The Dreamers of the Night

Chapter 1.

The Act of Silence: All persons are prohibited to discuss, in any matter, which cluster they are born to i.e. Dreamers or Creators. If persons interact in any way with knowledge of the others cluster, they will be immediately prosecuted and to which extent they have committed the crime will determine their fate.

Dreamers: Persons who dream when they lay down to rest and have no control over what they may see.

Creators: Create dreams for their person when they lay down to rest and have complete control over what is shown.

Chapter 1.

She used to hate the night sky, she felt as though the moon was laughing at her puffy face when she would look up and wish for a peaceful sleep. Oh, how it laughed. Over time, she discovered that it did not matter when she fell asleep, early morning, mid-afternoon or, late at night, her Creator would always have a nightmare for her to drown in. To swallow her whole until she couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. Of course, she wasn't completely helpless, she developed a code when she was young, rather they developed a code.

"Shh, you are a rock, you can't be shaken, nor will you ever break," he whispered into her trembling body. "It was just a dream."

She visibly relaxed and found her brother sitting alongside her slim bed stroking her damp hair. They shared the same room as children and her screaming must have woken him up this particular night. Usually, he slept through a lot of her dreams or at least pretended to.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She snapped her eyes up to his, wondering if he was playing a joke on her. She sat up and shuffled over to let her brother share the covers.

"But what if Mum and Dad find out–"

"They won't find out, I promise. No one will ever know." The sincerity of his voice must have been enough for her as she told him of the terrors that filled her dreams. She told her brother of the things that her Creator plagued her thoughts with. Why she feared to go to sleep and how she hated that no one was allowed to talk about it. He then told her that he was a Dreamer as well and how not all Creators are horrible to their Dreamers. What she didn't understand then was that no one else had a Creator like hers, no one else was subjected to the things she dreamt of in the dark. And so began their tradition, every night she would awaken her brother with her cries. Every night he would say the same thing, "You are a rock, you can't be shaken, nor will you ever break." He would then tell her his dreams, running in open grass fields with animals or playing with other children and laughing uncontrollably. Although it was hard for her to hear how they differed in their dreams, it gave her something else to think about. And so, most nights the two small children, who some would say looked like the same person, would break the utmost law even men on their death bed feared to break. All so one girl would feel slightly less alone in the world; and on the nights her brother didn't awaken, she would look out the small window that faced the forest behind their house and she would see the moon laughing at her.

The night everything changed was a simple one, she hadn't succumbed to her dreams yet and looked across the hallway to the open door of her brother's room. She couldn't see his face but made out the outline of his body under the dark covers, slowly rising and falling. She knew he was asleep. She had watched for hours through the years and learned that when he was dreaming a small smile would often find itself on his tan face. That usually got her through until she fell into her own dreams which weren't ever as kind. Her parents often went to bed earlier than the rest. They slept further down the hall and she wondered if it was because they didn't want to hear her cries at night. It had never particularly bothered her that she couldn't talk to them about her dreams and she supposed that in that way she never formed a close bond compared to her twin. From her room, she could hear the roar of the Carriers driving through the small street. Carriers were the only type of transportation that were permitted by citizens of Hadas. Of course, requiring permits and other documentation types she did not care to learn about. She knew that it was not simply her neighbours going for a moonlit drive as it was illegal to be on the roads after sundown. Her brother let out a groan distracting her attention from the road to his bed. Listening for any other evidence Jarret was in a nightmare was a way she distracted herself. She watched curiously for any shadows that mimicked his movements, but the shadows stayed still for those next couple of hours. As she was finally losing herself to her Creator's pull, the shadows moved.