I'm Not Tired (Please Let Me Sleep)

Chapter twelve

He was back in the dreamscape, chained down and forced to endure the constant scenes that Dream was showing him. They were switching rapidly with the man showing him whatever he felt like.

Tommy had tried to close his eyes but whenever he did that and tried to snap out of it himself, Dream would stop everything he was doing entirely, leaving him to silence until Tommy inevitably opened his eyes again to check if he was back to reality only to be greeted with a new gruesome scene of him getting murdered through every way a human could possibly imagine and more.

This night, it was once again a scene in which the Syndicate would get to him before the masked bastard had the chance to snatch him up. It seemed the man had gotten bored of showing him the Blood God tearing off every single limb of his body before the shadow hounds would maul him and tear him to shreds. Rather than the brute of the villain, he saw Zephyrus in action once again. Watching as talons sliced through his doppelganger's flesh as if it was butter, hearing the cruel laugh that he, for some reason, could never imagine the villain directing towards him.

The scene was gory and horrible, something that would get producers of a horror movie to get investigated because there was no way something that graphic could've been produced by using purely fake blood and CGI. Tommy should feel scared, by all means.

But he didn't.

He'd see the villain's talons and think about how gentle the man had been with him when checking his pulse. He'd hear the cruel laugh of the murderous version in this dreamscape and all he could think of was the wheezing laughter after he had insulted Siren. He'd hear the dream's version's death rattle, a telltale sign that an avian was beyond pissed and would think of the weird auditory hallucinations of the villain crooning (the thought now calming him rather than confusing him).

He'd see the giant black wings and would think of how easy it would be to hide in them.

Tommy blamed his lack of fear on the exhaustion. His body got the rest, his mind did not and he'd find himself in a constant state of mental drainage. Even now, with metal shackles around his wrists and ankles keeping him in place, coming from seemingly nowhere, he felt nothing but exhaustion. Had long since become desensitised to the scenes.

Dream was watching him from the abyss a few feet away, the invisible barrier still stopping him from doing more than chaining him in place. The man had tried to coax reactions out of him the first couple of nights that he had done this after he had somehow managed to find a way to get through the power suppressor's properties. Had tried to taunt him, threaten him and, when that didn't work, had tried to promise him many sweet things. A new life far away from L'Manberg and Essempi, just the two of them where he'd take on the role of an older brother, just like how he was supposed to, all in hopes of some kind of reaction.

Reactions he never got.

Tommy remained quiet, stubbornly so. He knew that Dream wanted a reaction from him, wanted him to talk so that he could inevitably find out where the teen was hiding. It was subtle but for someone who had lived with the man for a couple of years, who had learned how to figure out the little switches in moods and what consequences it would bring if he was not on peak behaviour at that moment, Tommy noticed.

It seemed that Insomnia was slowly getting impatient.

The Syndicate wasn't doing their job in killing him fast enough and Dream had to get a lead on him. Smaller villains have increased their activity, but even those seemed to not have any intention of hurting him or even looking for him. Tommy knew why.

To Dream, it must've been a mystery. And that was very clearly bugging him.

Dull blue eyes of his own corpse stared back at him, the body of his doppelganger mangled in ways the human mind can hardly comprehend with Zephyrus looming over it menacingly, the black wings spread, making him appear taller and more threatening. It did nothing to Tommy (other than set off a sudden urge to offer the villain some of the things he collected which he promptly ignored).