Dreamer

Moving away to a new city in a new country was hard for Lilias, although she did find it exciting how she could make many new friends... hopefully. America was much different than her previous home in Scotland. The American accent intrigued her.
Lilias had been sitting in her living room after a long day of unpacking and helping out her parents decorate their dream home. It was late and she was ready to relax, so she started arranging pictures in a scrapbook her mother had started for her since the day she was born.
Her mother came into the room, "Hey, Lily, it's getting a bit late and your father is having a hard time sleeping. He has work early in the morning, do you think you can quickly make him some tea for him? I'm going out to buy some new blankets for us real quick. I promise I'll be back soon," she explained while quickly grabbing her coat and shoes. Quickly she slipped them on before she opened the door.
"Sure." Lilias stood up, heading to the kitchen and making her father some tea. She sighed softly at this being the last of the tea, but decided it would probably be better for her father anyways.
Upon arriving at his room, she gave a knock then walked into his room. She gave a bright smile, but only got a nod in return. "I made you some tea." she handed it over, holding her hands in front of herself.
"Thank you." Her father spoke and took it, taking a sip. Giving a small smile, she reached out to gently touch his forehead, something her mother always did when she said goodnight.
"Have a good sleep." She whispered, and her dad passed out, his tea spilling all over his chest as he began snoring. Her eyes widened, and her immediate reaction was to check his pulse. It was fine, beating normally. Placing her hand on his forehead again, she spoke, "Please wake up.." And he did, his eyes fluttering open as he looked around in confusion.
"What did you do to me? What did you put in my tea?" He spoke, sitting up with a glare.
"I" she paused "I just made normal tea. I touched your head and you fell asleep." She explained, fidgeting with her hands and keeping her gaze low on the ground.
"Clean this up. I'm going to talk to your mother about this when she gets back." He gestured to the wet bed as he got up and disappeared out of the room. She gathered up all of the sheets and blankets, disposing of them in the laundry room until she heard her mother come back from her shopping.
Lilias quickly rushed to the front door, "Mom, something crazy just happened." she greeted, sitting down on the couch with wide eyes.
"What was it? Is everything okay?" Her mother sat beside her, a concerned look on her face. The expression on her mother's face became more calm and peaceful as Lilias explained what had happened to her dad.
"Your entire life I told you about how special you were. You're different from everyone else. Well, not everyone. There are others like you with different abilities but I don't know who they are. All I know is they're in this city. I'm not allowed to tell you anymore, except for what you can do," her mother explained to her, smiling at her as if she just won a gold medal in the olympics. "I knew your abilities would appear here. That's exactly what they told me would happen."
Lilias had so many questions to ask about this. It was all so overwhelming to her as she thought through everything, before barreling her mother with a wave of questions. "What can I do? Who are 'they'? Why am I like this? Why here? Why me-"
"There are only so many things I am allowed to tell you." She spoke softly and sympathetically. "But I can tell you what you can do and I think you'll find it really cool." grinning, she ruffled her daughters hair gently.
"Well what can I do then?" She asked eagerly, leaned forward in anticipation.
"Well, many things connected to sleep. You'll only be able to have lucid dreams from now on. You can give people lucid dreams, go into others' dreams, help people sleep, stuff like that. But be careful though, you can give people sleep paralysis and really bad nightmares if you're not careful. Controlling dreams can be tough, i'm sure. I wouldn't want you to deprive anyone of sleep unintentionally. I've been told this will probably drain you, but other than that I can't tell you any of your other limitations. You'll have to figure those out on your own."
"Wow.." She was left speechless as she took in all of the new information. There were still so many questions she had, but knowing how stubborn her mom was she wouldn't be able to get any of the other questions answered. "That's.. Wild." She grinned, letting out a soft laugh.
"Yes, now go get some sleep. You start your first day of school here tomorrow."
That night, Lilias lied in bed and tried her best to sneak into someone's dreams. Once she started dreaming she sat there on the floating island in the sky her mind created for her. It was small, but beautiful. There was tall hill near the edge, with a small forest across from it. The view was absolutely amazing, especially when she sat by the river that went across the whole island and poured off of the edge.
