Tam

Nightmares

(Flashback Spoiler--you have been warned)

I woke up screaming.

I scrambled into a sitting position, breathing hard and scanning the space. My room was dark and silent, the curtains over the window letting in a sliver of moonlight that draped across my tangled comforter. My panicked breathing was the only thing that broke the quiet of the early morning.

I looked across the room and saw Linh curled up in her bed, her hair covering part of her face as the silver ends shone in the light from outside. Relief flooded through me, and I flopped back onto my mattress, trying to steady my breathing as my heart refused to stop pounding.

In and out, in and out...

Images still floated around my head, like tiny pieces of the puzzles my mother used to try and make us do on rainy days. Linh standing in our room--not this one, I realized. Our old room in Choralmere, the one with the balcony. And she wasn't standing either--she was on her knees. There were shadows everywhere, and screaming. Linh was screaming as the Shadowflux hit her, and her cries mixed with the sounds of breaking bones. She was looking at someone, tears running down her face as she shouted something at them.

In and out, in and out...

Me. She was looking at me. I was the one doing this to her, ignoring her pleas to stop.

I gritted my teeth against the self-loathing and nausea that ran through me at the thought, and gave up on keeping calm. I had to get out of the dark.

I crept to the kitchen, determined not to wake anyone else up. This was my problem, not theirs.

I snapped my fingers and turned on the lights before I even reached the kitchen. I needed the light. As I leaned against the counter, tilting my head back to stare at the ceiling, I made a silent vow not to go back to sleep. It wasn't worth depriving Linh of her much-needed rest as well if I were to wake up again.

Was I scared of the dark? Not exactly...I was just afraid of what I could do with it.

When I was younger, I used to be terrified of being by myself with the lights off. That's why my parents loved locking me in my room. Linh would go sleep with them, and I'd be all alone. Safe to say, I never got much sleep those nights.

And then I manifested, and it was like my worst nightmare and my dream come true. I could finally control what had scared me for so long, but that was also the problem. I had to connect with it. And it wasn't long before I found out being a Shade wasn't exactly viewed as a good thing.

"Tam?"

Linh's voice jerked me out of my thoughts. I turned my head to see my sister standing in the doorway to the kitchen, one hand on the frame, the colors of her pajamas muted in the darkness of the hallway.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and I considered lying. But I didn't have to say anything--nothing I could have told her would have convinced Linh I was all right. So, she came over and wrapped her arms around me, speaking into my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," I said automatically, putting my arms around her as well. I'd said that to her so many times, it was second nature now. "I'll be fine."

Linh pulled away and smiled up at me, but it was the sad smile that I had seen every time she looked at me during our time in Exillium, or when our parents were scolding us for something we couldn't control. It was the expression I'd come to associate with my sister--a simple need to comfort, not caring what she was going through, but unable to hide it completely.

Linh was the one my parents wanted. She was the one Wylie wanted. She was the one who had never left.

So where did that leave me?

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So that was super choppy, sorry. But I can definitely imagine Tam having nightmares when he comes back from the Neverseen, and it freaking BREAKS MY HEART