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007 : THE STATE OF DREAMING
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Augustus Gaunt could never remember his dreams when he awoke.
This dream, however, was different.
This dream was one he could never forget no matter how hard he tried. It was always there, creeping in the far recesses of his mind, awaiting its nocturnal recrudescence.
This was a long lost memory, waiting for it's chance to ambush him, to haunt him every time he closed his eyes.
A nightmare lurking in his subconscious and ensnaring his psyche as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Every moment that Augustus' guard was down and he entered the state of dreaming, was a moment full of dread.
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It always began in the same way. August was a child, younger than he could ever remember being. He was untroubled.
Staring defiantly into the sun and feeling the breeze ruffle his hair where he sat. Within a barren patch of dead grass, a safe haven, surrounded by a field of deadly nightshade.
As always this mirage of serenity did not last long.
The silhouette of a woman would eclipse the sunlight and reach out to him with a leather gloved hand. Her arrival brought with it storm clouds that would chase the sun away, seemingly in fear of her, and take its illusion of warmth with it.
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Augustus could never see her face in his dreams but he could always recognize her.
He could always recognize the fear response she caused in him, just as plainly as he could see it. He could see it in the trembling of his hand and in the hesitance with which it reached out to take the one she offered to him.
In his dream Augustus couldn't help but obey.
It was never a choice, that was part of the illusion. It always went like this, it was easier when he didn't struggle or put up a fight.
He was acutely aware that the pain that would soon be brought upon him by her was inevitable.
However there was always a false hope, another woman who appeared in his dreams. She was slight of frame and had short layered hair the color of rust, contrasted by the most haunting, gaping blue eyes imaginable.
She could never look at him in the eye. Even when he would cry and scream and beg for her to help him, plead with her to end his suffering. She would always just wring her hands and permit her eyes to roam all over the dim cellar wildly, so as to avoid his while he was ceaselessly tortured.
Augustus committed her face to memory over time, even so he knew she had not done the same. How could she memorize a face she couldn't even bare to look at, with the exception of a few cursory glances in his general direction when he would wail particularly loudly.
The blue eyed woman could never look at him long enough to commit any of his details to memory, but if the way she flinched was anything to go by, he knew she would never be able to forget the sound of his screams.
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August's screams resounded through the otherwise silent room.
With every flash of red light the pain got worse. He could taste blood and feel his skin splitting as his jaw became almost unhinged with the force of his next scream. His vision was so blurred whether it be from pain or the blood in his eyes that he could barely make out the wall a couple of feet in front of him.
The room had no windows and the red ray of light bursting forth from the shadowy woman's direction and into Augustus' writhing body on the ground was the only source of illumination in the room other than the varying candles burning in the farthest corners. To him they just looked like small blurred orbs emitting a dim light.
The red glow emitted from the blurred ray that was the cause of Augustus' agony reflected off of dark red pools of blood under his unresponsive body and would later reflect in the even darker brown of Augustus' vacant eyes when he couldn't bare the pain anymore.
The nightmare would never end there.
Even when he was no longer mentally present he was still stuck in the in between limbo, of consciousness and unconsciousness. Here he could no longer feel anything and yet, the flashes of agonizing red light hadn't stopped.
He could taste blood and he could see his limbs flailing beyond his control as he convulsed. He could see that the women were speaking but he could not hear a word they said, all he knew was that the woman with the slight frame could not look the shadowy woman in the eye either.
The more words they exchanged the further she curled into herself but she would steal glances at him, unmoving now that the stream of curses had stopped and unseeing as well. These glances would seem to give her the push needed for her to pull herself together enough to look the shadowy silhouette of a woman in the eye and speak clearly.
It always ended the same.
The phantom woman would backhand the haunted with a rigid hand gloved in leather and thus, send her falling to the floor where she would hold the injured cheek in silence and look hauntingly into Augustus' eyes as his eyelids fell shut over them.
Those haunted cerulean eyes tormented Augustus every time he awoke. He saw them everywhere and they were why he could never forget.
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word count: 930
authors note: heyyyy it's been probably two years and i was finally somehow struck with inspiration for this, sorry TT i feel like i edited this way too much yall lmk what you think ! please be nice TT
