Beautiful Dreamer

Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

I didn't dare turn around.

The auburn-haired boy, the handsome demon with midnight eyes, was mere inches behind me, so close that his frosty breath brushed against my neck. His grin was cruel and sharp—like everything else about him—and the sight of it rooted me to my place in fear.

Yet it was not only my immobility that stopped me from turning. When I stood and stared at him in the mirror, I could still entertain the notion that he was not real, that he was yet another subconscious imagining. A figure in a looking glass.

Except that he was wasn't. There was another layer of reality about him, more than even Logan's projection had had. He was solid and fixed, and I was certain that if I held my ragged breaths, I'd be able to hear his mind crowding into mine.

This, certainly, was a dream.

He wasn't.

Parker, you need to stay calm. Laury's voice resumed suddenly in my head, louder now. Don't look at him.

“Can you see?” I breathed, not taking my eyes off the boy. As long as I watched him, I was paralyzed, but if I had stopped, he would have been out of my sight. I preferred stillness to being blindsided.

“Laury?” I murmured, when she didn't reply right away.

Yes, I can.

The monster cocked his head, still smirking.

“The boy,” I whispered. “Dream, or real?”

Laury hesitated for a moment, that beat of silence giving away her answer before she even spoke it.

Real.

I let out a long, long breath and pressed my palms against my thighs. The boy's eyes wanted to swallow me whole.

He's not stopping you, Parker, Laury said quietly. He's just watching. He isn't doing anything, even though he could do plenty. He could kill you in this dream, really kill you, and you'd never wake up. But he isn't.

“Thanks for the reassurance,” I said, keeping my voice sharp to counteract the fear that was coursing through me. As terrifying as this was, Laury was right: the boy wasn't doing anything. He was simply standing there, albeit far too close, and watching me. If he was aiming to cause any damage, he would have done so by now. But he was as motionless as me.

This changes nothing, the medium said forcefully, her voice bouncing around in my skull. You still need to get rid of that mirror.

I took a deep breath and squinted at the mirror; it's gilded edges seemed to be flaking paint even as I watched. For a split second, I took my eyes off the young man behind me, and focused entirely on my own reflection. It wasn't Rosemary anymore: it was me. Stringy brown hair, big eyes, smeared eye makeup and fading red lipstick. Disheveled, maybe, but it was still me. And looking into the eyes of my reflection, I felt a boost of sudden confidence, a steady conviction that I could do this, monsters or not.

I blinked slowly, looked up, and much to my surprise, it seemed that demon-boy was getting out of my way. With slow steps, he was retreating, his hands clasped behind his back and a knowing smile still ghosting upon his lips. I turned around without thinking—but in those few moments that he was out of sight, the boy disappeared. There was nothing left but the mere whisper of his presence, and even that was beginning to melt into the blurring forest.

Parker, you need to hurry, Laury urged. You're starting to lose control.

I didn't even realize it, but Laury was right. The scene around me was shifting and tunneling, becoming more like a normal dream. As I became of aware of it, the changes became more drastic: people began to appear around me, speaking in loud voices, the sound of it vibrating and shuddering. I began to feel myself separating from the dream; my brain was beginning its transition back into reality.

Parker!

I didn't trust myself to respond. Every movement was a risk, and to call back would pull me back up too quickly. Instead, focusing, grounding myself, I turned back to face the mirror. My reflection had disappeared, as had any other reflection, and the mirror was clouded with a dusty blackness. I ignored this, instead gritting my teeth and kneeling on the floor, focusing my energy into materializing a rock on the forest floor. It appeared in my hand, and I imagined that I had enough strength to pick it up, to carry it, to drag it a few feet back.

The people still swirled around me, nothing more than a blur of colors that might have been human figures. I wasn't even sure if I was still in the forest; it was hard to be sure. It was as if I'd spun around and around until I could no longer stand, and now the world was tilting off its axis and threatening to dump me to the ground.

I was waking up.

But not yet; I had one last thing to do.

With a fluid motion that could only be accomplished in a dream, I hefted the stone above my head and brought it down upon the face of the mirror. My movements were governed by another, my consciousness already vacating my dream body.

I watched the mirror shake. Shatter. Shards of glass scattered, some of them slicing my skin. I felt nothing. I stood there as, in near slow motion, the looking glass came tumbling down. Destroyed. Gone. And I thought I caught something out of the corner of my eye; nothing more than a darting shadow, really, and a breath of icy breeze. I tried to turn my head, but my movements were too sluggish now. Everything was fading back. The last thing I felt was a cool fingertip, tracing gently down my cheek.

I shivered.

I woke up.

My eyes opened slowly, as if they were being carefully pried apart. I saw Laury straightaway, then my mother, then Aubrey, but the sunlight from the window made their faces hazy. My stomach was churning. My body was drenched in cold sweat.

I didn't feel fixed. I just felt sick.

Distantly, I heard Laury's command to give me space; my ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. My senses, still dull, were gradually returning. The sensation of ice against my face lingered. I raised a hand to my cheek as I sat up, trying to blink myself back. Everything felt muffled. Against Laury's command, my mother dived forward and embraced me.

“Thank God,” she breathed. “It's over.”

I saw Laury sigh in relief, and Aubrey crack a smile. The chain around my neck broke and crumbled into my lap: the mirror in the charm had disappeared. Gone as well, like its twin in my dream. My mother's relief was glaring and tearful, and she kept repeating that last word. Over over over over.

Funny thing, though. It didn't feel like it was over.

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Dedicated to Elizabeth028 because she complimented my description and that makes me happy.

A/N: This chapter is painfully short. It's on purpose. It's kind of homeless; too long to tack onto the last chapter, too irrelevant to put into the following chapter. So it's just kind of floating around here. Sorry about the length... the next one will be longer :).