READY OR NOT - Landoscar

13 - What Do You Want From me?

Lando sat alone in his room, the dim glow of his bedside lamp casting long, ghostly shadows across the walls. The silence felt unnervingly heavy, thick with the memory of the dreams that had filled his nights over the past few weeks. He rubbed his face, eyes gritty with exhaustion; even his waking moments seemed tainted by the image of Oscar—the way he looked at him, the unspoken depths in his gaze. It was all starting to feel like too much, like he was slipping away from reality, caught in some timeless current that pulled him deeper each night.

He pushed back from his desk, pacing across the room in an attempt to shake off the lingering weight of the last dream. Each step echoed in the small space, a restless rhythm of questions circling endlessly in his mind. "What do you want from me, Oscar?" he murmured to the empty room, his voice barely more than a whisper. Saying the name out loud felt strange, like calling on a ghost, but he couldn't stop himself.

Oscar haunted him now, not only in his dreams but in his waking thoughts as well. A constant presence that lingered at the edges of his mind, just out of reach yet impossible to ignore. And it wasn't just the memory of Oscar's face or the fragments of his past that fascinated him—it was something deeper, something that gnawed at his insides, urging him closer to a truth he wasn't sure he was ready to face.

Every night, he slipped further into Oscar's world, feeling the pull like a thread tugging at his heart, unravelling him little by little. He knew he should be terrified—should feel anything but the quiet thrill that was building beneath the surface. But instead, the fear was mingled with something else, something darker and more intoxicating. He wanted to understand Oscar, to uncover the mystery of who he was and why he lingered in the shadows, waiting.

Lando ran a hand through his hair, feeling the tangled mess beneath his fingers, as if his thoughts were woven into the very strands. He found himself staring at the mirror, his own eyes staring back, searching. There was something different in his gaze now, a hint of obsession that hadn't been there before. He knew it, felt it like a creeping chill in his veins.

"Am I losing myself?" he whispered to his reflection. The question hung there, unanswered, echoing in the quiet room. He remembered how his friends had laughed off his talk of nightmares, dismissing them as nothing more than stress or exhaustion. But they hadn't seen Oscar, hadn't felt the sheer intensity of those dreams that seemed to pull him into another life entirely.

The ticking of the clock on his wall filled the silence, a steady beat that seemed to grow louder as he stared into the mirror. He turned away, unable to face the person looking back at him—a version of himself he hardly recognised. The boundary between his world and Oscar's was blurring, and with it, so was his sense of control. He was standing on the edge of something vast, something ancient, and he felt as if one wrong step would plunge him into darkness.

He sank onto his bed, letting his head fall back against the pillows as he closed his eyes. The darkness behind his eyelids was filled with the remnants of Oscar's presence—the intense caramel-brown eyes, the faint, haunted smile, the way he looked at him with a mixture of pain and something else that Lando couldn't name. It was as if Oscar saw something in him, something he himself hadn't yet discovered.

His breathing slowed, and his mind drifted, the darkness settling around him like a weight. And then, unbidden, a memory from the last dream surfaced—Oscar's voice, low and soft, filled with a pain that resonated deep within Lando. "I wasn't always alone," he had said, his words barely more than a whisper. "I was once... someone."

The memory sent a shiver down Lando's spine. Who had Oscar been, before the world had turned him into this shadowed figure, this fragmented soul haunting the edges of his dreams? And why was Lando the one being drawn into his story?

The room was cold, the silence thickening, and Lando realised with a jolt that he was trembling. Was it fear or excitement? He couldn't tell anymore, and that terrified him. He felt as though he was standing at the mouth of a cave, one foot inside, beckoned by the mysteries lurking in the depths but aware of the dangers. Yet, he knew he would step forward, would plunge deeper and deeper until he found what he was looking for—whatever it was.

"What do you want from me?" he asked again, this time with a mix of frustration and yearning. But the silence swallowed his question, offering no answers, leaving him only with the thudding of his own heartbeat in the empty room.

As he lay there, the pull of sleep began to creep over him, heavy and inescapable. And as his eyes began to close, he felt the weight of Oscar's gaze on him, as if the man were waiting, watching, calling him back to the forest where secrets lingered in shadows and whispers. In that moment, Lando knew that he would return—tonight, tomorrow, and every night after that. He was bound to Oscar now, bound by a force that went beyond reason or explanation, a connection that felt as old as the stars.

With a final sigh, he let himself drift, surrendering to the dreams, the world slipping away until there was only darkness, and in that darkness, a path back to Oscar, waiting just beyond the veil.