Those Who Live in the Shadows

Chapter 13

I appeared on a cliff, in the Nightmare world. Ally was standing at the edge beside Camelia, who was shaking, tied and gagged by Ally's shadows, on her knees. I saw blood dripping down her arms. The monster! I clenched my teeth. I had to stay calm and win this fight.

"So you came," started cheerfully Ally. I approached her slowly. "Did it annoy you, that I stole your plaything?" Camelia wasn't a plaything. She was my friend, even if she was human. I didn't answer her provocation and continued to come closer.

"You see, I have found something very interesting about her," continued my enemy. "She can sense us. Which means she can be hurt by us too." He lifted Camelia's chin and scratched her left cheek. Blood pearled and slowly went down her face.

"Stop this. This is about me and you, not her," I said harshly. I was now in front of the two women.

"What if I pushed her..." She let my friend go and showed the end of the cliff. "Do you think she will survive?" It was obvious that she would die.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I menaced.

"So you got... attached to that fragile, ephemeral human. When you couldn't even save him!" she screamed.

Save him? Wish was mad! I had done the right thing!

"Tonight, you pay," finished Ally.

She formed knives with her shadows and threw them on me. I dodged them and went into shadow form, claws appearing on my fingers. Ally jumped on me with two knives, and I plunged under her.

She turned back and threw a shadow-knife at me. I dodged it again, but it flew just beside Camelia's face. I had to be careful to not injure her! I was distracted momentarily by worrying for my friend and Ally leaped on me and slashed her sword. I managed to fall back at the last second and only suffered a shallow wound on my chest. It was still painful, but nothing I couldn't handle. "This fight is going nowhere," I thought as I tried to hit Ally. After a while, we separated from each other. Luckily, I was near Camelia, so she couldn't do anything to her.

"Why don't you die!" yelled Ally. "You are useless now! I wanted you to bring him back from his madness, but you killed him! It was all planed! You were supposed to save him if anything turned wrong! But you did nothing of all that! You killed him!"

I slowly understood what she wanted to tell me. And I knew what I had to do. I had to make what she was afraid of reality, like I did in human's nightmares.

"No, Ally," I said softly. "You were the cause of his death." I had to trap Ally in a nightmare. If I achieved to create what she really feared, it could work. But since she wasn't sleeping, I could only trap her in a realistic illusion created by my shadows.

So that's what I did. I trapped her in an illusion, without her noticing. She was still there, but saw what I wanted her to see. I controlled this kind of nightmare, but she could very well break it the second she realized it was one. I only had one try at this.

I formed a shadowy figure, which I modeled like Wish. Medium-heighted, nice-looking, curly black hair...It was as if he was there with us.

"You were the one who turned me crazy, Ally," I made Wish say. It wasn't really the figure that was speaking, but I made Ally believe it was. Creating nightmares what the one thing I was excellent at.

"No!" the female Nightmare screamed. "I only wanted you to get stronger!"

"And look what happened," continued the fake Wish. "I turned crazy because of it."

"It wasn't planed like that! Desire was supposed to save you if that happened!!"

"You know he did the right thing, Ally. It was already too late. Stop blaming him."

"It's...I knew it...It was my... entire fault..." whispered Ally, dropping on her knees, her shadow weapons disappearing in the darkness. And she did something I never thought would be possible. She started crying. I stared blankly at her. I had never seen a Nightmare cry, ever. Even I didn't cry when I lost Wish.

I shook my head and concentrated on my task. I could not make any mistake.

"Forget me and your revenge," I made softly say "Wish". "You have eternity to find someone else."

"I'm so sorry..." murmured Ally, still crying. Her crystal-like tears were rolling down her cheeks, falling on the rocks.

"Good bye," The fake Wish lastly replied. I ended the illusion, resulting in the disappearance of "Wish". Ally was on her knees, face down. I had done it. I finally knew what happened to Wish to make him go mad, and at the same time I had stopped Ally forever.

She had always pushed away the truth: she had convinced Wish to face his deepest fear, which would normally result in him becoming stronger than ever. But he wasn't strong enough, and was so traumatized that he went crazy. Then I had killed him, and Ally, who refused to see she was the cause of Wish's death, decided that I was responsible.

And tonight, I had confronted her to the truth she kept hidden. She couldn't run away anymore. Finally, she accepted it.

I sighed of relief and went quickly to Camelia's side. If I hadn't guessed what had happened between Ally and Wish, I don't know if we would have survived Ally's attack.

I crouched down beside Camelia. The shadows holding her had disappeared, but she hadn't moved. I gently took one of her arms, a long deep wound on it. It had stopped bleeding, but it was pretty nasty.

"Please, tell me you are all right," I worriedly asked Camelia.

"You came..." she softly said. "You came for me..."

"Of course," I answered, still worried. She closed her eyes and touched my face. She went closer to me and... kissed me. And I kissed her back.

We let go of each other's lips when we were out of breath. It had been... incredible. I was feeling something new. Something that couldn't be explained.

We didn't need to talk after the kiss. We could understand each other without words.

I kissed Camelia on her cheek, took her in my arms, and slowly carried her away, in direction of a portal.

"Let's go home," I told her. She nodded, smiling, in my arms. I smiled back. The dust and dried blood on her face only made her more beautiful.

That night, I learned a lot of things.

Nightmares could fear.

Nightmares could cry.

Nightmares could love.