As she sat near the river, she tried to focus on going into someone else's dreams. She imagined a name, but only a flicker of that person dream would show up. Her mother dreamt of mermaids and her father dreamt of fire. That's all she could get out of the tiny glimpses she got.
The next day, she had school. From the moment she walked in, her nerves were like a raging storm ready to mess her up and ruin her entire day. 8th grade in america was weird and she was supposed to be in her second year, not middle school.
Only one person really greeted her and talked to her for most of the day, a blue haired boy named Ronan who had dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a tornado had hit him. She didn't know why, but she felt like they clicked immediately somehow. It was weird how open she was already towards him.
At the end of the day, he approached her with a little smile. "Hi.. can we exchange numbers so we can talk and stuff?"
"Of course." Lilias returned the smile and exchanged numbers with him.
For the next couple of weeks, they texted back and forth all the time. Ronan would occasionally invite her over to hang out at his house, which really wasn't a house. It was a gigantic mansion, with a huge rose garden in the front.. Past the large gate securing the place.
After a month, they had become really good friends. It was nice having Ronan to confide in, since she never had anyone she could trust so much. The only thing she didn't tell him was about her powers.
Lilias was sitting in her bed, the blankets wrapped around her as if she were in a cocoon, her personal scrapbook sitting in front of her as she was video chatting Ronan to show him all of her childhood this photos. It was late, so her parents would most likely be sleeping.
She slipped one of the pictures out, one of her and a bunch of other little girls and boys, sitting around a campfire while roasting marshmallows on sticks."This was right before we almost burned down the entire camp." She let out a soft laugh. "One of the girls lit her marshmallow on fire and it slipped off of her stick and fell to the ground. It was a very wild night, but we all lived." She grinned, slipping the picture back in and closing the book.
"Wow.. you've had a very interesting life." Ronan grinned as he watched her show the picture.
"It's not that interesting." She shook her head and set her belongings aside, laying on her stomach as she held her phone for Ronan to see her. All of a sudden, she crinkled up her nose once she started to smell something unusual. Sitting up once again, she looked around and tried to figure out what the smell was. It only took her a minute, but she soon realized it was the smell of gasoline.
"I think we just had a gas leak or something. My house all of a sudden smells like gasoline.. I'm going to go tell my parents. I'll text you later." She smiled, quickly hanging up and opening up her door. The floor, the walls- everything, was doused in gasoline. She saw her father down the hall with an empty container that presumably held what was now all over the house. But he also held a match box. In his eyes, he could only see hatred, even the slightest bit of fear.
"I never agreed to have you born like this. You were a mistake. You're a potential threat to the entirety to the world. It's best someone gets rid of your kind before all hell breaks loose from the lot of you." Her father's voice was dark, unlike his usual careless tone.
"What? But.. dad? You can't do this. What about mom?" She stumbled backwards into her room as she decided she would probably need to grab a few things if he was really going to make the house burn down with her in it.
"I don't care if she dies. She's the one that made you. It's probably best she goes as well." He set down his empty container, getting a match from the matchbox and holding it up for her. There was absolutely zero hesitation when he lit the match and dropped it to the floor.
She barely missed the flames as they immediately engulfed the hallway. Stumbling backwards, she fell and quickly tried to get her scrapbook, phone, and the jean jacket her mother had given the day before since it was too small. She didn't know how to get out, as her window was stuck. It worked the first day, but then it simply stopped working the day after. The smoke was already clouding the room as flames started creeping inside. She lifted her shirt up over her nose, wrapping a scarf around it for extra security. It wasn't until a few minutes after that she thought of calling the cops. As quickly as she could, she called and explained the whole situation to them, but left out the fact that her father was the one who lit the fire.
Lilias hid under her bed as she told and waited for the firetrucks and ambulances to arrive, which they said would take fifteen minutes since she lived away from most cities and towns. Her body shook as she watched the fire creep closer and closer to her, tears welling up in her eyes at the thought of dying, but also the fact that the smoke really stung her eyes.
Before the ambulances had arrived, the house collapsed on her. Her bed was hardly doing anything for her. For about fifteen seconds, she could feel the fire going slowly up her legs, until she couldn't feel it anymore, the nerves in her body slowly going numb. Her hair was quickly being burnt away. Slowly, she was losing hope. Her life flashed before her eyes as she thought about her home back in scotland. She mourned how she wouldn't be able to say goodbye to her mother or Ronan.
