Chapter 44

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When I dream, I dream of her.

Tossing and turning, trying to forget, yet it remained.

Sometimes I'll dream, and sometimes it'll just be a flicker in a sea of memories. Just a flicker.

Sometimes.

Then sometimes, in those dreaded times, it'll be more than just a flicker.

I used to enjoy sleeping. Loved it, even.

Now though? Sad to say, my dear sleep... but I really think we should start seeing other people.

You're a nightmare to deal with. Literally.

I see fangs. I hear screams. I feel pain. In my restless dreams. All of them, just a full-on assault on the senses, pulsating throughout my body. It's enough to make anybody wake up in a cold sweat. Dreams of a malevolent being's claws sinking down to your chest.

But, strangely enough, I didn't dread the vampire. Instead, I dreaded the emerald-green eyes that lurked behind the vampire.

And those same emerald-green eyes were ever recurring. I hated that I dreamed of her that way.

I hated that I dreamt of her now.

The latest construct my mind had crafted consisted of Ash, a sword, and me dying.

Two plus two equals four. I'll leave the answer to how I ended up dying unsaid. Doesn't take an Einstein to solve that math equation.

Yet no matter the formula or method of the dreams, the results would always come out the same way every time.

Me, waking up with a start, wet in the face, gasping for breaths I did not need. Afterward, I would survey the bedroom, the darkness dimly lit by the 7-in-the-morning sun.

Sometimes, nothing. Other times...

"GOD!"

I'll scream, I'll reel back and, sometimes I'll even end up bashing my skull against the wooden headboard. In this case, I hit my head so hard the bed vibrated from the impact.

Then, as I sat there, aching and moaning in the midst of a rude awakening, a voice would sound. Quiet, reserved... and almost trance-like.

"No... God..."

What an ominous statement.

Through sight blurred with tears, I'd stare at the unblinking set of misty eyes staring at me from the end of my bed. As my heartbeat settled itself back from the verge of an explosion, I'd take a deep breath and begin the day just as I have many times before.

"Adalia," I said. "Fourth time this week. I wake up and you're staring at me. Fourth. Don't make a fifth, please."

"I'm... sorry..." She hung her head. "But I... worry that I... will..."

"Frenzy," I finished for her. "I know, I know."

"Apologies..."

"It's fine, all good..." I sighed and began rolling back my sleeve, stretching out towards her a smooth patch of bare skin, ripe for a feasting. "Go crazy. Not literally, I meant... you know what I mean."

Slowly, she crept her way towards me, her gaze never once breaking away from mine, always that blank far-away gaze that seemed to see more than it should.

I'd feel her faint breathing trickling across the surface of my skin before the shimmering white of her fangs would sink into my flesh once more.

This is how my mornings tend to start out nowadays. It was almost routine by then. Well, you know that they say - A startle a day keeps the heart attacks away. Or at least that's what Ria keeps telling me. I'm not really inclined on believing her though.

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