Nightmares and Memories (slow to update) (sticks this is old /cries)

NIGHTMARES

A/N:  First fic I ever wrote :0 (like ACTUALLY ever, for AvA/M or otherwise. The chapters before this were written after the fact). There are chapters between Scars and this one- this is after AvA5- but I just haven't written them yet. N&M was going to start from here, once upon a time, and be purely about AvA5. Its... not. 

Warning:  nightmare pain/angst 

THE SECOND COMING

Second shifted in her sleep, but peace wouldn't come. The nightmares were back.

She was running along the cliffside. Dark clouds flooded the area as a somber backdrop to the two new stick figures fighting on a little rock platform some 40 feet below her feet.

She ran, initially filled with nothing but a fiery determination to help the black stick figure, nearly pinned by the spider-like "virabots". The dream slowly faded in, establishing itself, and with that came memories of previous nightmares.

It had been a month since Dark officially died, but the emotional and physical scars he left still showed up in her dreams.

Will I make it to them this time? Fleeting hope haunted Second, but was shot down quickly as she remembered the ending of every nightmare before this one. She shook her head, trying not to confuse dreams and memories. Best not to think about it at all.

In all of her nightmares since that day, Second had never managed to save any of them.

She looked back to see her friends following, then outpacing her as the dream slowed her to a crawl. Second watched helplessly, trying to cry out, to speak, to warn them, to do anything- and utterly failing as the dream froze her mid-leap, and she watched as they jumped down to protect the black stick figure without her. The red stick paused, momentarily confused at their arrival. Then he confidently stalked forward and cut them all down with ruthless efficiency, before smirking at Second up on the cliff edge. Second watched through tear-streaked vision as her four best friends struggled to stay alive even as they collapsed, everyone she ever loved dissolving away in a faint red cloud of ones and zeroes, carried off by the wind whipping around the cliffs.

Red. Yellow. Green. Blue. Second's cracking voice was torn away by the rising storm, just like everything else in this cursed nightmare.

That should have been me.

She had gotten there first, a month ago. Had tried to stop Dark before anyone actually got hurt. If anyone was going to die, it should have just been her-

Instead, Second had been blasted back, watching helplessly as her four friends slowly died protecting each other, and her, and Chosen.

As her world unravelled at the seams, like the code that she watched pour from them once again.

The dream darkened and storm clouds closing ominously above to match, completely obscuring whatever sun was left. The wind picked up once more, as if to announce the red stick figure slowly rising to meet Second on the cliff edge, acting like he had all the time in the world. Second still stood, frozen by the dream and by her own fear, feeling absolutely helpless to do anything but watch Dark approach. In the corners of her vision, virabots crawled out from the ground, carpeting it in a bright red and approaching menacingly. She looked down to the rocks again, to see even indestructible Chosen slowly disappearing with the rest.

She was alone with Dark and the virabots, completely unprotected.

Second hadn't realized it was possible to feel this terrified, or this vulnerable.

Dark shook his head at her. "You didn't even do anything! I literally just murdered all your friends; aren't you going to try to stop me?"

YES! Second tried to scream. Her voice wouldn't work, and it was too loud to be heard over the storm anyway, but she still tried. If I could actually move, if I could talk, if I had powers of any kind at all, I would kill you right now! If this dream would RELEASE me, I-