Nightmares

Sweat was pouring down the sides of her face as she thrashed about her sleep, sending her covers all over the bed that she was sleeping in. Her partner had long since gotten up to sleep on the couch, afraid to wake the girl in case something would go wrong when he did so; he also figured that she needed to fight whatever nightmare had visited her. The longer she slept, the worse she got; her nails dug into the palms of her hands as she made fists with them; a hand would go up to her hair and wrap it around the digits, tugging at it some. She was panting as though she had run a race when she finally settled down a little, but still found that she was clenching and unclenching her fists repeatedly.

It didn't make sense what had caused this nightmare. Nothing had gone wrong that day to cause her to sleep so restlessly and terribly. But apparently something in her subconscious had clicked and had caused her to dream about what was going through her mind at the moment. Even asleep she was miserable and upset by the dream. Tears were mixed in with her sweat and an intermittent sob could be heard from her as a small convulse ran down her spine and back up.

There was a small whimper from her and a choked back scream as she tightly curled herself into a ball and tangled her fingers into her hair, pulling at the follicles. A rough bite began on her lower lip for several minutes before she dug her top teeth down into her lip to muffle her sobs and whimpers.

"God, make it stop…"

There was a petrified scream coming from the distance, but no matter which way she turned, she couldn't find a way to get to the scream and found herself in hysterics because she couldn't find her wanted—her needed—destination. Her eyes flashed a dark and frightened gray as she spun around, her eyes scanning every which direction she could in order to get away from that constant screaming, or a way to help whoever it belonged to. She walked forward, her footsteps leading her instead of her leading her feet, and her arms raised almost instinctively to feel along the wall and to find a dip in the form. The dip came and the wall fell away beneath her fingers, her feet once again leading her in a run down the dark alleyway.

It was as if she had traveled this road many times before since she found that she didn't even need to think of where she should go; it just came to her if she needed to turn. Even though she was wondering why she suddenly knew the proper direction to go when she didn't even know where she was, she refused to give much thought to it and instead worried about how long it would take her to find the person to which the screams belonged to. Oddly enough, the voice sounded so familiar and was ringing every bell that was in her head. There had to be a reason as to why she knew the voice, but no reason came to mind. Instead she kept running, her hands moving along the walls when she had come to a dead end and her sense of direction had failed her.

Finally, panting, she came to a halt and quickly scanned the area, her eyes stopping on the figure that was on their knees, bent over towards the ground and clutching their stomach. She walked up to the figure slowly, not wanting to make any abrupt movements so that she scared whoever it was that was on the ground and in pain. When she was close enough, her hand reached out and gently brushed the female's hair out of the way, only realizing the gender of the person when she had gotten close enough to determine and see clearly.

The head lifted slowly, piercing gray eyes looking straight into the female above its eyes as well, both females' eyes filled with terror and shock at what they were seeing. They were exact replicas of each other except for the fact that they were wearing two different outfits and one, the one on the ground, was covered in blood and almost writhing in pain. Still looking straight into the other's eyes, their gaze was finally broken as the female on the ground gave a jump and bent completely over, tightly holding onto her stomach as the stench of fresh blood filled the air.

"Oh, god…" she breathed. Quickly looking up, she locked her gaze once more with the other female, her breathing heavy and labored. "Kaelea, you have to…to promise me that you'll…never do anything to hurt your child…"

She let out a shriek and her eyes moved frantically towards where the trail of blood that Kaelea had just noticed ended; to where a pile of something lay covered in blood and what looked like human flesh. Looking back, she pulled her hands away from her stomach finally and took a hold of Kaelea's hands, holding them tightly in an almost desperate way. It was as if it was a life or death situation. In a way though, it was. At that moment, she knew that it was the end for two people: what would have grown to be a baby boy, and herself.

"Promise me, Kaelea. You need to promise me!" Her breathing had only worsened, causing her grip on her other self's hands to get tighter until the other let out a yelp and quickly pulled her hands back. "No matter what, you can't do this to yourself…because you won't only be hurting Kaden or yourself, but also…also him."

The emphasis on that last word caused Kaelea to quickly nod her head, her eyes wide and frightened as she tried to get the image of herself lying on the ground in a head of blood out of her head. Flashes of her cold and pale body kept coming to mind and each new flash held something different. At first it was just blood, but then it got worse. Her dead child's body was lying beside her and then her lover; her husband…

She let out a sob. "I promise…I promise that I won't hurt him…I'll keep Kaden safe no matter what I have to do to do so…" she said in a hushed whisper as she watched the figure before her smile.

It was a gentle smile that had pure joy in it, despite the fact that the female on the ground was taking her last waking breaths. Her eyes slipped shut as, in slow motion it seemed, she fell onto her side. The moving of her chest that showed that she was breathing slowed until her chest no longer rose and fell; until she was no longer breathing; until she was no longer living. All of it seemed to happen so slowly, but at the same time it had gone by so quickly, although Kaelea couldn't decide which it was more like.

Almost instinctively, she wrapped her arms around her stomach before falling back in a dead faint. Instead of falling, someone had put their arms underneath the girl's body and brought her slowly to the ground. Before leaving, it spoke. "You'll be happy with both Kaden and Jonathan. After all, this was just a nightmare."

The next thing she knew, she was sitting up straight in her bed, eyes wide and full of alarm as she quickly looked around the room, wanting to make sure she was back at her house before doing anything else. Her eyes then moved to her stomach, which she gently cradled as she let out a small sigh of relief and shut her eyes. "It's all right, Kaden…It was just a nightmare…Mommy would never hurt you like that," she whispered as she smiled and lowered herself onto her back.