Lost In Time

Happy New Year

I had the same dream I had been having every single night since Dim left. It never changed. I appeared on the doorstep of the same darkly lit mansion, the same one from the trials all so long ago. I walk down the same hallway, entering the study where I fought the twins, but it's almost dark. The only light is a smartphone that hasn't been turned off sitting on a table, but it doesn't provide near enough light to show the two people in the room. I walk silently inside the study, and watch as Narkus picks his phone up, and turns off the screen, bathing the room in complete darkness. The doors close behind me, the magic of the house doing its work.

"How is he?" Narkus always asks, extremely polite. I had never seen him this way before, almost like he was...afraid.

The unknown stranger speaks, his accent heavy, but I can never place it. "The infusions seem to be doing well. He may yet survive and move on to the transformation. But first the bond must be made."

Narkus nods, speaking once more, but the room spins, and I fall, into another dream, or a memory, and it's the only time I see Dim. In my dreams. I approach him now, pain squeezing my heart at his tormented face as he kneels on the dark, swirling floor. I can never see anything clearly, dark magic and a deep fog keeping me from discerning anything of his surroundings, nothing that I can use to find him. The only thing clear here is Dim. Wearing his usual attire of a black t shirt and dark jeans, muscles taunt with pain, his fists clenched like stone. I can never do anything, I am just forced to stay here, screaming, shaking, waving, anything to see if this time will be anything different. No. It's not. I wonder why I even try anymore. The dream repeats itself, over and over, and it's slowing driving me insane.

I woke up, covered in sweat, heart beating rapidly. I ran my hand through my bed hair as my other hand shut up my alarm. I have to use one now, otherwise the dreams will keep me trapped until someone wakes me, and that's usually Clover or Blake. Ever since Dim left, they had found excuses and reasons to hang out with me, following me to school, abandoning their studies to help me with mine. Every time I asked about Dim, they refused to answer. They knew something but wouldn't tell me. Now, I just accepted it. But when finals week came around, I forced them to focus on their studies, and amazingly, we all passed with As, except for Dim. He wasn't here, how could he attend his finals? They clearly weren't important to him, if he wasn't here.

Every day I checked my phone, only to crumble a little more. Nothing. No emails, no letters, no texts or calls. Nothing. For the first week or two I tried not to hover, to obsess over it, but I forced myself to face my feelings. Even though we hadn't even kissed yet, there was something there. A crush. I had a crush on him. If I was being fanciful, I would like to think he has one on me too. Or had, otherwise wouldn't he have called?

I ignored the voice, rolling out of bed, checking my phone once again. Again, nothing. Today was the last day of the year, tomorrow it would be January of 2016. You would think he could send a text or something. I sighed, heading to the shower. I knew I was being petty. I had no idea what was going on, and that's what was bugging me, mostly.

Even with me obsessing over Dim's unexpected departure, December had passed me by in a blur. So much to do, so little time to do it. Work was a little more chaos as usual, and that meant more paperwork, headaches, and Advil. As the holidays approached, the families were over more, and the tension from them almost choking me to death hadn't gone away, not by a long shot. I never have been more thankful to be busy, and away from the dorm, and my own mind. I still had too many problems to fix. Samantha. She was around a lot now, often wanting to play, or more disturbingly, following her big sister and brother around. The best I had done to repairing Vivian's and Charlotte's friendship was to get them to stonily ignore each other, on opposite sides of the room, and only when there was a large crowd between them. In other words, nowhere. Neither would talk to me, not for lack of trying, but all I got was cursed at. I did a discreet search into the demons who had appeared Halloween night, only to get nowhere. No one was claiming them, so whoever their Master was, he was being careful. It was only a matter of a time before they came after me though, and I only hoped they would leave the coven and my family out of it, when the time finally came. Dracula had been mysteriously silent since that night, and when I tried to track him down, thinking he might know something about Dim, I got nowhere. That was sincerely disappointing, because a large part of me was hoping that I could bargain for my father's necklace. I didn't regret my decision, not at all, just wished I could have had both. I had been wracking my brains, trying to figure out that contract memory, but without Dracula, I was getting nowhere. A heck of a lot of thinking and work for not much reward.