Visions twirled behind closed lids—teeth coming close, ripping an ear off, and then spitting the detached flesh on the floor.
Brando,a voice called.
Yes,this Brando answered.He was the one holding me.
You shall have your revenge on this man, his blood in honor of yours. But do not kill him!
I peeked open an eye, and two lines of men started to form, one for the angels, one for the enemy, the cats scratching and clawing at their cages for freedom, sensing the tension in the air.
Closing my eyes again, I was jostled, and then I faded into a starless, deep, frozen wilderness full of glinting steel, pure white snow, and black shadows.
* * *
I was pulled from the deepness by more jostling, and a large hand prodded, then forced me to open my mouth. I slapped at it, hit it with all my might, but it refused to budge. I started to gag, but nothing came up.
The hand let me be and I fell back to sleep, back into the clutches of the same wildness I had been dropped into.
The dream shifted.
Instead of the shelter of the locked steel cage, trapped but secure, the door lifted. I shot out, afraid of what might trap me inside.
Behind me. Shadows. Chasing. Taunting. A long silhouette of a bleeding finger trying to prod.
The breath came out of my mouth in a frostbitten cloud. My heart beat so close and so frenzied, I wondered if I had been born with a heart in my throat. Underneath feet either sand or snow grated.
The snake slithered around a dead tree. I tried to go around it, but it met me move for move, dance for dance. But the shadows, the monsters, they gained on my heels. The snake caught my arm as I went past, and my other arm came out to catch a monster, and its warm blood sprayed over my light blue sleep-dress, staining the pretty fabric red.
My eyes popped open.
Where am I?
The roof above me seemed to be made of straw, and the person next to me…a woman with long blonde hair. I moved easily, slowly, getting a bit closer—her eyes… Is she sleeping? Or are her sockets void of eyes?
I slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Yes, familiar. Bathrooms always have a toothbrush.
Just a dream. Just a dream.
I raised the brush to my teeth. Fingers going limp, it clattered to the counter.
Blood.
On my neck, on my chest, all over my arms. My pretty blue sleep-dress was smeared with it.
No, not a dream.
I smell.
He would go mad if he smells me. I don’t smell like him. I am washed in another’s blood, in his…
Below feet, a massive clear tub. Water. Deep water. Clean water.
I tiptoed out of the unfamiliar place, teetering with the wind, following the snaked lines of the pier out to its edge.
No more dances with you.
The sound of voices shouting at once, the clobber of feet against boards, charging, vibrating the wood beneath my feet with their weight. Eight figures, great, big figures. Stretching, coming too fast.
Those shadows!
