Shattered

Chapter 17

Lloyd immediately knew he was in a dream.

He was a child, short arms and short legs, blood and dirt caked under his jagged fingernails, and his scars weren't old anymore, they still ached and pulled whenever he moved.

So yeah, he knew it was a dream.

Well, it was more along the lines of a nightmare if he remembered anything on how this experience went down.

And he does remember what happened here, he remembers every single painstaking detail.

He remembered how comfortable the bed was, a bed with an actual mattress and sheets and pillows and blankets and how he knew he should've felt warm and safe and content for the first time in two months.

He also remembered that he didn't feel any of that.

He remembered that he felt sick to his stomach, he tried to rationalize that it was the food and his stomach wasn't used to eating so much, which was true, but he also remembered knowing that the food wasn't the issue.

The issue was the...payment he was going to have give to the man, David, for his assistance.

He remembered the reason why he was so uncomfortable, so on edge was because David had just gotten out of the shower and was crawling into bed with him.

He remembered wanting to scream and cry and fight, which he did later when he was getting more than he bargained for and it started to hurt, but he didn't at first.

He was a lot of things, but he kept the deals he made.

God, he wished he hadn't.

He wished he grabbed the knife he shoved under the pillow at the very beginning, before his arms were being pinned under him and he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, let along grab anything.

He remembered trying to block everything out, let his mind wonder away from what was happening, so he wouldn't have to feel the pain and the absolute disgust that was clouding his mind.

Lloyd also remembered that he succeeded in doing that, in leaving his body and letting his conscious slip away because he doesn't remember anything up to the point of him leaving David's apartment with enough cash to let him live semi-comfortably for weeks.

Even now, in a nightmare, his subconscious refuses to resurface what had continued to happen when his mind left.

Even if he got his revenge on David much much later, his brain, his mind, didn't want to believe that it could be over.

So when Lloyd woke up, when the sun was shining through the curtains and letting him know that it was time to get ready to leave the cabin, he didn't wake up screaming.

He didn't cry.

(He never cried.)

He didn't shake.

He didn't scream.

He didn't run.

He just sat up.

Slowly, like he was testing to see if his body was his own, if it was his own still.

Kai was next to him in bed, and he looked like he had been scrolling through his phone before Lloyd had woken up.

And he wasn't looking at him with concern or fear, like how he did when Lloyd normally woke up from a nightmare, since most times he had a physical reaction to it.

Kai looked confused.

Which made him confused in return, and when Kai asked him, slowly and carefully, "Are you okay?", Lloyd was confused enough to not know how to respond.