Confessions of a Killer

21 Nightmares

Damien:

Floating.

Pink and blue nebula swirl around me as I fall halfway into the achingly familiar land of dreams. Clouds of purple cotton candy that taste sweet on the tongue sticks to my body with its sugary abrasion. Swirls of color, energy that encircles the earth, whorls of warmth surrounding, wrapping around in me here, in limbo.

Half awake, half asleep. My mind switching between two realities. Conscious and subconscious.

The bed where she lays next to me, ravishing, hospitably snug, real... the night scape that haunts my sleep, turning the swirling colors of peace into the dark realm of  the unknown. It never starts out dark. It's as bright as can be.

This nightmare always starts the same.

Sun shining, white hot against the green of the maple trees. Delight flutters on the wind as it whistles through them, carrying laughter from the open freshly cut grassed area, where three kids and a nanny wage war with water, their mirth rebounding off the forest surrounding them. The alabaster mansion behind them reflecting the light beaming down on them, shimmering with small rainbows as the water arches from the sprinkler.

I fall into my younger self, as I always do.

Dread is an impression on my psyche. Sifting about the edges of my consciousness, waiting like hellions to ride in once I lose it, whisking chaotic images into the matrix of my mind, memories overlapping the dreamscape. Their black tongues lick coldly down my spine, sharp claws take down my flesh until my mind bleeds pain, sinister laughter raising goosebumps and fear, thick enough to taste. All while waiting for what was to happen next.

Cold water hits my arm, I giggle as my brother gets sloshed with it too. Eirans hands over the hose spout makes the water harder, the spray spurting out in bursts of blistering cold. The heat around us makes the coolness of the water that much more refreshing. To me.

"Watch what you're doing E!" I laugh as Killian is splashed again. He sputtered, Amber eyes glistening with ire.

At the time I hadn't realized that he wasn't just angry, I'd thought he was only frustrated. I see it for what it was now. Pain. Every time with this dream turning nightmare I try to change it, and yet I'm still a bystander, locked in the prism of my mind, unable to alter the reality of what happened anymore than I was able to back then.

His pain is haunting, his grimace not of annoyance. He never did like playing in the cold water, preferring to bake under the sun. Though I'd never realized that he never tanned, his skin stayed the same light olive color no matter how much he seemed to be outside. This is years before Our first shifts into our predator animals. The ones that we were dismayed to find out weren't close at all, not even the same species.

Kilian's black lab took over, tiny clothes ripping as he raced away as far as he could within the confines of the yard. Barking in annoyance as Eiran placed her thumb over the end of the spout, bending the water as far as it would go.

He barked, growling a warning as Eiran stuck her tongue out. I laughed, the last one before the attack that changed everything.

I can smell the blood now. Eiran can't. She won't be able to smell like my brother and I until she's older and finds a mate. She's only 10... it will be a while. I can feel my physical body shifting in sleep, sweat poring as I try to wake myself. As I try to escape the incoming nightmare, there have been times that I've been able to break free before. Though somehow I know this will not be one of those times as the air smells too sweet in the dream; woodsy and warm in a cloying tantalizing way that brings the ache of nostalgia in my chest to a bitter burning.