Dreamcatcher

4

"Venus might be worried about you."

Silence.

"Seriously, I think we should go back."

More silence.

"It's already been an hour, Chase. I'm not here to be your garbage dump for ranting." But the moment the words left her mouth, Aerial felt her heart go cold.

"Then go home, Aerial. Go wherever you want to go. V wants you to; you want to. Besides, maybe I should forget about my dream." Chase let out a dry chuckle. A few loose strands of hair covered his eyes. "I mean, I did survive the first time because of how unattractive my dreams were."

Aerial watched the way Chase's brown hair blew in the breeze. He was so far away from her now, and the distance between them only kept growing. Finally she decided to catch up to him.

This time Aerial was the one to grab Chase's wrist. He reflexively pulled back, then looked to stare at her like she was crazy.

"I left the binoculars at your house. What, you expect me to go bird-watching without them?" Aerial tugged on his arm, expecting him to pull back and continue walking against her will. To her surprise, Chase stopped moving.

The two of them stood in the middle of the gravel street, just like the day before.

The only thing that had changed was that yesterday, the two had solemnly hated each other. Now things were different. Now things had changed.

"That's true. I suppose you do need the binoculars."

"I swear – if it wasn't for me being at home, the house would be filled with flies right now," Venus puffed. It was times like this that she resembled an actual mother, one incredibly astonished at how stupid her two children were. "Close the door next time you have a little running spree, goddammit."

"Flies at this time of year? Yeah right." Chase motioned over towards Aerial, who followed him up the staircase. The rug felt good underneath her sore feet.

The girl shut the door behind her, eliminating the chances of Venus peering in later on. "You think she hates me or no?" she mumbled.

"V?"

Aerial nodded.

Chase let out a sigh as he fell backwards onto his bed, closing his eyes in the process. After a while he finally answered, "She's a mess. It wasn't just my friends caught up in it – hers were too. Ever since then she's afraid of something like that happening again."

"Are you?"

He opened his blue eyes and stared at the ceiling. "...Why wouldn't I be afraid?"

Ah, that was a stupid question.

Aerial nodded, trying to show sympathy to the best of her low social ability. "Is that why you guys never hang up dreamcatchers? You're afraid of attracting strength to your dream and getting killed by a Dream Catcher?" Like your loved ones?

"Mhm, yeah. Pretty much." Chase let out yet another sigh, probably his fiftieth that day, which prompted Aerial to shut up about the topic.

After Chase closed his eyes again and left the room in a moody silence, Aerial found it awkward to stand and stare at him. She swept up the binoculars in her arms and carried it like how one would carry a baby. Gently opening and closing the bedroom door, it was in her greatest effort not to disturb Chase even if he wasn't fully asleep.

Aerial was reminded of the early time when the sunlight hit her skin. The running from earlier had dulled her perception of reality, and now she questioned if everything happened only an hour ago. She hadn't gotten that much exercise in a while, and to be quite honest, she didn't exactly like the feeling of running. As Aerial went from door to door, she found it more tedious than usual to analyze the dreamcatchers hanging on.