TRISH

I had been having trouble sleeping lately. My head had not been cooperating well throughout my surgery. Neither had my muscles. It's alright. I just had to endure and recover. However, there was another thing that disturbed me. More than my post-surgery pain. The nightmare.

When I first experienced it, I thought my nerves were recalling the noises that the surgery tools made, but no. It was not a buzzing sound of a tool. It was a scream. It was not the loudest but it was truly the most painful scream that I had ever heard.

The next night, I heard the scream again, clearly this time and as painfully as it was on the first. It was a woman's. 

"Save me!" she pleaded. 

There was another word that followed her plead. A name. But it was almost dramatic that I could never comprehend the name, as if I shouldn't know, that part was always some sort of an eerie mumble.

The nightmare continued even after my pain had gone down. It was the same scream, same plead, same eerie mumbling over and over again. It frustrated me so much that I asked the nurse if I could get a side medication for my "excessive work" of the brain. They gave me something by the name of Prazosin and it did help me with the nightmares. But it didn't last long. About three to four night afterwards, the screaming came back again.

"You know you need to sleep for a better recovery" said Elaine, the nurse, as she unwrapped the white bandages. She carefully pulled it down my jaw and away from my right temple. I liked it when she was the one to take off my bandages. Her hands were delicate. They pulled with the right pressure to take it away without pulling on my skin too hard.

"I know that. But I told you, I have been having..."

"Nightmares." The two of us said together.

Yes. Elaine had been the only person I could tell about my nightmares. In fact, she had always been the one to attend to me ever since I got here for my surgery. She gave me the support that I needed. Not many people were as supportive as she was when it came to a person like me. Weak and pitiful.

She nodded in understanding and put away the bandages to her cart. "It is caused by the trauma," she stood up from her chair before giving me a concerned look, "I will keep updating Doctor Conaway about you. See where you need to go after this. Okay, Trish?"

I flinched. "Beatrice, please."

"I'm sorry," she pressed her lips, "Beatrice, it will be alright."

"I know, Elaine. Thank you." I tried to flash a smile but the sides of my lips still hurt, my skin was still slightly black and blue there; I ended up with just a movement.

Elaine patted my shoulder before moving her hand to her cart. She smiled at me before finally pushing the cart out of my room and disappeared along with it.

I swung my legs carefully off of my bed and put them down on the floor. Cold. I took a deep breath before pushing myself up, wobbly standing up. It wasn't hard but it wasn't easy either. My balance was still weak but already strong enough to take me to the mirror across my bed.

Oh, God. I looked shitty. But pretty. But still, shitty.

I didn't want to look too closely at my face. Not even for too long, in fact. However, I could still see myself clear enough to make sense of my messy blonde hair. It had grown longer than the last time I remembered. It is now slightly over my shoulder. I traced along the length of my hair from the tip up to the root when I caught my own eyes. Blue.. and green. My twin brother always thought these colors were so beautiful and he envied them. I still remembered his eyes. They were both blue. Pretty, but not astonishing like mine.

I touched the bulge on my right eye with the tip on my finger. I snickered. The surgery scars were still somewhat visible, but Doctor Conaway said they'd be gone in a few weeks. I could not wait to have my face back to perfection. But for now, my eyes had to look tired – they were tired. And for no reason I could think of, they looked sad. I looked almost like grieving. I squeezed my eyes for a while as I rubbed on my forehead. The swelling had gone. It didn't hurt anymore there. But there's pain somewhere deeper. Dammit. I need some sleep.

I pressed my lips together as I turned away from the mirror.

"Tristan!" 

It's the voice again! On a broad daylight. Calling out a name clearly this name.

Was that the name under the mumbling sound? Tristan?

Wait... I think I knew that name.

I did.

"Argh!" A sharp pain dived into my head. I stumbled across the room to a drawer near the window and supported myself on its edge.

"Save me! Tristan! Please... Save me..."

I could hear her loud and clear now. It didn't sound like a voice inside my head anymore. It was real. I could feel it in my throat. The words were crawling desperately out of my mouth.

I could see her.

She was lying face down on the ground in the woods. Her hair was dyed in a mixture of many colors. Dirty, I thought. Wait... No. She was a blonde underneath all that. It was the soil of the ground beneath her and red from her blood, tainting the beautiful golden color of her head.

Her arm stretched out with the most power she had left. It was trembling. It was desperate. "Trish..." I flinched to that name – my nickname. "Tristan..." she called out one more time, fully.

The woods were quiet, I remembered. It was far from civilization. My God, she sobbed so loudly.

Her back shifted up and down. Her last breath, I had hoped. She turned her head to me and asked "Why?" Her eyes were filled with tears. The blue and the green color glistened in fear and devastation. Her eyes were tired. Exactly like how they were when I looked into the mirror.

I could feel myself stepping back. Looking down, my hands were covered in blood. My twin sister's blood. My breathing became rapid and heavy as I made my way to her body and swung my final blow onto her head. "I'm sorry, Beatrice", I said.

I gasped, back into my hospital room. My heart felt like it had stopped beating. Somehow I felt angry and disgusted. With my trembling hands, I flung open the drawer cabinet and took out a photo frame. There was me and my twin brother, Tristan whom I was not supposed to remember anymore.

"You're dead. Tristan, you're dead. YOU ARE DEAD!!" I wailed, crying my lungs out. My face felt as if it was going to rip apart – maybe the stitches around my lips did. But I didn't care. Right now I was enraged and disappointed. I needed to destroy him, making sure he would never come back. With a swing, the frame shattered into pieces the moment it hit the floor.

"YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD!"

I didn't want to remember him.

What he did.

He is dead. He had to be.

"Trish!" Elaine rushed into the room. She grabbed both of my arms before I could reach for the glass piece. More of attendants came into my room. They lifted me to my bed, two of them held onto each of my legs. Elaine's grip on my arms was still on and strong as the other attendant prepared a sedative for me. He lifted my sleeve and pushed the tip of the syringe into my skin. Slowly, everything started to fade away. Slowly, I heard Elaine whispered the name I once knew into my ear.

"It will be okay, Tristan. It will be okay."

A. D.