A girl, A boy, and a graveyard

The scream

Lockwood POV
998 Words

🎵To all the days we were together
To all the times we were a part
Of each other's lives
Heart to heart🎵
-Heart to heart by Mac DeMarco

The rest of our days at Albury Castle wasn't actually the torture we thought it would be. And by the end the first two days were over, mostly all the press had cleared off by then and Barnes gave us the go-ahead to get on the train and leave. Our train journey back home was quite early. We got up, our bags already packed and ready. Danny Skinners dad made us one of the best scrambled eggs I've ever eaten (No offence George). And we took a taxi to the station. We didn't really need to but no one wanted to walk with their bags. By the time we got back to Portland Row, unpacked and showered, it was dinner time.

After everything that happened, with me and Lucy, with the whole Creeping Shadow case and the Institute, I thought it would all be back to normal. We had dinner, tea and donuts. Everyone went to bed, and I truly believed I would fall asleep. But i laid there in my bed, sweating. When we were under surveillance at Albury Castle, I had experienced the same nightmares. I thought it was just because I was far away from home, and was still processing what had happened on the other side

All i could think about was the other side. How bitterly cold it was, how it ripped at my skin. I looked down at my fingers, where Holly had put plasters around the cuts on my fingers from the brambles. After all the fighting at the Rotwell Institute stopped, and we all sat on the grass together, watching the building burn and waiting for help, i looked down and my hands were bleeding from little cuts all over.

I turned on my side, stared out the window. My curtains were drawn but green light still streamed in from the ghost-lamps outside the house. I sighed and closed my eyes. Just sleep, you will feel better in the morning. But every time i closed my eyes i saw those shadows following us. I don't know how i fell asleep but it was a mistake.
I woke up with a start, i had heard a blood curtailing scream. It was Lucy. I jumped up out of bed and opened my door, not bothering to put a shirt or my bathrobe on. I climbed the stairs up to her attic room three at a time. When i opened her door though, all was quiet. She was asleep. Her room was dark apart from the hideous skull in the jar, which had floated it's grotesque face towards me.

It mouthed something i could not hear. But it didn't matter, i looked at Lucy. She was sleeping peacefully, drool on her pillow, her almond colour hair in her face. She hugged onto a pillow. Oh how i wished i was that pillow. The skull mouthed something else. Lucy stirred. "Are you trying to wake her??" I hissed at the skull, stepping up onto the wooden floor of her room. The face sneered at me and mouthed something. I shook my head. I rolled my eyes and looked at Lucy, who had rolled slightly onto her back. Her hair was in her face her arm lazily draped over a blue pillow.

She was okay, i must have just dreamt her screaming. She was here, she was alive. I made my way back downstairs and closed the door. I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so I went downstairs instead to the kitchen and made some tea.  The scream sounded so real, it sounded exactly like when we were in the other side, and she had gotten stuck in the brambles. And I thought she had died. Shaking, I took a mug down from the cabinets and popped a tea bag in it, waiting for the kettle to boil.

I heard steps on the stairs. They were quiet, or attempting to be. It was Lucy. I smiled and took out a slice of bread, popping it in the toaster. The door opened.
"Oh. Lockwood. Hey." She whispered.
"Hey. Couldn't sleep?" I turned round. 
She shook her head and walked to the bread bin.
"I'm already making you some, sit down." She looked and me and smiled, there were tears in her eyes.
"Hey what's wrong?" I cupped her face. She pressed her face into my chest and gripped my back.

"I thought you were dead," She muttered, "I- I had this dream- Lockwood." She sobbed, "This awful dream."
"Well, Luce, it was just a dream. Just a dream." I held her, resting my head on her's. Her hair smelt like strawberries. The shampoo she uses.
"I know but it felt so," Her voice shook with feeling, she shakily pulled away from me and stared up at me with tear-filled eyes, "So real."
"..I understand that, I had a dream too."
"You did?" The toast sprang out of the toaster, I walked to it and pulled it out of the toaster. Then went and grabbed the butter and jam out from the fridge.

"Yeah.." I frowned down at the toast I was now buttering.
"What was it about?" Lucy stood there watching me.
"Well, it was what happened when we were running away from those shadows on the other side. And you had got your cape torn on that bush, just like you did in real life. Except in my dream, I had been too slow, and you had died. Your body was cold and it hurt to touch you, I couldn't even touch you. I was helpless. And all I remembered was that scream. The scream you let out. That's what woke me from the dream, it was so loud I thought you had actually-" I didn't get to finish as she wrapped her arms around me from behind.

"I'm here Lockwood, I'm right here."

A/N: Thought I'd upload a second chapter to make up for not posting