Horse Ridin' (Motionless In White)

Chapter 26: The Comeback

Written: 10/19/16

Notes: ITS 3 AM AND I'M WRITING HI

Note pt 2: let's not comment on how the snake and the rats are kept in the same room, k? It was 3 am when I wrote that part. I wasn't really thinking. Ignore pls

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"You can't hide forever!"

Rosaline woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed as she tried to catch her breath. She had just woken up from a nightmare- more like a memory to be exact. One of her least favorites from her childhood for many reasons.

Sirenia, who Rosaline had no idea had come in at some point, woke up and put a hand on her sister's back. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah- just a bad dream." Rosaline mumbled, wiping the tears from her eyes subconsciously. "Go back to sleep, I'll be fine."

"You sure?" Sirenia asked, watching her sister as she nodded again. "Because you just woke up like Freddy Kruger was trying to stab you in your dreams. What happened?"

She shrugged noncommittally, the memories from her nightmare flashing through her mind again. "I'll be fine. I just need to sleep more."

Sirenia seemed to give in then, bedding back down and pulling the comforter tightly around herself. She reached a hand out from under the comforters and placed it on her little sister's arm, rubbing it reassuringly. "Do you want me to stay up till you fall back asleep?"

Rosaline felt like she was a little kid again. "If you don't mind," She blushed, burying her nose in her pillow. "You don't have to."

"Of course I do. I'm your sister- it's my job." Sirenia reminded her, earning a deeper blush from Rosaline. "Don't worry about it, Ro. I'll survive staying awake for a while."

The older girl continued to rub Rosaline's arm and back as she laid down, doing her best to try and get comfortable as quickly as possible. She didn't want to keep Sirenia up any longer then she had to.

She'd always felt bad about still having nightmares like this. Sirenia had them too, but Rosaline still constantly chastised herself for letting the old memories of their parents haunt her. She wanted to be the older sister to Sirenia now. She wanted to repay her for protecting and comforting Rosaline for so long, but in order to do that she needed to get over her own fears first.

Some had been easier to learn to handle then others. Her fear of drowning had been simple- don't go near the pool out back and stay away from lakes and shit like that. Her fear of the dark had gone away as she aged- she'd even grown to seek comfort in darkness. It hid everything and anything else that scared her, covering her in a blanket of unseeing and unknowing. Even her fear of being separated from Sirenia was fairly easy to manage- they barely separated anyways so it wasn't often that she had to face being away from her sister.

But she couldn't control her dreams. There was no foreseeable way to stop her nightmares- they just kept coming. No matter what she did she still had them. And they were only made worse by her attempts at lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming, if you're not familiar, is a sort of dream where you're aware that its a dream and have some level of control over what happens. Some people use lucid dreaming to combat their nightmares, yet for Rosaline it only seemed to have made it worse. Things seemed more real, she felt pain as if she were really awake and would quickly lose control of her dream as it turned into a nightmare. And every single time, like clockwork, she'd lose control.

Sirenia wasn't doing too much better with her nightmares, for that matter. She often suffered sleep paralysis, leaving her unable to move when she woke up from especially horrifying nightmares. She still had terrible nightmares fairly often about their parents- everything from reliving the old terrors to seeing new ones her mind creates. She'd see everything from her parents coming back to hurt them again, taking Rosaline away or sometimes even killing her little sister- it was all terrifying to the girl. How could it not be? Their parents had left over 10 years ago yet the girls were still suffering the aftereffects of being abused.