Dreamstate
The first morning, it starts with bruises.
The first morning, it starts with bruises. They are red and raw, crisscrossing around my arms. They look like someone had been clawing at me. I remember my dream. There had been water rising and...and a woman pulling me down. I remember waking up coughing, with my lungs feeling raw, my skin cold and the marks...the marks behind my sleeves.
I tell myself it is a coincidence. A mere trick of the mind and body. Just an effect of how vivid my dream had been. The marks do not fade off, but I push them from my mind.
But then, I wake up the second morning and there are horrid burn marks on my skin. A scream starts to bubble up in my throat. My dream had been of fire this time. There had been a narrow hallway lit with flames. I remember the heat crushing me from every side. I remember the woman on the other side of the hallway, staring at me with a smile on her face. I remember my frantic attempts to escape; the awful taste of smoke in my throat. I had woken up coughing again, and now my arms have blisters where there had been bruises only just yesterday. I rub a soothing salve on them and push them from my mind.
Another coincidence, I say.
By the third morning, I cannot pretend any longer. The woman comes every night now, drifting through my sleep as if it were her home, her hollow eyes always fixed on me. She never speaks, only presses closer. She drags me into whatever ruin she carries. Her wounds become mine.
Bruises. Cuts. Ash. Burns.
I resist sleep. I am sure this will stop her, but she does not seem to care whether my eyes are open or closed. In the half-light of exhaustion, she still finds me. One night, in the space between walking and dreaming, I see her standing at the foot of my bed. Her hair is wet, and the carpet beneath her feet is soaked.
I can no longer tell what is dreamstate or what is reality.
The days warp around me. Mirrors show a paler, more haunted face different from the one I remember. My reflection winces when I move my body; flinches when I brush against my new bruises. I begin to smell her everywhere; that mixture of dampness, iron and smoke. In the morning, my sheets are damp and my carpet is soaked.
I stop telling people I'm fine. I stop telling anyone anything.
On the seventh day, I wake with her bloodied handprints across my chest. They are deep and dark and very impossible to ignore. There is the echo of a voice in my ear, feminine and haunting.
Almost through, it says.
The words follow me all day, everywhere I go. Everything, everyone is echoing them. By evening, I am too tired to resist. I carefully make my bed, smoothing the fresh sheets with care. I turn out my lights and lie back.
I do not know if I am asleep yet when I feel her climb into the bed beside me. I feel the mattress dip with her weight. The air turns wet and heavy, but still, I do not move. I close my eyes.
Because I think reality has bled into dreamstate, and my skin is no longer my own.
When I open my eyes again, she is gone.
I sit up slowly, testing the weight of my limbs. They obey. The bruises, the burns, they are all mine now. The body is thinner and steadier than I expected.
I rise and cross the room. In the mirror, the face blinks back at me. It mouths a plea, but no sound comes.
I smile.
At last, I am awake.