Stay Strong

Chapter 14

"Hey Zayn, can I hold onto that for a moment?"

They had been traveling for hours. Niall had no idea where they were going but he didn't mind too much. In his opinion, he had nothing left for him there. As far as he was concerned, his life back at home was over and he was perfectly okay with that.

He wanted to ask one of the boys where they were going, but the atmosphere in the vehicle was extremely tranquil. The boys in the back were relaxed, nearly asleep, having simple conversations about things that Niall couldn't focus on.

Harry's eyes flick over to the boy in the passenger's seat every couple minutes. They all knew that Niall was going to ask questions and were just waiting for him to start. To Harry, however, Niall seemed really tired. Which makes sense after everything that had just happened. Especially with the intense panic attack, he had gone through.

Harry reached over and gently grabbed the smaller hand, causing Niall's head to whip over to him in surprise. "You doing alright Ni?" He asked quietly, rubbing his thumb across Niall's knuckles. He talked quietly enough so that the others couldn't hear them, he didn't want to overwhelm him.

"Yeah, I'm just really tired. I'm confused, a little scared." Harry nodded. He understood everything that just happened was absolutely crazy, no normal person would react normally to that kind of thing.

"Well, why don't you have a nap then? We still have about two hours to go and then when we get there, the boys and I will tell you everything." He said sweetly, throwing a glance into the rearview mirror to the nodding boys in the back.

"Wait, everything?" Niall asked skeptically. "You'll answer all of the questions I have?" He asked.

"Everything Ni," Zayn popped up from the back. "You deserve to know, we've been hiding things from you, thinking we were protecting you, but we were really just protecting ourselves." He said sadly shaking his head and looking down at his hands guiltily.

Niall looked around at them with a doubting expression on his face. "I'm gonna hold you guys to that," He said with a warning tone of voice. They all nodded happily in agreement.

"Only if you sleep now tho, Ni. You really need it," Harry reminded as he passed another driver on the highway. Niall rolled his eyes with a smile. "Yeah yeah, whatever mom." He said sarcastically, waving his hand in dismissal.

It only took a few moments until Niall was sleeping. And then he was dreaming.

He was running. He had no idea what from, but he was running and he knew that if he stopped something terrible would happen. The area around him was dense blackness, he couldn't see anything. The vast darkness terrified him to his very core. The man wanted to listen to the world around him, see if he could figure out what he was running from.

All that could be heard was his own ragged and wheezy breaths. He stumbled slightly but quickly picked himself back up and continued his run. Niall's heart was hammering in his chest, pumping so hard he swore it was going to jump right out of his chest and leave him to die right there on the black ground.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by trees, in a forest of some sort. Now it was only dark, but there was a tree she had to avoid as well. Every second he had to slam his body left or right to avoid running face-first into a tree, only to bounce his body off of another tree. Niall could feel his body bruising but he didn't have time to worry about that now. He had to getaway.

After what felt like hours, there was a light just ahead of him, maybe one hundred meters ahead of him. The light was so bright that it was blinding him, greatly contrasting the darkness that threatened to swallow him whole.