Eventually, she heard the sirens in the distance. Her hope slowly returned, but the world blacked out around her.
She woke up to the sound of quiet beeping, laying on her stomach. She felt nothing for a few seconds, before she tried to move. Her legs and her back ached and stung. If it wasn't for the large amount of painkillers she was on, it would be much worse, almost unbearable.
She gave up on trying to move and simply looked around the room, seeing that she was in a hospital room- no one in sight. There sat her phone on the table connected to the bed, but she didn't see any of her other belonging that she tried to keep safe from the fire that had almost completely consumed her. At least she was safe though, alive... but what about her mother? Panicking, she tried to sit up, but with every movement her legs burned and stretched, as if the skin was about to peel off at any moment.
It only took a few more minutes until she heard the sound of the door opening, hearing it close with a gentle click. "Hello, Lilias. I'm so glad to see you're awake. You've been out for about 3 days. We've taken very good care of you. It's best not to move right now. Do you remember what happened?" A nurse slowly came into view, a clipboard in his hand.
"Yes.." Her voice was different now, more raspy than it was before. "Where's my mom?" She asked, once again trying to sit up, but the nurse shook his head, frowning sadly.
"We tried and tried but could not save her. We are truly sorry." The nurse said sympathetically"
Lilias' heart just dropped, her eyes widening in disbelief. She always had an irrational fear that she would someday lose her mother, who she really considered her best friend. Her body stiffened and her eyes shut, taking in a deep breath but struggling with that. She was left speechless, tearing threatening to spill out of her eyes.
"As for you, we've done surgery. We got rid of the burned tissue and covered it with fish skin, to put it simply, to help you regrow your skin. We've also grafted some of your other skin to help cover the damaged areas. You will have to go through lots of physical therapy to make sure you can move right with your skin regrowing." he said quickly, he seemed uncomfortable.
A different nurse walked in, "Calma, George. The nina had only just woken up." she said softly. Turning to face Lilias, she said "Hola Nina, i'm sorry about George. You're his first patient so he's a bit nervous. I am really sorry about your mama. Although I don't have the words to make the pain go away, I do know you will be alright." her soft and sweet voice washed over Lilias.
"Rosa what are you doing here?" asked George.
"Checking on you mijo, you are a bit excitable." Rosa replied coolly. "By the way mija, someone has been practically begging to see you. He hasn't left the door since you were admitted to the ICU."
Lilias knew exactly who it was. "I don't want to see him. I don't want to see anyone." She murmured and let out a shaky breath. "Tell him to go away." her voice was bitter, quiet.
Rosa's eyes widened from slight surprise, giving a small nod. "I'll tell him you don't want any visitors." Without a word she backed out to talk to Ronan.
Lilias sat in silence, her eyes barely open now. Her brain was still trying to process what both nurses had said. Was her mom really gone? Hot tears spilled down her cheeks, scorching the already sensitive skin. Despair filled her already hurting heart, threatening to tear her apart and break her down. Fury rose within her and rivaled her sorrow. Oxygen barely reached her lungs as she gasped for air.
The machines beeping filled Lilias' ears, fast paced and loud. She barely heard the door open and the hurried footsteps of panicked nurses. It wasn't long until she felt the oxygen mask cover her mouth, air slowly returning to her lungs. Fading away, she drifted off into a heavy sleep.
Darkness surrounded her, she was in a different place. The hospital room was nowhere to be seen. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to her new surroundings, she was back in her dreamscape. The river was flowing much faster than usual, the waves splashing higher than they ever had before. Wind from an unknown source was blowing hard and fast, whipping the trees around as if it wanted to break them down.
Glimpses of someone else's dreams started flashing before her eyes. She could see fire flash in her vision, a figure standing in the middle of it all. The images started to become a more solid vision. The figure morphed into the her father, a smug expression on his face as he seemed to look right through her. He was stood in the doorway of her old room.
