Morph

I’m running, my legs sting and my breath is harsh but I’m running as my muscles hang on. They burn, yes, but if I stop now she’ll catch me. I don’t know who she is or how I know she’s chasing me but I do.

The leaves rustle and slip from under me as I continue running, trying to escape. “You can never hide Ren!” Her sickening voice calls, I know his voice, this voice has haunted me for years but I can’t remember whose voice it is.

She cackles a laugh as I dodge a tree. My feet sing now and I feel the blood drip from them, now the leaves rub against gashes as I run but if I stop there’s no telling what she’ll do to me. She left me but now she’s back, and the most dangerous people or temporary people.

“Turn around Ren! I love you, mommy just wants to see you!” She calls, my mother, the voice belongs to my mother. I run faster as I realize this, but soon my legs will give out- or my breath will. “Please.” She begs.

I yell in pain as my face connects with the ground due to a tree stump I failed to see, I struggle to get up but my face is stuck and n seconds the world flips.

Darkness is all I see when my eyes do open, but light slowly pours in and when enough does- I see her. I scream as I take in her appearance, big brown eyes, silky blonde hair and a hospital robe. Just like I remember her, she smiles at me, an evil smile and I turn back, trying to run but I can’t. Like I’m trapped inside a force field.

“Mommy has missed you baby.” She says, I turn back around and shake my head, as to get rid of her but she doesn’t leave. Instead she worsens, blood covers her face and hair, leaking from gashes everywhere and she stands in a puddle of needles. I feel an attack coming on, I haven’t had one in at least a year but now that she has come here to show me why I had them In the first place, I feel it.

Mother picks one of the needles up, she ties a blue rubber band that she pulls from her hospital gown around the middle of her arm, before pulling out a spoon and a bag of something. She pours some of the stuff inside the metal spoon, dropping the bag to the ground before pulling out a lighter and setting a flame to the bottom of the spoon. It visibly heats up, and when it does, she pulls it into the needle.

“Watch how I do it Ren.” She says as the air becomes nonexistent. She places the needle between her arm and forearm, and slowly eases it in, her face twisting in ecstasy as the contents of the needle enter her arm.

“No.” I whisper. “No mom please, please.” I try to back away again, failing again, and she smirks at me as her eyes begin to droop.

“Try it baby, you’ll feel so-”

“Stop it!” I scream as a needle falls into my hands, I throw it to the ground and my mother only laughs. Tears cloud my eyes and now, the air only will last for a few more seconds. “Stop it!” I repeat as she laughs again, repeating her action, pouring more onto the spoon.

I can’t breath, I gasp for air as I watch her soft brown eyes turn bloodshot. “Please.” I mumble, she walks toward me as I fall to the cold floor, cradling myself.

“Take it baby. It’ll stop your attack, your worries. Mommy promises okay? If you take it I will come back home to you Ren.” The stinging tip on the needle pierces my skin and I scream and yell and kick, kick her away from me.

“No!” I yell, thrashing around, pulling at me hair. “Oh my god.” I gasp. I try and breathe but the air just won’t fill my lungs. She cackles again as I struggle to breathe all because of her.

“You have always been weak Ren, that’s why I never wanted you, I wanted a strong daughter.” She says in disappointment.

“Love!” She calls, confusing me as I still fight with the air around me. She shakes me and I coward away from her touch.

“Wake up love! Its not real!” She repeats as her voice slowly morphs into Libras. I drown in sweat as I try and open my eyes, feeling myself getting shaken over and over.

“Shh.” He coos. “Its only a dream.” My eyes open as he rubs my head, I’m hot, my whole body feels like a walking fever. Libra sits me up as his eyes swim with worry, why is he worried about me when he hasn’t spoken to me in an entire week. When I never apologized for basically saying I didn’t want to fall for him.

“Why are you here?” I croak, my voice is raspy and my throat raw like I was actually screaming, but it was only a dream. A horrid dream, the most horrid as a dream could get and just like the attacks, I haven’t had a nightmare in over a year. It felt so real, I could feel the wounds from my feet, feel the burn of my legs, feel the needle as she pressed it to my arm, feel myself scream, and I still do.

“I came to wake you for your battle lessons since the general was busy.” He says. I’m awake now but I still feel a stinging pain in my feet and a soreness in my mussels, a slight pain in my lower arm. “I heard your nightmare.” He says, I push the sweat soaked covers off me ignoring the soreness of my arm.

“Did I scream that loud?” I try and laugh but it turns into a wince as my throat is too sore.

“No.” He says seriously. “I heard it, every tad of it. From you running from someone to to your mother forcing you to do something. It was like an audio, and it played throughout the entire room.” I freeze at his words. “You screamed at the top of your lungs for her to stop.. and you- you couldn’t breathe. I got scared when you started gasping for air and your pulse got low.” He admits.

“Why would you have heard my nightmare?” I ask, looking down at my feet as I feel something wet on them. I look down and see crimson blood seeping into my sheets, and Libra’s gaze follows mine. There are cuts all over my feet and some of them gush blood- like the ones I got from running barefoot in my dream. I look to my lower arm, not believing what my eyes can clearly see.

When I see a little hole in my arm I realize what has happened, what had to happen. “Those are the same cuts I got from running in my nightmare.” I whisper. “And my throat hurts from screaming in it, everything that hurt in the nightmare, hurts now.” I feel my hair, there are leaves and sticks in my hair- results of me falling and there’s a nasty gash on my left knee.

“I was here the entire time, you never went anywhere so that’s impossible.” Libra stands and I try to as well. He has to help me up and I push aside the floor rubbing against the meat of my feet as I rush to the open room door.

I don’t listen to Libra’s demands for me to visit the aid as I limp through the dark halls for Gemini’s study. I don’t know what this is but its some type of lucid dream, some creature maybe that’s causing this.

When I see his study, I walk straight in not caring about the trail of blood I leave behind. Gemini is staring out the window drinking something from a mug that holds the Gemini sign, he looks to me as Libra and I enter and as I limp toward him his eyes scan my body.

“What happened?” He asks frantically, setting down his mug and rushing to aid me in a task as simple as walking. “How did you get hurt this bad?” He looks to Libra, who waits for me to answer.

“Everything you see here happened in a nightmare.” I reply in my new raspy voice, my throat pains me even to say these few words.

Gemini’s eyes widen, he sets me down on a sofa and calls for the aid as he looks at every leaf and gash, every drop of blood, every result of my nightmare with a frightened face.

All the physical pain is so visible to him, to Libra as well, but what they can’t see is the wounds that are deeper than the gashes on my feet. The wounds on my heart, my mind and my soul. Wounds my mother caused, wounds I thought closed long ago but opened again all because of a dream I had of her, a nightmare- suppose to be a result of my imagination that felt more real than the air I’m breathing now.