TARGET [Tom Hiddleston Fanfiction]

Chapter 12 : Regrets

Tom was running. Running from the shadows chasing him. He didn't know how long he'd been running, but at every door he tried along the isolated corridor, he found them bolted shut, locked, and held firm against his hammering. The echoes, shouts and shadows got louder, closer, and he started running again. Faster. Harder. He kept pushing himself further, to run faster, but the noise and shadow followed. He could feel the air getting thinner around him as the corridor became longer, narrower, darker. His heart pounded in his ears. His hands slammed against the solid walls, but there were no more doors. Just the dead end. Tom spun around to turn back, to run as the noise crescendoed.  But he was trapped, by the shadow and the sudden silence. The shadow advanced closer. Smiling. Grinning. Laughing. They reached into their pocket, and pulled out his fate. Tom's body froze rigid in fear, making him stumble backwards. Until he hit it. The wall which would now become the soil for his grave. His back was against it, the pressure in the air swarming around him in the silence as he struggled to breathe. He held his hands up in desperation, words of begging and mercy escaping his lips, the voice no longer sounding like his own. The shadow did not hesitate. The shadow didn't care as it took a step forward, and pressed the cold barrel of the gun against his head. Tom looked up into the face of the shadow. And saw himself looking back before they pulled the trigger, and his life ended. 

Within a second Tom was awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, a cold sweat running down his brow as his chest heaved up and down, his racing heart pounding against his ribcage. One hand clutched at his chest, the other his forehead, shaking in panic as he tried to calm himself down. His eyes darted all around him, terrified as timed slowed and his pace calmed. He was okay. He was alive. It had only been a dream. Just a horrible dream. He released a long, thankful sigh as he rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear his head. The more he tried to remember the dream, the quicker it vanished from his memory before just a single slither of it remained, locked in scarily realistic detail. 

Steadily getting up to his feet from where he'd collapsed on his bed what felt like days ago, Tom staggered across to the en suite and quickly splashed his face with cold water to make him come back to his senses. He was glad he hadn't turned on the bathroom light, as in the sickly orange glow from the street lights outside, he saw the terrified shadow of himself staring back at him through the mirror. The dark bags under his eyes only made them appear more sunken and hollow, his skin pale and ghostlike, the water mixed with his sweat. He couldn't tear himself away from looking at his eyes, looking straight into himself, seeing that final memory engrained in them. Seeing the shadow lurking behind them. Feeling the killer slowly consuming his mind. Realising the shadow had been no illusion, but a mirror, of himself. 

"No", Tom whispered, shaking his head, trying to get rid of the imagine as he splashed another handful of freezing cold water into his face to try and clear it. It wasn't him in that dream. It was just a dream, nothing more. Snap out of it Tom, come on! Eventually after a few minutes, and several more splashes later, when Tom looked back at himself, he no longer saw the memory hiding in his eyes. In fact, the dream had all but vanished from him. Only his fear remained, rooted deep in his chest, like a solid piece of metal, hard and constricting around his beating heart. He looked like hell, and felt like it too. His curls were damp and clung to his skin and his baggy shirt and sweatpants were soaked now. To an outsider, it looked as if he'd been running a marathon and accidentally fallen in the Thames on route. No one in the real world knew what was going on behind these closed doors or inside his head. No one could see his fear, or doubts, or even his nightmares. Beyond these walls he was Tom Hiddleston, the bubbly, kind, gentleman  who's career had landed him the adoration of millions. However, inside these walls, behind the smiles, he was the lonely scared man, terrified for what was to come. 

Casting a sidewards glance out of the bedroom windows as he walked slowly back into the room, he watched the droplets of rain hit against the panes of glass, casting a scattered pattern across the floor in the fluorescent orange glow from outside. His clock on his bedside table read 3:48am, the red digits glaring at him warningly as he began to wake up and regain his senses. Like the trickles of water still running down his face, the memories of only a few hours ago began to flow back to him, sparking life back into his numbed mind. A cold shiver rushed down his spine, his breathing becoming more laboured as he leant against the door frame to try and stop himself swaying. Now the alcohol he'd had to calm his nerves before and let him sleep was making itself known again, a bitter tasting lump growing in his throat. Shakily, he tried to wipe the sweat from his brow before his stomach lurched violently, and he flung himself at the toilet just as the awful bile surged up. "Ughhhh", Tom groaned after his stomach had finished throwing up, resting his head against the toilet seat, wiping the trail of saliva from his mouth.