night·mare

noun

a frightening or unpleasant dream.

It was snowing. But it didn't make sense, it was only September, there was no reason for snow to be falling from the clear blue sky above her. She was standing in the middle of the road, her hands raised out in front of her, palms up. The snow touched her skin, but instead of cooling her, it burned her. She winced each time the small flakes touched her, tiny little burns all along her flesh.

"I know this road," she said, but her words were muffled like she was underwater.

Standing there on the yellow line in the center of the street, she watched snow pile up. Then the headlights came into view, wide and yellow, they came barrelling down the road towards her, but she could not move. Being burned with each snow flake, and then run down, it was not a pleasant way to die. Her heart hammered in her chest, throbbing so hard that it might burst through her chest cavity like the alien from the movie. Just before the car hit her, a truck plowed into it, slamming the car so hard that it spun into the ditch and hit a tree.

She stood there, frozen still, watching as the car exploded, only she didn't get out this time.

Everything darkened, the snow disappeared, and she was brought to another darkness. The ceiling above her was smooth, too smooth. Sweat dropped from Tommy's forehead onto her own. She shut her eyes and bit her lip, knowing that this too would end. It had ended already, it happened years ago, it did not matter, it did not have power over her.

And yet she did nothing as he belittled her, told her the lights should have been off.

The large room with a king sized bed was scattered with ashes, dust from the Upside Down. She stood up from the bed, thankfully fully dressed again. Covered. She reached her hand up to her face and felt the smooth skin there, before she was burned. Walking along the mucus-y floor, she noticed a body in the world that doubled as a living thing. His pale face was expressionless.

She knelt down and peeled back the mucus that covered him, exposing who it was. When she saw, she recoiled with a scream that made no sound. Acting fast, she crawled back over, fighting her fears and clawing away at the mucus that held Jonathan. Her hands blackened now, they began to crumble and she could not stop the Upside Down from taking Jonathan. It wrapped around him tighter, and then pulled him under where she could no longer see him.

She backed up, crawling backwards to get away from the monstrosity. Hitting something solid, she looked behind her now and saw another body. This time it was Hopper, and she tried to save him too, only to fail. He too was taken from her, and that's when she saw all of them. All of the bodies; Will, Joyce, El, Nancy, Steve, Lucas, Mike, Dustin. And then there was her father, blending in with the ugliness of the world. She couldn't save them, she couldn't save any of them.

When the first strand grabbed her wrist, she pulled back, fought it. The second one gripped her, wrapping around her, she no longer fought. Frozen with anger, the rage and sadness was not enough to make her fight it any longer. What was the point, when everything around her was death, and everyone she loved was dead. She had no one to fight for, not even herself; she could not be herself without these people. Pinned to the wall now, sinking into it like quicksand, she watched as the monster, the Demogorgon stepped into view. She shut her eyes when its mouth opened wide and screamed at her.

She screamed back this time, her voice rising above the monsters, her fight stronger than ever before. This monster could not defeat her, not in real life and not in her dreams. Her eyes opened, narrowed only to show her fury as she screamed back at it. But only this time it was not the Demogorgon, it was something else entirely. Larger, taller, completely different from the monsters she'd gotten used to. Though it had no eyes, it looked through her, like it could feel and see every part of her, everything that scared her.

The real scream came from her lips then.

Jonathan jerked from his sleep when he heard Emilia scream. Panic swept over him until he realized that she was still asleep, then he quickly took action. Leaning her up where she was, he shook her and called her name until her eye lids fluttered open. The look of terror was not hidden by the sleep around her eyes, her mouth was agape and shallow breaths danced between them. The terror ebbed when her eyes locked onto his, but it lingered nonetheless.

"Hey, hey," he calmed, soothed, as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She was dripping with sweat, but was freezing to the touch. "It's okay, I'm here, it's okay."

When she managed to find her voice, which had gotten lost since she woke up, she mumbled, "I... I... It looked right through me."

"What did?" he asked, still holding her.

"I-I- I don't know..." She inhaled deep, "Can you just... tell me something good."

He hesitated for a moment; in his tired state there wasn't something that jumped out at him right away. But he found it locked away, something she didn't know. Something he had never told her. He kissed her shoulder gently, and then looked her in the eyes, "You're the first girl I ever had a crush on."

She looked up at him with the look that begged he went on, told her more.

"I always kept my head down in school, I didn't want to get to know anyone there, it didn't feel worth my time when I knew I was going to leave Hawkins the first chance I got. Then the accident happened, I was driving home and heard the horn blaring, thought someone just got mad at another driver, you know? It didn't stop when I got home, so I parked the car, told mum to call 9-1-1 and ran down to the sound... I saw it, and... and I got you out of there. I remember being so scared, I thought for sure you were dead... I remember thinking how I couldn't save your mum, I didn't know at the time she was... you know..."

He kissed her shoulder again, "You were freezing, bone cold, so I put my jacket on you until the ambulance arrived. I don't know why they let me ride in the ambulance, I think they thought I was there when it happened, and could tell them something, but I didn't know... All I knew was that you were the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. I knew I'd seen you in school before, but I couldn't understand how I'd never seen you. I wish I had said something to you earlier, when you came back from the winter break that year, but I was so scared. I didn't know how to talk to you..."

"You knew how to save me," she looked up at him with her big blue eyes.

"Yeah, I guess I did." 

Someone said they wanted to see romance, I'm working on it! It's sort of a difficult theme for me to write as they are already a couple and some stuff will feel repetitive. I really do want to know what you guys want to see, suggestions will be taken! I have decided to have Billy show up earlier, because I think that will bring out some silent readers.

Question of the Day: Do you have nightmares often?