Title: Nightmare Still up for debate on this
Pairing: none
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1030
Summary: After all, it was only a dream and after a few days it will be a distant memory.
Disclaimer: All in my little head.
When the world around you makes it so that your chest is so tight you can hardly breathe, you spend a lot of time just laying in bed. But what you lose in sleep, you gain in ideas, thoughts, dreams. Some of those are so outlandish you know they'll never come true. And others times you're contemplating the meaning of your life and how you've gotten to the point you're stuck out. You spend a lot of time on those nights praying for daylight and hoping that you're gonna make it. You tell yourself this is gonna be the day. Just that first ray of light into your window will guarantee that starting today things will be different. That you will turn your life around and make something out of yourself, and that all the demons that haunt you will be banished once and for all.
Daybreak. You survived another sleepless night, plagued with visions of all your failures. It was a hard fought battle but you're much better for the effort, despite the dark circles that are sure to be there when you finally catch a glimpse of yourself and the week's worth of facial hair that's accumulated because you've been too down to care. No, this time you're gonna do it. You're gonna break those ties that have held you down for so long, and when night falls again, you'll sleep. Sleep and remember the man you used to be and how life was for him. Yes, you can do it. This time you WILL. Because you're not sure of just how many more of those sleepless nights you can make it to the first rays of that red sun.
You force your eyes open slowly, blinking to clear your vision from the haze that seems to have settled some time in the night. No matter how much or little you sleep, your eyes stay closed to block out those visions. Most of the time it doesn't help but your mind tells you to do it anyway. Who knows what will happen. Sitting up slowly, reality crashes back down at you as you look around the sty that you call a bedroom. Every bit of resolve you'd built up in the hours previous fade away in an instant. The paint seems dingier than ever as you take in the new day, some of it completely falling away now. Tale tell signs of some of the less productive nights when you knew this was all you were ever going to be. All the thoughts and hopes and reassurances flew out the opened window with the first drafty breeze that went through the apartment.
Bare feet hit the cold wooden floor and as much as you know you wouldn't sleep there, you immediately want to curl back against the pillows under the warmth of the pile of blankets that have amassed on your bed. The furnace hasn't worked in months and you know by summer the repair man will still be on his way and you'll be able to add the air conditioner to the fix it list. You honestly couldn't find it in you to care. The landlord is the definition of slumlord. Squat, whiskery and with salt and pepper hair, he reminded you the first moment you met him of an overfed rat. His beady eyes were always watching, even if you couldn't see him near you. You could feel his presence. Always watching, always waiting, ready to strike. Just for what you weren't sure yet. He would be a problem if you spent more time in the hole he called an apartment. But these days were past that. Your work called you to be out of the house more and more and you welcomed that.
As much as you would like things to go back to normal, as much as you would like that old life back you know it's gone forever. And that realization is what drives you in everything you do now. You remind yourself of that as you pull yourself into the bathroom and finally catch a glimpse of the haggard face in front of you and the dull green eyes that are the closest resemblance to the you of old. Even they're lifeless and cold, now. To match the complete transformation you had to go through to go on. You shake your head as you push the memories away again and turn on the tap, the start of another long day. This is what you are now and what you've become and you never had a choice but to accept it to go forward.
Any other time this would be when you wake up. Your chest would rise and fall and the sweat would trickle down your brow and you'd sigh slowly in the comfort that it was just a dream. That life and that past were nothing but your mind playing tricks on you. You'd curse the clock as its early morning hour blinked back at you and grudgingly try to fall back asleep praying for a more pleasant scene to play behind your eyes this time. You didn't like the coldness and disdain you could feel so palpably in your chest when those haunted green eyes stared back at you through the mirror.
Sleep it away. It's your privilege and you take it gladly. After all, it was only a dream and after a few days it will be a distant memory. Maybe those eyes will trigger something as you pass a stranger on the street one day, but that's all it will be. A shadow that may make you do a double take, but nothing more. But for me? This is my reality. My past, present, and my future laid to bare. I've accepted the things that I cannot change and I will go on with my work, content in the knowledge that though that life is gone, nothing that I've lost will be in vain. In the end, I will be reunited with those I loved and lost, and know that every ounce of pain and misery that was brought upon them was avenged tenfold, and by my hand.