compound sentences || a.i. [a.u.]

caret 0.4

The pair found themselves in a palace this time, a palace not even Versailles could equal in beauty. But their view was not that of the princes that inhabited the place, instead the rounded walls of the room, covered with pink fabric, seemed more threatening than they were supposed to be. The two corners, one inverted, the other sharp enough to kill a man, had already closed in on them without moving.

"You're afraid, aren't you." a familiar voice boomed through the airless cave. The low vibrations travelling on nothing but imagination.

Alana bit her lip, hard. She'd used to look at the teeth marks on her dad's dry lips, wishing to never let fear scar her like that, but it did worse to her, and now the marks in her lips were deeper than the ocean and the voice of the boy that caused them.

The empty room smelled like candy with a touch of something else like the sweet metal she could taste on her chapped lips. How could one not be afraid in a room like this?

From inside the heart you could not see it shaped like one.

Once again Alana gripped her cross, maybe if she kept rubbing it, it'd release a courage she herself couldn't fathom. But she, so desperately clinging to the hope for a different her broke the chain and with a loud cling it fell to the floor, sounding almost like the metal of two swords colliding, as if it fought the fact it fell.

The cross had felt like an extension to her, an external organ even, burning her neck and collar bones up with pain. She tried to pick it up, but the golden chain slipped through her trembling fingers.

"Does it feel bad? Being the one who is hopeless. Helpless. Depending on nothing but that God of yours, like I depend on nothing but you," the low voice now spoke with Ashton's lips. His hazel eyes turned a vibrant green and hair danced with an invisible wind. Lovely as ever even when saying the most disturbing things.

It was then she realised how much he had evolved from the fragment of her imagination, wording things like love and romanticism. He'd become destructive and his behaviour erratic, like her mind, constantly ensuing pointless altercations, disguised like self-pity and thinking in senseless analogy. But so desperately clinging to what he thought was love, as he held her and yelled at her saying "It wasn't him."

Ever since she was a child she'd trained on lucid dreaming, the ability to control a dream, experiencing the counter-effects with her own lame body as demons came to visit her in the night, which in itself seemed ironic now. After all, Ashton was nothing but a lucid dream she'd trained herself to have, and foolish as she was, she never imagined how easily it could go wrong with a mind as volatile as the wind.

Ashton had stopped his endless plea, only to pick up the cross and dangle it for the rested girl's eyes. "Alana, Alana, Alana, is this what your 'God' shaped you up to be? I would say you did a better job with me, but not really though." His tone was more than condescending even to a child you wouldn't speak with such disdain. But she, she could not help but hear her lover inside that carcass of patronisation.

Desperately, her fingers flew to her hair hoping the pain could pull her out of the nightmare. Bring back her sweet and loving Ashton she would never doubt again. Little did she know that waking up doesn't halt nightmares. No, they have a way of reminding you with the slightest detail, that this is your life and these nightmares are not just dreams. But she tugged and pulled, screaming as it weren't just the chunks of hair that fell from her head, but also thick syrupy drops of blood.

All the while the boy kept repeating, "pathetic little writer, pathetic little girl" and she, she could not help but agree.

a/n: If you hadn't noticed by now, it gets darker as it goes.

love you peeps

--charlie