Hunter knew exactly what she felt because in this place, he wasn’t separate from her. He was the dream, and the dream was her. He felt the split between her body and her mind. She was an adult, strong and capable, but in this nightmare, she was still the child. Small. Scared. Trapped in a moment she’d never escaped.
The floor was cold beneath her bare feet, sweat clinging to her brow, heart pounding somewhere between get on and get out. Fear slithered close, crept in muted and inevitable, whispering like a snake threading through her thoughts.Go back to bed.
But she didn’t. Not yet. Because rage was louder, clearer. Angrier.
Hunter felt it twist inside her. If only he could help her move, give her that first push. But it had to be hers. He wouldn’t take that from her.Shehad to choose.
She stood frozen, breathing heavily, her fists clenched at her sides. Hunter felt her doubt like static under his skin–what was the point? What could she even do? She couldn’t save hermother. She couldn’t fix her father.She had no comfort to offer. No lesson to teach. Only the same silence, on loop.
Everything in him went still, breathless in the way only a nightmare could be.
And then it came.
Pride.
It flared like a spark catching dry wood. Hungry, sudden, seething. It swelled inside her, aligning with her thoughts, lining every memory with steel.
Dear Dad wanted to be the big, mean man? Then he could be while she looked at him with eyes filled with disgust.
Mother wanted to be a punching bag? Then she could be while her little girl watched and learned what not to be.
Daphne took a step.
It wasn’t a big, dramatic one. But it was enough to break the spell and carry her on while her mother’s soft cry reached her. Her mother’s sobs were never loud; God forbid her pain would cause a ripple or matter. But in the stillness Hunter created around Daphne, the sound reverberated like grief into an empty cathedral.
She took another step.
Her hand reached the doorknob, cold and smooth. She swallowed hard.
Then she turned it.
The latch gave with a soft click.
And Hunter, still folded inside the bones of the dream, shifted it, redirected it. The long, narrow hallway stretched out before her, her tiny shadow pressed against the walls. Dark. Chilly. Empty. In the distance, down the hall and into the kitchen, Hunter moved the crying there. It echoed faintly now, distant but not gone.
Because she wasn’t done yet. There was one more room, one more wound she needed to look in the eye.
Daphne didn’t stop or hesitate anymore.
She reached the kitchen door and opened it. And when her eyes took in the room, she saw what was waiting, what had always been waiting. Her mother, sitting on the floor in a corner, her face hidden in her hands, trembling. Her father at the fridge, looking for a beer. Pain sliced through her like wire and was discarded. She let it cut and shed it like old skin she didn’t need anymore.
He, on the other hand? Something hollowed him out. Like someone had reached in, grabbed his spine, and yanked. Which was ridiculous, of course, he didn’t even have a spine. He wasn’t real. Not here. Not now. Just a shadow in her mind, wrapped in shapes and whispers. And still it felt like he’d been gutted.
And then... the dream flexed, recoiled, twisted. Reoriented around her, andit wasn’t him. It wasn’t his hand on the nightmare’s wheel anymore, and it hit him like a drop in gravity, that visceral lurch when you’re just free-falling.
What in the actual fuck?
He tried to stir the nightmare, to redirect the flow, pull it back under his control.
Nothing.
It didn’t respond because her mind had snapped into full awareness. She was lucid and present. Commanding. She wasn’t drifting or reacting anymore, but leading. And she was angry. The little girl was gone. What stood in her place was a woman who had nothing left to lose and absolutely no interest in staying quiet.
The fear was still there, but it didn’t control her, just as he wasn’t controlling the nightmare.
Alright.
Fine.
