Bittersweet (Book #1 Evening Wings Trilogy)

Chapter 5

5

I woke that night, groping about for covers, but coming across the warm sanctuary of Zaria’s long mane draped across my head.

Somehow, after everyone started to pass out, she’d ended up next to me on a fluffy pink beanbag that smelled like vanilla air freshener. I picked up a large discarded bolster and gently rolled Zaria onto it. She wiped her nose, but otherwise stayed unconscious.

I had a nightmare. It was horrible. It was horrible because I thought it was real. It felt real…and nonsensical.

I’d never had a dream so… grisly in my entire life. Sure, I’d dreamed of the Bogeyman coming to get me, or just a fake character from a horror film chasing me until I woke up. I knew in those dreams that those things were fake, just cardboard cutouts, cartoons and two-dimensional characters meant to frighten me in my dreams. Fear was a normal human trait, but I’d never felt so scared and unprotected in my life.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I was shaking. All over. I wrapped my hands around myself, rocking back and forth, anxious to make all the tremendously, insane pain that I’d felt in my nightmare, go away.

It felt like the hands were actually sinking into my skin, teeth actually plummeting into my flesh, biting me… losing a part of my spirit, to…him. I let him do that to me. It was excellent… for a moment.

I willed myself not to scream. They’d think I was crazy, psychotic even. I couldn’t tell anyone. Tears streaked noiselessly down my cheeks and I bit my lip until it bled, just so the pain would go away.

Everyone else was asleep, in awkward positions that would surely take a toll on their bodies in the morning.

I ripped the heart shaped sunglasses with the blue lenses out of my hair and dropped them beside me. A small whimper managed to escape the vise of my lips and I hoped no one had heard it.

Zaria rolled in her sleep and sat up, her breath drawing in with a long gasp, like she was fighting for air. She stared at the wall for a moment and then her eyes turned to me. Her irises were pitch-black in the dark.

“Elizabeth?” she said softly with an expression of disbelief.

Then she threw herself at me and started to cry; soft sobs against my neck.

“I can’t believe you’re still alive!” she whimpered, the hot tears fell like lava on my collarbone and she sobbed quietly, truly afraid.

“What do you mean Zaria?” I whispered softly.

“The dream… it was… I saw…” she began to sob again, and then she leaned back to look at my face. “I saw him take you… he wanted… your soul.”

As freaked as I was, I didn’t declare her crazy, because she’d seen the exact same thing I had in my nightmare. She saw him, take a part of my life away from me. I wasn’t crazy, because she’d seen it too.

“Zaria… I just had the same nightmare.” I admitted, wiping my eyes of my scared tears. “It was so…”

“Real.” We said together, shuddering at the thought.

“And it hurt… a lot.” I sniffed, touching my wrists, as if the spindly teeth were still there, still taking more of my spirit.

“I know… somehow, I wasn’t in your body… but I felt your pain.” Zaria sobbed, biting her nail. “Do you think it means anything?”

I gulped and tried to swallow the terrified lump that had suddenly manifested in my throat.

“For my sake… I really hope not.” I bit my lip.