Conquering Nightmares of the Past

17: Home Isn't a Place, It's a Feeling

HI! It's been so long since I've updated this, I know. I've just been so busy and haven't had any motivation recently. Plus, I used to write most of this in class, but now I use an iPad instead of a laptop, so i cant type anymore, which takes away like 90% of my writing time.

Anyways, point is I'm back and mentally unstable as ever <3

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Wilbur smiled as he ran towards his parents, the grass crunching beneath his little feet.

"Mum! Dad! Look what I found!" He yelled as he reached his parents where they sat on a bench.

"What did you find, honey?" His mother asked, a soft smile on her face as she looked at her son. Both parents were looking at him intently, truly interested in what he had to say.

"A snail! He's gonna be my new pet!" Wilbur yelled as he lifted up his hands and showed his parents the snail sitting in his cupped hands.

"Wow. That's really cool, Wil." His dad replied, sounding genuine and kind with every word he spoke.

"That is really impressive, sweetheart, but you can't keep him, okay?" His mother said.

"Awww, why not? I really wanna." Wilbur whined, disappointed that his dream of a snail pet couldn't come to life.

"Because this park is the snail's home. We can't take him away from that. He probably has a family here. It wouldn't be very nice to take Mister Snail away from his family, now would it?" His mother said, tone soft and stern at the same time, yet still loving all the same.

"No, it wouldn't. I'll go put him back now." Wilbur begrudgingly agreed. He didn't want to make the snail family-less. That would be mean.

Wilbur walked off to the log he found the snail on, placing the snail down before going back to his parents.

Once he reached the bench his parents sat on the sky got darker and it started to rain. His eyes widened in fear as he noticed that sitting where his mother and father were, just seconds ago, was his foster father from placement 4. The man was staring at him with a sinister grin.

Wilbur wanted to turn and run, but he couldn't control his legs. It seemed as though the man's grin widened as he noticed this, watching as Wilbur's body forced him to walk towards a man who caused him so much pain.

A disgustingly familiar warmth grew on his wrists and he looked down to see all his self-harm scars from that house re-opened and bleeding down his arms. Blood dripped onto the floor creating a gruesome trail behind Wilbur as he walked.

Just metres away he got closer and closer, the image of his foster father distorting to look almost like a demon. The man's hand reached out, dripping blood just like Wilbur's, except this blood didn't seem to be the man's own. The hand reached closer and closer, centimetres from touching Wilbur and, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move away.

Suddenly, Wilbur's eyes opened, silent tears streaming down his face. He lay still, completely silent, focusing all his energy on breathing as silently as possible. He wasn't even sure what he was scared of, he knew it was just a nightmare, but still, he shook in fear.

He lay there for a few minutes before forcing himself to move, shuffling his hand over the bed until it made contact with a blue fluffy sheep, Friend. The tight hold he had on the plushie slowly calmed him until he was able to sit up with Friend in his lap and curl over his knees, his back pressed into the bedframe.

He calmed down a little, but his breathing was still just fast enough that he felt like he was suffocating, and he was still shaking. He wanted Phil. The fear coating his mind was yelling that Phil would be mad if Wilbur woke him. Wilbur knew Phil had helped him with many nightmares before, but that was always Phil coming to him.