The Tales Of Crowboy The Incredible: Of Ink and Power

Chapter Twenty Six

"FUCK!" I yelled, and jolted awake. I took a huge breath, and let my lungs settle down. My heart wasn't racing, and I wasn't crying. It was in fact just a dream. That was good. The room had light, and I could see the features of the room. This was all good. I looked at the clock. It was 3:01 A.M. Damn. Who would have thought? Is that so cool?

"Penguin, are you okay?" Caitlin asked quietly, and sat up, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. She turned the light on and rubbed her eyes. Everything Caitlin did was quiet. Quiet and gentle, until she got angry. Or when she laughed. Caitlin was one of my favorite people. "Just so you know, Owen put a charm on my room that I can turn on and off, so Mom and Dad can't hear you right now."

"I.... I don't even want to know why Owen of all people put a charm on your room. But you know what, I'm not going to think about that." I replied. Caitlin just rolled her eyes. And then she laughed. I laughed too. Being able to see sounds again was good. Especially sounds like laughter. Happy sounds. "I.... had a nightmare."

"I thought you had stopped having those a while ago." I used to have.... really bad nightmares. Most of it was trauma. They stopped when I got the chip implanted and adjusted. "It wasn't like that though. This was different."

"How different? Like, genuine weird nightmare creepy clowns different? Or Alt world Celestial stuff nightmare?" Caitlin was a normal human, but she was going to start developing was a Arachlet. She opted not to, and Owen was in charge of safely taking away her magic. Caitlin was also a healer, which was rare, and he thought it might come in handy. Now, she just takes medication so that her magic doesn't start to develop again. She's only healed me once, or at least healed me while I knew she was healing me once. It was soft and peaceful and sunshine, but if our magic mimicked any bit of our personality, then Caitlin probably would have had a second magic. And it would have been something deadly.

I took a breath. "I think it has to do with the shield I got today. And I think it malfunctiond. Or something like that." Caitlin looked at me, and the reached for her phone.

"I think I should tell Ow-" She started, but I cut her off.

"NO!" I said, and tried to grab her phone with my telekenisis as I reached my hand out. It started to float, but Caitlin smacked it down out of the air. "Please, just listen for a sec. I might even be wrong."

"Penguin, this could be really bad. Owen said to check up on you and make sure if anything happened I would tell him if anything did happen...." She trailed off, her eyes unfocusing, until she stared at me again. "I'm not sure if you have the right judgement right now, anyway." I wanted to roll my eyes and groan, but I maintained my expression to be netural. Why does Owen have to always fucking be a fucking wing Yoda?! GOD FUCKING HELL!

"Something might not even be happening. It's just a dream. It was dumb that I brought up the shield. I promise, everythings fine. Can you just listen to me as if I had just told you it was a dream?" She seemed wary, until she begrudgingly nodded. I let out a tiny sigh of relief. I didn't even notice I was holding my breath. Huh.

I explained to her what had happened in the strange dream, my hands gesturing to try to emphasis how it felt. For a second, I thought I felt tears stinging my eyes. But that was just my brain tricking me, how it did before. I was safe. Caitlin was here. Caitlin just nodded, her eyes not straying from mine, and she seemed very much engaged in what I was saying, which felt a little bit unsettling. When I was done, she just stared.

"So.... yeah?" I said, my voice going up and octaive higher. "That was what happened?" I held my breath again, waiting for her to say something. She grabbed her water, and took a sip.

"I don't know." She said, and I smashed my head against my pillow. "I'M SORRY! I WISH I COULD HELP BUT I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

"WELL DON'T TELL OWEN!!" I yelled back. I rubbd my temples and tried to soften my words. "I'm sorry I yelled and reacted like that. But I think that telling Owen is just going to make this into a bigger thing than it has to be. Because this might not even be anything. It's probably just a creepy dream, you know?"

"Fine. But please, Penguin, if someting else happens, tell Owen. I'm not going to be a secret keeper between you and him. And he won't be mad, even if it is something little. He's your guardian, and more than that, he's your friend." Ugh, Caitlin hitting me where it hurt. I had filled her in on how I didn't really like Owen anymore, and she acted kind of apathetic, which stressed me out a little. I wonder if she told him I liked him. I don't think so. But it had crossed my mind a little bit. "Promise me you'll say something to either him or me if it happens again?"

"Fine. I promise." I replied, and then cringed. That sounded a lot more mean and agressive when I said it out loud. "I'm just sick of telling everyone every little thing and then turns out somethings wrong again."

"Yeah, I get it. Just go to bed, alright. It'll make you feel better. Goodnight, Penguin!" Caitlin said, and turned the light back off. She rolled back into the covers, and in a few minutes, continued to peaceful snore, sweet dreams filling her head and rocking her from side to side, like a mother rocking her child in a cradle.

I stared at the ceiling. Yeah, no. Fuck that. I'm not going to fucking sleep tonight, I guess. LOL!

Let's recount how I fucked up this week, because that's so much fucking fun. Well, the big one was the thing with Eddie and Matthew and Jake, because I was caught in a lie. And then it was ghosting Matthew and Jake. And then I guess it was being not very cooperative with Owen? And then the Court. Eh, this wasn't productive. Time to move to my phone.

In case you were wondering, I'm an avid user of light-mode on messages. It burns my eyes at night, but normally I'll have my display light on pretty low, so it's all chill. I opened my messages, promptly closed message, re-opened messages, and then stared at all the un-read texts from varioius people. Van was one of them. The Van-Madeline-Ginger-Hayes group chat was kind of dead. Ugh, I missed them. But I didn't have the energy to text them. Matthew and Jacob had stopped trying to text me a while ago. I think they realized I was lying. It was my fault, yeah, but I mean, I still dread that conversation.

The rest of my messages were just from randoms that I didn't talk to dalily. I was about to close messages again, but I got a notification that made me turn it back on. It was Mama. Holding Lennon in a great big bear hug, with a wide smile that touched both of her ears. Lennon looked happy too, but Mama was the one who caught my eye. She looked like she hadn't been diagnosed. She looked like she wasn't a shell anymore, and inside of her had filled up again with emotion and love and all of those wonderful things. I started to text, but then realized she would probably be angry at me if she knew I was on my phone. I would have to do it in the morining.

Mama had been texting me, asking how I was doing and if Caitlin was being nice and what I as eating. Things like that. Mama didn't like Caitlin and her family very much, but accepted that I loved them. Mama was a little more stressed lately, because Papa was coming into town for the first time in like three months. And when Mama got stressed, she was sleeping more. And when she slept more, she got even more stressed and tried to overwork herself. It was a sad cycle.

Alright. Nighttime. Phone off. And NO MORE music, because what if the dream happened again. I wasn't going to do that. I took a breath. It was only a dream. And I was stronger than that. I closed my eyes, and focused. I could fight whatever was in my dreams. I could do it. I could live.