Her

Part Sixteen

Finally falling asleep after blushing profusely, I drift through reality and imagination. My dreams are hitting my soul and brain with such a pressure that I believe they are real, and I can feel myself panicking in my sleep. Eventually, the dream fades into a new one and I cuddle back into the cozy and familiar drowsiness, sleeping in the crook of Maddy's arm. 

At some point in the dark stillness of the night, I feel a sharp burning pain in the back of my shoulder and stomach. It feels like someone flamed a metal rod in fire, then plunged it into my flesh. I moan in my sleep, trying to wake up and get Maddox up, too. I feel him shift next to me, awake at my movement. This dream feels so vivid; I need to wake up now.

"Rean? What's wrong?" I hear him ask, but I can't answer. I just keep having the nightmare about the guy who stabs me. Finally, my brain wills itself to wake up. 

Maddy repeats himself, and I manage to say: "I don't know Maddy it just hurts." I groan again, holding the spot above my hip bone but slightly to the right.

"Where, sweetheart?" His eyes gleam in the darkness, and I can see the concern in them, and practically feel it radiating off of him. He is trying to keep light of the situation but I feel the tension. I lift up my shirt a little to the spot it hurts and look at it; a gasp escapes my lips.

The scar is bleeding. At least it looks like it is. When I touch it, my hand moves straight through it as though it isn't there. What the heck?! I feel the panic inside me awaken yet again. I feel strange, like that weird drop-thingy that your stomach does when you are scared.

"Maddy." I whisper, my voice shaking. "I don't know what is happening." I keep running my hand through the blood like a child would, not believing my own eyes.

"What are you talking about?" He shifts slightly away from me, which freaks me out even more.

"Maddy? Help me." My voice is just a rasp. The room feels as though it is getting even darker. Maddy feels so far away and I can't feel him next to me anymore. I feel like I am floating but falling at the same time. I reach my arms out but grasp onto nothing. I manage to stand up, stumbling around this empty and endless room. I call out, but my voice is lost in a strange wind that is blowing around me. Everything is slowing to a stop, even the blackness of this impotent moment. My arms feel heavy when I try to move, like I am in slow motion. I am nothing and feel nothing; my whole body has just absorbed into the black holes of the pain from my shoulder and torso wound. 

I feel hands grasp my shoulders and the arms that they are attached to shake me violently until my vision starts to come back. I see Maddox standing in front of me still holding my shoulders. 

"A-are you okay?" His voice is above a whisper by just a slight. Maddy's solid voice, and smooth bends of his words, like the road, brings me back down to earth. I look at him with wide, doll-like eyes. 

"I don't know what just happened... Couldn't you... Couldn't you see the blood? I don't know.. I-I don't know what just happened. Oh Maddox!" I cry out.

"It was just a dr- nightmare. It was just a nightmare. Sometimes they just get really vivid, that's all, Rean." He rubs his hands up and down my arms, and he nods his head like he is trying to make himself believe it and not me. The touch of his hands is sending tingly feelings all through my nervous system, and I feel my cheeks heating but I try to ignore it. I nod my head too, holding back tears. I don't know why this event has taken such a toll on me but it feels like all of my energy is zapped. Maddy grabs the edge of my shirt, then glances up at me for approval. When I nod, he lifts up the edge of it to my scar.

"See, sweetheart? Nothing there but a scar. It's okay." He murmurs to me, placing his hand over the scar. He puts my shirt back and stands up, and through the darkness I can see his brow furrowed. Maddy picks me up gently and pushes the covers back, then lays me down even more gently. I am so drowsy and de-energized that I might faint right this second. He pulls the covers up over me, then leans down and whispers to me.

"It is going to be okay. It was just a nightmare. It is already five a.m. Go to sleep angel." 

My eyelids are slowly closing, the world slowly drifting out, ever so slow.

Maddy leans closer and closer still, his face almost aligned with mine. I can feel his breath on my cheek.

His soft lips kiss the spot to the right of my lips, for only a second. Then I drift into dreamland yet again, an explosion of emotions inside me lulling me to sleep.