I stare at the droplets gathering on the glass, casting shadows in the moonlight. My breathing becomes heavier, scenes of my own nightmares creeping up behind me in the darkness. I can feel their cold tendrils reach out for me.
“Why are you keeping me here?”
The question throws me for a loop. The darkness shrinks back into the far corners of the room.
“I need you.” I do. In ways she doesn’t understand.
“But why are you here? Why are you treating me this way? Why haven’t you just killed me yet? I practically washed up on your shores.”
“I saved you.”
“Why?” Her voice sounds almost like a beg. I swallow hard. I can’t have this conversation. I’m showing weakness. She’s inching her way between my plates of armor.
“I strangle him.” I see her mouth close, her head roll back to face away from me. “I… I’m asleep, I know I’m asleep because everything doesn't feel quite real. You know the way. And I’m straddling this small figure, their head is thrashing and thrashing, it’s blurred their face like a bad security image,” my palms sweat as the dark tendrils reach around me again. “And I’m choking them, they’re choking, they're fighting against me trying to get me off. Then they start screaming my name, and I feel myself lifting out of the dream, my consciousness coming back to reality and right before I open my eyes the face clears and it’s Moe. It’s Moe lying beneath me.”
The rain batters the window, a storm rolling in from the sea. Then I feel her hand on mine, clasping it, squeezing it for a second and the darkness recedes. My eyes burn and my throat tightens, but I quietly clear it to suppress any emotions which dare to rise at her touch.
“Mine is drowning, out there. I can feel it happen. It's… blissful. When my body decides to take on the water it's like my brain thinks, ‘it’s okay, we can breathe now’, and I just let it in. I don’t remember you grabbing me.” She lets my hand go and I suddenly miss the warmth of her touch.
She inhales, deep and ragged. Then she shivers again. I feel myself pull around her tighter.
“I don’t want to die.”
The confession has me stun locked, in the weak and whispered tone, as we lay there. And I realize that I don’t want her to die either.
Date: 5-10-2024
Time: 0619
My hands trail the length of her back until they wrap behind her shoulders, and I pull her into laying on my chest. As much as I’d love to feel her rocking those lush hips on me all damn night long, I can’t. Not yet. I’m a patient man.
She grunts in response, but for once she listens and remains still. With each silent second, she relaxes more, her breaths even out and calm.
“Hate me all you want, make me the monster in your dreams, make me the thing you strive to kill, make me the villain in your story. As long as it’s me and no one or nothing else.”
Her body shifts into a more comfortable position, making me physically tense from the motion. I need her to stop or else I’m going to lose control. I never claimed to be a good man. I don’t have to start now.
“You’re sick.”
She made me this way, though. She’s the one who started this all. She darkened my morals and forced my body and my mind to betray me.
With each breath she takes, I feel her drift further away, letting each wave lull her to sleep as it crashes against the sand only a few yards away from her window. I glance at the way her lashes sprawl against her cheek, barely covering the freckles that line them. The small crook of her nose. I highly doubt she’ll let me this close again anytime soon.
Then I swear I only blink, I blink and I’m there again. We’re on the floor, there’s a small frame beneath me. But this time it’s her. It’s her face, growing purple and red, the vein in her head bulging out, pulsating as if it’s going to burst. Her eyes grow red in the whites, it crawls over until it completely fills them. No. No, no, no. Not this. She’s struggling, I can feel her nails clawing at my face, my body rocking as she desperately writhes beneath me. Her mouth gaping open, not even air is able to escape out. My hands are squeezing at her neck, they’re squeezing and squeezing, and she starts screaming. It’s blood curdling, it’s piercing my ears. I’m crying, hot tears spilling down my face. I’m stuck, I’m unable to let go. And it’s Moe—no it’s her—no it’s Moe. Screaming my name.
Screaming.
My heart is racing so fast that I’m gasping for air, making my body move without command sitting straight up. My head throbs and a black haze blurs my vision.
I glance around, familiar surroundings. I’m alone, in my own room. My eyes drift to the red flashing digits on the clock next to my bed. Caspian, you left her hours ago. Fingers begin thrumming my bare chest, slipping on the sweat. The cold sets in quickly and I have to drag myself up, stripping the soaked sheets and heading for the shower.
It didn’t take her long to fall asleep and I knew I couldn’t stay, someone, namely Sam, would grow suspicious that she’d killed me and would come looking. I couldn’t risk him finding me in bed with the enemy, so I’d left, quietly, commanding for the cameras to be turned back on and retiring to my own quarters. But as usual, I couldn’t stay asleep for that fucking nightmare.
The warm water cascades over my skin. I should never have told her about any of it, she didn’t need to know. I was being bloody possessed. Hands pushed against the tiled walls of the cubicle before I struck out with my right, smacking the wall with the side of my balled fist. This wouldn’t do.
With a new sense of purpose, clean, dry and awake, my boots thump along the empty corridors to Sam's room. The door wings open hard enough it almost slams back in my face. A mess of blonde hair rises from the pillow, the harsh light spilling into his space and making him shield his eyes.
“Jesus Christ Cas, what time is it?” His mouth sounds dry as he smacks and licks his lips, somewhat disorientated. I remain statuesque in the doorway.