meridian castle. His hands are bloody, but it wasn't his blood. The halls were dark, windowless, suffocatingly tight, and his ears rung with cries. He knew where his feet were taking him and he knew what awaited him when he got there. He was heading back to his childhood room. He tried to fight it, but to no avail; nothing could stop him from returning to the room of his greatest regret. Fruitlessly, he tried to call for help, but the tight walls of his home were smothering any attempt to contact the outside world. All too soon, he reached the door to his former bed-chambers; a room which he hadn't entered since that dreadful day. He tried to fight his bloody hands from reaching for the doorknob, but his limbs wouldn't obey his mind. The dream was so vivid that he swore he could feel the cold of the brass of the doorknob in his hand and the draft of cold air brushed his face as the door slowly creaked open. There, in the center of the room, she sat; his mother. Rocking back and forth, keening over the dead body of his father. She was facing away from him, but he knew the sight and he hated it with every fiber of his soul. With a slam, the door to his bedroom slammed shut behind him, trapping him with two images of the dead he'd rather forget, but he knew he'd remember for the rest of his days. The moment he was trapped with them, his mother released the body of his dead father and slowly turned to face him. He tried to force his eyes away, but nothing ever obeyed him in this dream. Slowly, his mother's face came into view; her skin was pale, her forehead and lips dripping with blood, and her eyes filled with deadly hatred directed towards him.

"Look at what you've done!"

Finally, Phobos awoke from his nightmare. Shot up in bed; he opened his eyes wide with the hopes of quickly purging the sight of his bloody mother from his mind, but his eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, and so he thought he could still see her ghoulish face. His heart was beating in his chest and his breath caught in his throat. From beside him, he heard his wife stir and awaken with a tired groan.

"What is the matter?" she asked and reached for his hand; his was cold and shaky, and hers were warm and steady.

"Nothing, Wilhelmina. Nothing is wrong." His voice was dry and shaky and forming a coherent thought was difficult for him.

"You never move when you sleep, so this isn't nothing. What is the matter?" Now, Will was more awake and propped herself up on one elbow to study her husband. To her annoyance, he lay back down and took a deep breath.

"It was nothing, just bad memories that I wish I could forget."

Now, Will was even more miffed. First, they had this argument because he kept secrets from her that he shouldn't, then he denied her advances, and now he was trying to write off his night-terrors as nothing. Annoyed and frustrated, Will narrowed her eyes at him before flinging her legs over him, pinning him to the bed. "Alright, you are having a nightmare because of some bad memories. Well, they were bad enough that they woke you. Now, usually, one gets rid of nightmares by talking about them, since you do not want to do that, what do you suggest we do?"

His mind was in the realm between sleep and awake where higher functional thinking withered like a weed on a vine and more primitive thinking prevailed. Earlier, it was difficult to deny his wife's advances, but he still managed it. Now, with her body pressed against his and his heart racing like a wild horse, he might as well try to stop a raging flood with a piece of paper. Revigorated and his body flooded with adrenaline, he sat up pulled his wife close. "How about we crowd out the negative memories with a flood of positive ones."

At first, Will was stumped since he denied her earlier advances, but that didn't last long and she quickly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a kiss. For now, she wasn't going to argue with him. She pulled from his kiss for just a moment, a mischievous smile on her face. "You are a moron."