A chill works its way down my spine.
I’ve been here before, but this is not a memory.
This is not my dream.
I try to turn, but it’s as if there’s a force behind me willing me to keep walking forwards. I know where I’m heading. I know what awaits me.
Staring at the liquid in the glass, I try not to drink it, but unseen hands force it to my lips, the burn of the drink stinging my throat and eyes.
I drop the glass. It bounces off the floor that has now turned to mud, my feet squelching into the claylike soil.
My right hand flexes around the cold metal that has replaced the glass, and Ed is there, right in front of me—the person I’ve wanted to see for the past three nights, yet now I don’t want to see him at all.
My feet urge me on even though my body is screaming for me to turn and run.
Unseen hands grab him.
The wall looms up around him, and the bricks and mortar appear along with the apes.
The burning of my lips accompanies the bile in the back of my throat.
His face contorts, silent words springing from his open mouth as the ropes bind him to his fate.
Raising the gun, I aim, but it’s so heavy, just as heavy as last time. My arm shakes as if there’s an electrical current running through it. It won’t still. My heart beats loudly in my ears as Ed struggles against the ropes, his jaw straining, tears flooding his eyes. And as the wall begins to grow before him, the apes vanish, and it’s just me and Ed, my gun held aloft, aimed right at his heart.
The bindings hold him in place as he mouths words that are lost in the silence.
I try to speak, but no words come out. It’s as if this place is itself devoid of sound. Placing my left hand over my right, I try to steady the gun, but my arms are weak, my eyes blurry with tears as Ed shouts at me over and over, words that don’t reach me until a deafening ringing sound erupts around us.
“Do it.”
Shaking my head, I lower the gun. It’s him. Ed. His voice. The voice I haven’t heard in the past ten years.
“I can’t,” I tell him.
Pain spears my chest as sadness washes over him, desperation at what is to come and what he knows has to happen.
“Please. I’m begging you. Do it.”
The scream pulses in the back of my throat as the wall reaches Ed’s chin, his eyes wide, the darkness about to consume him.
I aim the gun at his forehead as my lips part, the scream bubbling to the surface. An arm cocoons me, the gun is pulled from my hand, and my eyes close before the gunshot explodes.
At the deafening bang, everything vanishes as Valdemar steps in front of me, taking my head in his hands and placing his forehead against mine.
“It’s okay, angel. I’m here. I’m here.”
Vibrations course through my body as I shake beneath his touch, invisible tears waiting to erupt.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, angel.”
My eyes flutter open, and I swear I can smell burning.
My chest heaves. Glancing around the room, I make sure there are no bricks, no cement, and no walls being built up around me—and no Ed.
That wasn’t my dream.
Somehow, I ended up in Valdemar’s dream again. But how? Last time we thought it was because of the sedative, but I took nothing tonight before I went to sleep. So, what caused me to wander into his dream again?