Looking around she saw the charred flesh and bone of a body covered in flaming debris. Lilias felt sorrow for the unknown corpse. Focusing, Lilias reconstructed the body, sickness welled in her stomach, threatening to make her upheave. She was staring at what could have been herself if help hadn't arrived in time. Falling to her knees, a new flame of anger sparked to life. Lilias laid down next to the almost nonexistent corpse. She felt her skin become mottled and burned. The sensation on pain is what she expected, but none came.
She watched as her father started stalking closer through the roaring fire, trying to tell her something, even though she couldn't hear him. He crouched down in front, seeming to.. Relax at the sight of seeing her in such a bad state. A peaceful expression washed over his face as he began to stand again.
That was when she realized she couldn't just lay there and let him act smug about the entire situation. Slowly, she rose herself up out of the debris, still in the form of the burnt remains. Her father's eyes widened in terror, shock at the sight of seeing this. It was her turn to smile now, knowing she had scared him.
"You may think you saved everyone, but I still know of ways to make you pay for what you've done. This is only the first step." She wasn't even sure if her father could hear her, but he still seemed terrified of her.
Eventually, the room around her began to shake and she could finally hear something, a voice calling out her name. The dream started winking out of existence, until it was no longer there.
Her eyes fluttered open to see Rosa was standing over her, a warm smile forming on her face. "You've been asleep for awhile. We brought you some food and meds for you to take. Afterwards, you can fall back asleep if your little heart desires." She put the food and medicine on the table connected to the bed before she left again.
A couple more weeks went by like that. The doctors at the hospital would take care of her and walk her around the hospital to help her get used to her healing skin. She'd be given medicine and food.
Ronan had visited her everyday, but she refused to see him each time. She was far too focused on sleeping and ruining her dads dreams. To Lilias it was less than what he deserved.
He wouldn't dream about the same thing each night. Sometimes it would be about him with her mother, and she'd pop in and give a hint that she'd still be there if he didn't decide to burn their place down.
Eventually, the day came when she could leave. The nurse's wouldn't let her leave until her father came by to pick her up, but she didn't care about that.
"Alright, ready to go?" George asked as he helped Lilias into the wheelchair. She didn't need it, but that's just how the hospital liked to do things.
Fidgeting with her fingers and tapping her feet, she looked around once the wheelchair stopped outside the front door of the hospital. There didn't seem to be any police anywhere around, only the occasional pedestrian going into the building.
Taking a deep breath, she saw a little black car pull up in front of her. She recognized it from one of her father's dreams, knowing that that was his car. Tightly, she held the medication the doctors had given her against her chest.
"George?" Lilias questioned as she looked behind at the nurse, "I think I left some of my artwork up there in the room. Could you go grab it for me?" She asked politely.
"Of course. I'll be right back." The man smiled and headed into the hospital. That's when she saw a man start to get out of the car.
She stood from her wheelchair and started running as fast as her legs could, wanting to get away from her father as quickly as she possibly could. It wasn't long until she was wheezing, completely out of breath. An old, rusty park stood before her as she tried to catch her breath, eventually deciding on using the inhaler the doctors had given her.
Walking deeper into the park, she crawled onto the playground equipment, letting her eyes rest. After a bit of relaxing, she could breathe normally again. It felt nice being able to be outside again, the fresh air calming down her nerves until she fell asleep.
After a bit, she could feel a hand on her shoulder, a voice gently calling out her name. "Lilias. Hey, wake up." The voice called out.
Her eyes fluttered open and she could see Ronan kneeling beside her, "Ronan? Wha-What are you doing here?" she said sleepily.
"You really are an idiot aren't you?" he said softly. His voice filled with compassion.
"Go away, I'm fine. I can take care of myself." she said venomously.
"It's been weeks since I last saw you. I've been worried sick." He frowned, but Lilias only sat up and moved away.
"I don't care. I don't want to see you." She glared, starting to stand up.
"Please," Ronan pleaded and stood with her. "I don't know what happened, but i'm not going to let you sleep in a park like this. At least come with me so you can have shelter, then we can figure out your home situation." He explained, deciding to go for it and give her a hug.
The first instinct she had was to push him away, yell at him to go away, but she realized she needed someone to help her through everything. She didn't return the hug, but she relaxed in his embrace. "Fine.." She whispered, her eyes fluttering shut.