Page 101 of Obsession

It can’t hurt me in reality? What a joke. My heart is still thundering, my skin sticking to his as he clutches me, and I shudder.

It was the old dream, returned: Strapped to a chair in a room as black as night, naked as needles penetrated me everywhere—eyelids, nail beds, under my tongue. I didn’t dare scream, for fear it would make the pain worse; all I could do was try not to shake and inadvertently push the needles in deeper.

And all the while, I felt someone… something watching. In medical interest, maybe, or perverse joy.

“What happened?”

“Let’s turn on the lights,” I just say.

His brow wrinkles. “It’s two in the morning.”

“I’m not tired.”

Silence. And then, “All right.”

Aris helps me out of bed, and the two of us sit on the beach until the crashing waves lull me to sleep, my head nestled in the crook of Aris’ shoulder.

Minutes later, I jerk awake again, yelling and punching the air. This time, it was different. I wasn’t strapped down. No doctor, no needles. I was in the woods, being chased by a mob of people I’d grown up with. Kids from algebra and English. A friend’s mom who gave me a ride home. People with blurry faces, once kind, expressions now twisted with hate.

My feet were bloodied and battered from running over twigs and stones, skin torn, wounds filled with dirt as I ran on. Finally, I slowed from injury and exhaustion, limping and stumbling, and that was when I was thrown to the forest floor.

The mob surrounded me, faces illuminated by torchlight like a Transylvanian crowd striking against the village vampire. Even their clothing was dated, and, when I looked down at myself, I noted that I was in a witch’s Halloween costume.

Before I could ponder this, a man stepped forward. Unrecognizable, or unmemorable, at least, but it was a man nonetheless who inserted himself on top of me. He was human almost entirely, except for the claws he had for hands.

These claws reached for me, either to pin me down or rip out my throat—I didn’t know which was worse—and then I was awake. Here, again.

If Aris were human, he’d have a broken nose for all my flailing and be properly pissed. But he does not complain; all he does is hold me, reassure me, bring me back to reality.

The next night, it happens again: a pit of vipers biting every inch of my skin, injecting venom that sends me writhing atop the very reptiles seeking to kill me.

And the next, more of the same: locked in an iron cage underwater, lungs screaming, demanding to inflate. There is a key just out of reach, in the mouth of a shark that bites and rams at the cage’s bars.

Dark circles appear under my eyes as my body struggles to work. I fight the need to rest for as long as I can, but I succumb again and again. And I wake, crying, again and again.

I don’t know why the dreams have returned—and so fiercely, too, but here they are. Terrible and dark. Twisted and mocking.

Rarely, there are no dreams at all. I sit in bed anxiously tossing and turning for hours, only to wake in cautious peace. The next night, I’ll dare to hope that this one will be like the last—better, good, only to face another fear.

There is no way to know what I’ll encounter next. While awake, I cycle through everything that could possibly scare me, to try to prepare myself, but my dreams are always something I didn’t think to consider—something I wouldn’t have thought frightening, but horrible under fraught and impossible circumstances.

Aris is always with me now, even when I’m awake. There is no more swimming or tree climbing or calling birds. No dolphins or coves or lagoons. He stays with me and will not leave.

His presence helps, knowing he will be there when I am terrified and shaking again, but he cannot protect me from my own mind, no matter how hard he tries. And, where he used to stare at me contentedly, now it’s almost always with worry.

No more kissing. No more touches—not when he is so concerned and I am so tired.

Just like that, a coat of oil has been tossed over our slice of paradise, and neither of us know what to do.

Days turn to weeks, and, soon, it’s hard to care about anything. It’s hard to remember that I was ever happy in this place. My movements become robotic, my mood low and depressed. Soon, I am not myself. What I become is something obsessed with staying awake—forcing stimulants down my throat and extreme exercise when even those begin to fail.

The only time I’m not tired is when I’m jerked awake, adrenaline thrust through me. My heart races so fast that it feels like it might pop out of my chest, and I grip my sternum as if to convince it to stay inside.

Aris always pries my hand back, rubbing the tension away, murmuring promises. “I’m here,” he will say. “I will make it better. I will make you safe.”

But the dreams come, again and again.

It is the perfect torture. Sleep cannot be avoided. Not forever.

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