Page 8 of The Nightmare King

My dream man let out a strangled groan. “Fall asleep and wait for me,” he whispered, planting a soft kiss on my forehead.

The room exploded in light. Men screamed as lasers flashed and shots fired and hit their targets. Worry drenched me as I fought to stay asleep, worried for him, wanting to help him. Why did this always happen? Why did every dream end in a frantic nightmare?

Warm air gasped through my lungs as I sat up in bed. Back to reality, back to stupid, bland, earthly reality. I slammed my fists against my wet sheets, realizing I was soaked in sweat. I wanted to scream in agony at losing him. That’s what it was, this pain, this torment of losing him each and every night, was unbearable. Not knowing if I would see him again.

Fall asleep and wait for me. He said so simply. Like he’d always come, like he wasn’t a figment of my mind or a byproduct of my medication. Fall asleep and wait for me as if he were real and not a misfiring of neurons in my brain. Fall asleep and wait for me, the phantom said, pretending to not be a trauma response, an illness within my psyche gone wrong. This was all wrong. But mostly it was all wrong because now I was awake and not asleep.

Chapter

Five

CINNAMON

I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking.

Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

Low checklist:

Sit up… fine.

Take meds. Sure.

Brush teeth. Okay.

Brush hair. No. Ponytail.

Clean clothes. Sleep shirt and leggings is fine.

Food? No.

The rest of the checklist? Don’t care.

What if he died in the dream? If we died in the dream, would we die in real life? Wait, that didn’t make any sense because he didn’t exist. Maybe I should tell my therapist about Mare.

Oh yeah, therapy.

Fingers snapping in front of my face pulled my attention. “Lucy? You’re disassociating quite a bit today.

Oh yeah, my therapist.

“Just tired,” I lied. “Just ready for bed,” I truthed. My attention flicked to the bare maple tree out the window, it swayed in the cool wind as if shaking its head at me in disapproval. Whatever, all I wanted was to go to sleep and find?—

“I said, are you still experiencing reoccurring nightmares? Are they now affecting your ability to function during the day?”

No, no, no. I’d been in therapy enough to know where that train of thought was going, and I did not like it. He wanted to change up my meds, he thought I was crazy, didn’t he? If I pretended harder to be normal, he would give me a therapy gold star for the session, and I was one hour closer to bedtime.

“My medications are great, I like them. I’m sleeping fine.”

“That doesn’t answer the question. Are you still having recurring dreams? Why don’t you walk me through one of these nightmares, Lucy.”

Pulling a pillow into my lap I fidgeted with the tassels at the corners. Dr. Truman was giving me that serious look. I preferred his bored, disinterested look. This was the you’re a puzzle I want to solve look. He was a pigeon, and I was a chessboard. I didn’t want him kicking my game pieces over. There was no way out but to talk, and my brain wasn’t as sharp as it could have been. Why was I keeping my phantom a secret, anyway? What was the point? This wasn’t a chess game with a bird, it was just talking to my doctor— still, if I spoke about my nighttime adventures, they could disappear. What if it broke the spell somehow? I couldn’t bear that, and the fear that it could happen, that I could never see my violet-eyed man again, haunted my days like the white sheet ghosts that decorated the neighborhood streets three months prior. Halloween. I wished I could go back to Halloween.

Thirty-nine minutes left of the session.

“Looking at the clock won’t help, Lucy.” Dr. Truman tapped his pen against his clipboard.

Knight versus pawn.

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