Dreaming [I.i]
“...”
“Where are you?”
“You told me to go.”
“You’ve been better without me. Haven’t you?”
“I…”
“I’ve been afraid without’y.”
“Why are you afraid?”
“Answer me, Nikhil.”
“I… I...”
“Why did you call me back?”
“I missed’y.”
“You hated me.”
“I had a reason.”
“Why did y’kill them?”
“I did not.”
“You did!”
“We did it, Nikhil. Not I.”
“There’s no we.”
“...”
“Why do you hate me, Nikhil?”
"Why do you hate us?"
“S’no us.”
“There is, Nikhil. Let me show you.”
Loss Trauma Rage Failure Fear
¤
He stood alone atop Red Hill, his hooves sticking to the dirt beneath him as though the very Earth sought to consume him. Several tugs saw no progress, and just as his orange eyes began to roll in fear they instead focused on something else. At the base of the hill, nestled just outside of the den is a lynx. She slept soundly, oblivious to his presence, and his eyes never strayed from her. There was no more love, no longing left--his stare was devoid of any kind of fondness.
“Tell me why you are afraid.”
He jumped as the voice resonated throughout him, his ears falling back and his pelt twitching with a convulsion of fear. Swallowing thickly, Nikhil once more attempted to lift a hoof and flee. As before, however, he found he could not move. A few moments passed before he answered, aloud, his gaze fixated.
“I took everything from her.”
“You would have given her only lies if you pretended to love her. We did what we had to.”
“Who has the luxury to forget a bond in a heartbeat? It took her seconds to have it erased--it’s taken you three years.”
He paused, his ears flattening and his body stiffening. As he struggled, he found his unwavering gaze was the fault of inability rather than choice.
“I didn’t have t’force myself into her life. I didn’t have t’go near her or watch over her like anyone else could d’more harm than I already had. You didn’t have t’kill her.”
“She asked it of us, Nikhil. And when I saw how it hurt you, I brought her back. We brought her back.”
“There’s no we.”
“Very well.”
His vision faded to black and, once more, he was suspended in darkness.
Then he was in a house. He remembered it distinctly, the polished floors, the walls covered in racks of flayed skin. Panic ebbed through him and he backed up, arms trembling, until he hit something. Turning, a bloodied table lay behind him, dripping and grisly. The metal straps taunted him, the head cage laughed, and a panicked cry left his mouth as he dropped to all fours and slid away from the sight.
But then, it all changed.
Charred, burning. Another man grappling desperately for a way out as fire consumed the room, incinerating the tools, the trophies, the blood. Nikhil lay untouched in the embers, his eyes wide as watched the chaos around him.
“Tell me why you are afraid. We burned him.”
“He gets out…”
Nikhil watched as the man, aflame and badly burned, stumbled out the door at the top of the stairway, screaming. It would have been an ambiguous sight if not for a night he recalled just as potently.
And then he was there, too--the small cabin that’d been selected for him by his mother. Windowless, isolated, and with Iain standing in a defenseless heap in a far corner as the Tiger sprang for him.
He remembered digging his teeth into his flesh, wrenching apart bone from muscle, hearing the satisfying mush of crushed intestines and the screams he swore were louder than his own. He remembered feasting on the man who had hurt him, devouring his innards while he lay awake, thrashing, until his pain ceased all too soon.
“He is dead, but you choose to remember him.”
The cross necklace he wore came alive at the base of his throat, humming with movement, as though unseen fingers caressed it.
“Tell me why you choose to be afraid.”
“...”
“Very well.”
Again, he stood in the cabin, but another man stands before him. His stomach churned at the sight, his mouth contorting as he recounted what he’d done in vengeance of so many. Not just for his creator, but Umay, too. For his birth mother. He swallowed thickly as a shadow of himself fought the male, brawled with him, and ultimately ended him. The event had been in his thoughts, his nightmares, for months. It had been impossible to shake for reasons that guilted him, for reasons that ate him alive, and no matter the satisfaction that had come with it, he was still afraid.
The voice spoke again.
“Tell me why you are afraid.”
He kept quiet, and this time he hoped the Incendiary would wait for his answer--an answer he thought he was finally ready to give. It did not speak, though, nor did it change the vision. It simply waited on the Ember’s baited breath, watched with unseen eyes as he warred with himself.
“M’afraid of what I did t’him. You weren't there that time. I did it.”
“Why are you afraid?”
“I don’t want t’be that kind of person.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No.”
The vision faded.
He had experienced this dream before. Only days ago.
A figure ran ahead of him, panting, casting crazed looks over his shoulder as he sought to escape. Nikhil’s legs pumped tirelessly, but no matter what he did, he could not catch up. His breath came in shallow bursts as he struggled against time itself, as that which he had sought to cage eluded him. As the figure leapt into a shining light, the world around him exploded. Blinding whiteness illuminated his vision before blackness consumed him.
And then it was happening all over again.
“You cannot stop him, Nikhil.”
He silenced the thoughts for a moment, no matter the fear that raced through his head. He had considered the nightmares for months as they’d come and gone, filling him with the sensation that there was more legitimacy to them than he might have imagined. Things he had done, experienced, and seen happen--all within the expanse of his mind, he had been so sure.
“I have to stop him.”
“Then let me in, and we may do it together, as we did once before.”
“I can’t.”
“Why do you hate me, Nikhil?”
“Tell me why you are afraid.”
Silence.
“Tell me why you are afraid of me.”
Tears stained his eyes as, again and again, he futilely raced after the figure. No matter how hard he tried, he could never catch up. He could never stop him. He would not answer the Incendiary; not until he had caught him.
This time, when the world exploded around him, his vision faded to black.
Then he was home.
He was home the first day they had brought them there. His son, his daughters, screaming and cackling over the presence of lovestruck Syra. The Sylvan Hound wagged her tail in elated confusion as the toddlers scrambled over their parents until, once she was tucked away, they calmed.
He watched as he set them all into a warm bath, washing through their hair under the supervision of their other father. He stood beside his lover as his other self took to the tasks, he watched on with his ghost fingers brushing Shardul’s and his head laying heavily against his shoulder.
He watched as he wrapped them all in towels, drying them thoroughly before wrapping them in the secure warmth of the onesies he knew they would later become so fond of.
He watched as he placed them on the couch together, sitting beside them and brushing through their unruly hair one by one. Lekha’s untamed mane, Ma’ao’s ebony curls, Shikha’s golden locks.
He watched with heavy eyes, a choked throat, and a throbbing soreness in his chest.
“Tell me why you are afraid.”
“M’afraid they wouldn’t want me if they knew who you were.”
“They have already seen me.”
“Don’t want them t’see you again.”
“There is bad in everyone, Nikhil. Not just you. Separating us is killing you.”
“It is killing us, Embers.”
“I don’t need’y.”
“Do you want to protect them?”
…
“I don’t need anger t’protect them.”
"No, Nikhil. You need balance.”
“You never brought m’balance.”
“You never let me. It was always you or I, but you refused to see us together.”
“We have always been one extreme or another, Nikhil. But we do not have to be. They have seen you and they have seen me; but they have never seen us together.”
“How…?”
“We can be both. And we can protect them. We can protect us.”
"Let me show you.”
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