Bad Dreams

Hui jerked awake with a strangled scream spilling through his lips. He clamped a hand over his mouth as soon as he was aware that he was making noise, but a panicked whimper still slipped through. He scrambled to sit up, pushing at the blankets covering him, suffocating him, and tried to remember how to breathe. He squashed himself against the wall next to his bed as best as he could, putting his head on his knees and gripping his hair tightly. He distantly noticed Rhea beeping anxiously near him.

"I- I'm fine, R-Rhea," he stuttered through rapid breaths. But that wasn't true, he didn't feel fine right now, he felt like he was made of glass and about to shatter. Hui hated nightmares so much, and ever since Box 953 he couldn't escape them. Memories flashed through his whirring mind, of blank walls and crushing silence, of the feeling of loneliness that suffocated him until he couldn't remember the sounds of his crew's own voices, of curling up in a corner of an empty, soundless room and not moving, because his own overused voice was just a rasp now. Of the sensation that he was losing his own mind in all the absolute nothingness. He hadn't been okay then, and after yet another bad dream, he didn't feel okay right now either.

Rhea beeped anxiously in binary at him again, and the lights in his room flicked on. Kuan ignored it and focused on calming his breathing down. It was just a dream. He was fine. He wasn't in solitary, he was on the Hephaestus, the real Hephaestus. With the real Rhea and his crew, his friends, sleeping just down the hall, and a functioning door leading out of his room to them. He wasn't alone. 

Rhea was still beeping worriedly to him. "It's- It's okay, Rhea. I'll be fine, it was just- just a bad dream. I'm fine. I'm okay." He slowly slid back down and curled back under the blankets, wrapping them tightly around his hand and curling up around it. "I'm okay," he whispered to himself. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and kept repeating it. He was okay.

Hui didn't know how much time passed (it was hard to tell sometimes, after dreams like this) but he guessed it was only a few minutes until his door slowly creaked open. He flinched and slowly rolled over, cutting off his own quiet whispering, already knowing who would see standing there.

"Hey, Victoire," he sighed. She hovered awkwardly in the doorway, wide eyes scanning him up and down.

"Hi, Hui," she murmured. "Rhea woke me up." He groaned.

"Sorry, I told her I was fine. I guess she didn't believe me. She shouldn't have woken you up. You can go back- you can go back to sleep," Hui said. Victoire looked at him like he was an idiot and adjusted her glasses, which had obviously been hastily thrown on. 

"Kuan, how many times do I have to tell you that it's okay not to be okay?" She asked, but she didn't sound impatient, and that soothed something inside him. Victoire wandered into his room, pulling the door shut behind her. Hui uncurled himself and sat up again, still clutching the blanket tightly. He realised she was holding a book under her arm. "Was it a nightmare?" She asked, sitting down on the bed beside him. Hui shrugged his shoulders halfheartedly.

"Nightmare, bad dream, sleeping memory. Whatever, it's not important. Just freaked me out a little when I woke up, got a little disorientated." He looked away, gazing intently at the blanket. Victoire let out a noise of sympathy beside him.

"You dreamt about the solitude." She sighed sadly, and bumped her shoulder into his. "I'm sorry," she said. Hui looked up at her, frowning. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm sorry it was me that put you through it." It was her turn to look away, messy strands of hair flopping in front of her face. 

"Hey, no, we've been over this. It wasn't- Victoire, you did the right thing. If you hadn't figured it all out, then so much worse would have happened. It's not your fault," he comforted. She sent him a small smile.

"Thank you, Hui. But... well, that's not why I'm here." Rhea beeped quietly from above them. "Yeah. Do you want to talk about it?" She questioned. Hui hesitated, then shook his head.

"No, not really," he muttered. "Just... same old thing, me being trapped in that room for days on end again."

"I thought... I thought it was fading a bit?" Victoire said gently. Hui sighed heavily.

"Yeah, in the day, sure. But apparently my subconscious just loves to remember things," he said bitterly. Victoire tutted.

"Well, you're not alone now. But you are missing out on sleep, and you need more of that than I do. So lie down," she instructed. Hui frowned at her.

"Hey, you're younger than me-" he started to protest, but she rolled her eyes and twisted around, pushing at him until he was lying back down with his head on the pillow. "This is ridiculous," he grumbled, but had to admit that her being here was helping. He didn't feel so panicked. Somebody was with him.

"Whatever," she smiled. "Rhea, could you turn the lights down a bit?" She called. The AI beeped in affirmative, and the lights in the room dimmed until it wasn't such a bright white. Victoire cleared her throat. "Alright. Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen: Chapter 2," she announced quietly, and Hui smiled. 

"Thanks, Victoire," he whispered, letting himself be sincere for a moment. He closed his eyes and felt her hand brush through his hair affectionately, but she didn't otherwise acknowledge it. 

"In addition to what has already been said of Catherine Morland's personal and mental endowments," she began reading softly, and Hui slowly felt himself relax, hands unclenching from the blankets and breathing coming easy. His mind finally stopped anxiously buzzing. Victoire read to him for a long time, and Hui let the calming lilt of her accented voice slowly lull him back to sleep, for once easy and peaceful.

This time, even his subconscious knew that he wasn't alone.