Mutually Assured Destruction

Prologue

"Nikki?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, babe."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Yeah, go back to bed. I'll be back."

Nikki kissed his wife and closed their bedroom door. Nightmares hadn't been a problem for him in a long time. He made a habit of dealing with his demons these days. It was doing wonders for his sleep. But now, standing at the top of the stairs, staring at his hands, he'd been scared out of bed for the third time in two months. He couldn't help but think there was something he'd been neglecting. He couldn't place it, but he knew that the studio was always a good place to start looking. He'd almost made it a whole month without working, too. Addiction never quits, even after you do, it seemed.

As he took his first step down the stairs, the light in the kitchen suddenly came on. Freezing in place, he did a mental inventory of everyone in the house. Courtney was in bed, Frankie was at her mom's and Nikki stood still at the top of the stairs, watching a stranger's silhouette cross into the kitchen light.

"Nikki." He heard a woman's voice call out to him. He knew that voice. He remembered it at least, couldn't place it, not at 3 A.M. alone with it in the dark. He swallowed hard, the all too familiar warmth of adrenaline spreading in his chest as he watched her walk in front of the staircase and into his living room. His pulse in his ears, his feet instinctively pounded down the stairs after her, but he was pulled back by the sound of a grandfather clock striking three deafening blows. He dropped to his knees and covered his ears, confusion spinning circles 'round his reality. He didn't own a grandfather clock. She laughed even louder, seemingly coming from inside his own head. He couldn't hear anything else. Outside, from the windows, red lights flashed like a firing squad from all angles. And then what always followed after that in Nikki's nightmares; the ambulance.

"What the fuck is going on?" He shouted out, pulled into a fetal position on the stairs, his hands clapped over his ears, but the siren pierced through his skull like a lightning bolt. And suddenly....

"Nikki." He heard her behind him. Her hands were at his throat.

"Fuck!"

And with a gasp of breath, it was all over. Like it had never happened. Everything was dark.

Nikki sat up in bed, his hands grabbing at his wild black hair, grasping for a sense of reality, his bare chest pumping up and down to swallow large gulps of air. His hands shook and instinctively grabbed for his throat. Nothing. He took in another deep breath and searched for the switch on his bedside lamp. He took in the room, taking account of every surrounding and realizing where he was, what had happened. A dream. A nightmare. Courtney shifted in the damp sheets next to him. "Shit." He sighed with relief and collapsed.

"Nikki?" She asked for him blearily, same as he thought she had in his dream.
"Yeah, babe?" He choked out, hearing the same cadence in his own voice.
"Everything okay?" She asked. Of course she did. He knew it. He knew the whole thing.
"Yeah, babe."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Yeah, go back to bed. I'll be back."

He'd try again.

Back at the top of the stairs, Nikki surveyed his empty house. There was no kitchen light, no strange shadows, no sirens....no familiar voices whispering his name. A part of him - the part he retired - was disappointed. No more dragons to slay. No more demons to dispel. All was quiet. All was calm. Just as before, he looked down at his hands, amazed that they were the same hands he'd had all along. The same hands that first picked up a broken acoustic guitar were the same hands that sliced his arm open. The same hands that wrote ballads to Satan, touched women, shot up, stole money were the same hands that wore wedding rings, held newborn babies, wrote love songs. He'd come so far and had done so much, more than most people would ever come close to doing. He'd lived and died and lived again. So much had happened and yet still, he looked at his hands and didn't recognize any of that. He still saw someone new to the world. Someone still exploring, still making his mark.

Often, Nikki felt like an animal. There were long stretches of time, months, years, where he thrived purely off instinct, moving from one survival tactic to the next, always looking for a pack, if not least a place to sleep. But when he finally got the chance to rest his head, that's when it all came flooding in again; the pain. Not the pain, really, but the memory of it and the anxiety thereof. The anxiety that mutually assured destruction was always sure to follow a time of peace. So when things seemed easy, Nikki tended to let himself get distracted. He didn't want to become too attached to any one idea lest he become obsessed. Attachment was worse than any nightmare. The thought horrified him.

So he was headed to the studio to work on a new idea; chase a new nightmare.