The End of the Dream

Chapter 6

The journey was a blur.

You ought have been paying attention; catching any details that could prove useful, making a mental map of the route, getting your bearings. But the hour was late, and your senses had been on high alert for too long. You were too burnt out to focus.

All you knew was that Dark brought you to a guest room, as he called it. A small bedroom; simple, cosy, with the basic necessities and nothing more. It was decorated in whites and soft, unremarkable greys that lacked in any real personality, more akin to a hotel room. You didn't care, as long as there was a bed.

The only time you spared was to lock the door behind you. Truth be told, you doubted a lock would do anything to stop an entity like Dark, nor any other supernatural forces that might be inclined to come after you, enraged by your escape. The act of putting a locked door between yourself and the world made you feel better, though.

You stripped out of your trousers and crawled into bed, oversized shirt serving as pyjamas for the time being. New clothes tomorrow, you made a mental note.

The thought barely had time to register; you were asleep the moment your head hit the pillow.

Your rest was deep and dreamless. For that, you were thankful. After everything you had seen, the risk of being plagued by nightmares seemed it should be high, but your mind was too exhausted to rehash any more terrors for you right then.

It also meant that you slept late. Very late. The clock on the bedside table read past midday by the time you blearily opened your eyes.

Despite the time, you didn't rush. You weren't in any hurry to go back out and face Darkiplier again. He seemed less self-involved and self-aggrandising than Mark, most certainly, but that didn't make him trustworthy. He had, after all, technically kidnapped you as well. And there was no denying he was something... eldritch. Terrifying. Inhuman. You'd only caught glimpses of it last night, but that was enough.

He may have come to be relatively pleasant towards you, on the surface, but you didn't want to get on the wrong side of his wrath.

The guest room had an ensuite attached to it, you found after some poking around. A welcome discovery.

You took your time showering, frowning at the tiles as your mind began to wander and ruminate.

There was just so much that you didn't understand. There was so much going on that didn't make sense. Not yet, at least.

You still didn't know anything about who you were. Or, rather, who you had been.

Your chest ached, an empty, aching void as though your heart had been torn clean out.

That person was dead. Everything you had ever known, had ever been. You couldn't remember any of it, but that did nothing to lessen the sheer grief.

You'd lost everything.

You'd lost yourself.

Mark had done this to you, dragging your soul out and bringing you back as some unnatural abomination. At what cost? Had he even thought about that? Did he even care? You doubted it. He just wanted you to find his stupid fucking crystal.

You slammed your fist into the tile.

A moment later, your head dropped to join it. The water from the shower cascaded down your neck and your shoulders. It trickled down your cheeks, washing away stray, silent tears.

This was it. This was your life now. You would figure it out, you'd build a new identity—you had no choice—but even so, the weight of the mourning was unbearable.