Doctor Strange - This One Summer

Memories of the Haunted Place

Nightmare

Hazel's nightmares had become manufactured by now. She still felt fear when she heard something whisper her name or felt slimy, cold hands trail down her shoulders and back, and getting caught in a dream and waking up three hours earlier than she should have was hellish. However, she was never claimed by her Guests. What kept her here? Possibly the bindchain she shared with the Ancient One... What else could it be?

However, the night Peter stayed at Kamar-Taj, Hazel had a real nightmare.

The Ancient One was there. Hazel saw the woman standing with her back to the witch, but she was too far away to tell if this Ancient One was a fake or the real thing...

"Giin?" Hazel mumbled, but her voice carried as if they were underwater. In the black abyss beyond the Ancient One, Hazel heard a crackling, bubbling, rasping, thin, reedy, wet voice speaking in a language she couldn't understand. The creature in the shimmering abyss spoke calmly at first, then their tone escalated. Was it threatening the Ancient One or just asking her a question?

Then the Ancient One spoke in the same tongue. Her voice was lilting and soft-not unlike her true voice. Hazel's belief swayed in favor of this being the true Ancient One. She spoke calmly as ever, but something in her tone was persuasive, compelling. She seemed resolute; she wasn't asking a question.

The abyss creature replied. Hazel felt a heavy dread settle in her chest.

The being seemed to open up or unfold like a paper flower, expanding and extending tendrils of beckoning darkness. The Ancient One reached out a hand so slowly that Hazel thought she was tentative or hesitant. The Sorcerer Supreme took a step closer to the awaiting abyss. Hazel knew in that instant that if the Ancient One let herself be taken, she would never be seen again.

Hazel bolted forward, feeling herself tearing through the invisible veil that had kept her at bay for so long. She shouted as loudly and powerfully as she could, imbuing the word-every single letter of it-with power strong enough to compel even something like the Ancient One.

"GIIN!"

Distracted for a single moment, the Ancient One turned around in her elegant way that made her seem to float for a moment. Hazel didn't have time to register the expression on the Ancient One's face before it warped to one of pain. The previously passive tendrils from the black abyss darted forward, wrapping first around the Ancient One's right arm and hand and dragging her backwards into the waiting, hellish world beyond the ebony portal. The tendrils were stronger than they looked-Hazel felt as if the whole world vibrated with the cracking of the Ancient One's bones. Hazel didn't know if she screamed or not. She didn't think so. After all, the sound the Ancient One made-the pitiful, modest gasp and whimper of pain-was quiet enough that Hazel was surprised she'd heard it at all. And she regretted that; the sound would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Memories of the Haunted Place

Dreams were always an odd thing to the Ancient One. Hazel had once explained them as "the grown-up way of playing pretend." Where a child implemented relatable trauma and real-world events in their pretend play to help them process said trauma and events, the adult brain did the same in dreams. Dreams were also a statement of one's psychological state, their health both physical and mental, and in the Ancient One's case, the future. Her dreams often had elements of premonition since before she could remember. It was sometimes hard to identify, but even when the dreams seemed commonplace or could possibly be rationalized by elements in the Ancient One's life, the signs presented and interpreted themselves in a dreamlike way.

She'd read it in a book once. A sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it. What book was that? She'd have to remember when she woke up...