One little girl, kidnapped at the age of five.
Zinnia.
One angel, drifting away from the promised land.
Peregrine.
- The Writers Awards 2017 winner for Mystery/Thriller's Best Storyline -
Zinnia was only five when the men came for her. She was a f...
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THE NUMBER OF nightmares I create within a week alone is immeasurable. Do you know how many people fall asleep at once all around the world? When the moon rises and the sun burns out in one place, twilight is falling somewhere else... and it starts all over again. At least until midnight of the thirteenth—the day I become normal for twenty-four hours down on Earth: the fourteenth of every month.
The Subcouncil came up with this day of release for all the Dreamweavers and suggested it to the guy upstairs. Long story short, He said yes, but only to help with evangelism and spreading His word. It's actually one of the requirements of the day off—talking about God. And I do, only it's more to myself than anything.
My hands dance in the air as I chuckle at the nightmare before me. The old man has only been dreaming for a little while, and I can already hear his heart racing throughout the room. The blackness around the checkerboard floor pulses with the color red as the shadows dance around him, changing their size, but not their shape. They only change for the world created for the Sleeper; I can see them and what they've become, but the shadowy wisps stay floating around them, unlike in the nightmare. The Sleeper can see the colors and the world around him or her as if he or she were actually, physically there. I, on the other hand, don't. I simply think of what I want to happen in the dream, and it becomes.
Everything suddenly freezes around me. For a moment, I'm unsure of what is happening—and then my brain finds only one solution: the Subcouncil wants to see all of the Dreamweavers. God suspends time on Earth for them to hold their trials, meetings, and gatherings. If there is ever a warning for which it is, I always miss it, even though I don't care to know.
A whirlwind of light explodes through the darkness, the Shadows dispersing. I remember when there were white as snow, my shadows, but I'm unsure of why they've changed, and why they cower from the light. I flash over to it, afraid my minions will burn up, and stretch out my wings. The skin anchoring the feathers ache as they open, longing for a flight. The soft feathers below the larger ones glow white, while the others soak up every bit of light with its blackness.
With one heave, I'm off the ground, and, with my soundless wings, I fly straight up and through the hole of light. Whiteness appears around me, gold-paved sidewalks placed everywhere. Wings glisten in the brightness, stinging my eyes. Living in a dark room for most of your time in Heaven and only coming out for a day a month can do that to you. If I were anything but an angel, I'd be blind by now.
I dart to the building on the left side of where most mansions sit upon the clouds, keeping my eyes focused on its gold walls. I never received a house like the other Earthlings who became angels, but then again I don't even know if I had died or if I even had a life before I became the Nightmare Dreamweaver. And, if I did remember, what did I do to earn and enjoy a life like this, isolated from everyone but my Shadows, which are hardly even beings? I only remember accepting the job, and I'm unsure of how much time had passed beforehand, and even until now.
