Part Three
A week had passed and Dawn, fortunately, had had no more outbursts at work. But she was still having the dreams. Every night, a dream involving that strange woman she’d seen in the mirror. A great battle fought from the tower of some castle. A roguishly handsome young man. A gigantic snake monster. A bridge of rainbows. An old, bearded man, hard and stern, but with a twinkling of kindness. A pair of beautiful women and a golden haired man. A barely clothed red-haired man with an axe. Each night something different, but each night something strange and otherworldly. Each night, something she did not understand at all.
And thought it all, a voice, cold and cruel and haughty, screaming at her. Calling for release. Glimpses of the woman came the most often, she figured prominently no matter what else filled the dream. Who was she? Why did she seem almost... familiar? Dawn had no idea. No idea at all. But she wanted it to stop. She’d barely had a decent night’s sleep since her attack.
Her friends were worried about her, to be sure. They were noticing her exhaustion, and her exhaustion was making her snappish and irritable. She was not, to put it bluntly, enjoying life.
She’d couldn’t afford a psychologist, her insurance wouldn’t pay for anything like that. But she had managed to squeeze together an eye examination at least. They couldn’t explain her sudden change in eye color, though the doctor had claimed that great stress could sometimes cause strange effects.
She sighed and sipped her coffee, trying to prop herself up better on her couch. Dawn had been actively avoiding trying to sleep as much as possible. It was easier that way. But her eyes were so droopy…
It was hot. Hotter than she had ever felt in her entire life. She was burning, burning up! She was on fire! She had to move, had to get away, but she couldn’t! Why couldn’t she?! It was hot, so hot! It felt like it was burning her down to her soul!
Her eyes were open now, she could feel they were open, but she couldn’t see anything. Everything hurt. Everything hurt so much. She was certain she was dying. What did she do to deserve this? She didn’t want to die! She’d never been in love, never seen Paris, never wrote the great American novel…
She couldn’t see, but she could just barely make out light and darkness. There was a dark patch near her, and her ears, equally burned and stripped away, could not hear a thing at all. But somehow, she could tell the dark patch was speaking. Oh God, why did it hurt?
A life hath been wrongly taken, by pride and arrogance. There must be amends! Doth thou wish to live?
What?
Doth thou wish to live? Answer!
She did! She wanted to live! More than anything! She did not want to die!
Then fight for thine life! Take it back! Live!
Something, somehow, gave her the strength to move. She felt her ruined, burned arm reach out and grab something and not let it go…
~Let me go!~
Dawn awoke with a scream, before realizing she was just in her apartment. She’d fallen asleep, dammit. Only, where had the woman been? The woman was always in her dreams. Had that been her voice? The first voice hadn’t been for certain. It had been male, but she couldn’t tell more than that. The second voice had been female, but she could hear so little in the dream this time she couldn’t tell whether or not it matched the voice she had heard in the other dreams.
But both voices had had that strange, archaic cadence to them, that unusual, almost old fashioned, almost Shakespearean way of speaking. It had to mean something. Something other than just her going crazy. Because she really didn’t want to be crazy. She’d had an aunt who’d gone crazy. It hadn’t been pretty.
She needed help. But she had no idea where to turn.
Dawn tried hard to stay awake, but it was not long before sleep took her again…
***
When she awoke, Dawn quickly realized that she did not know where she was. No, she realized, looking around, on second thought, she did know where she was. She’d seen it on the news a few times. But why was she here? How had she even gotten here? Sleepwalking? Awfully damn far to sleepwalk, but if her aching feet and the rising sun were any indication…
Here being the Defenders’ Compound.
