Starshine, Sky, and the Power of Rock

Nightmares and Stallions

*Content Warning* In this chapter, Sky describes a gory nightmare for just over a paragraph. If you're sensitive to that kind of stuff, here's a heads up to skip that bit. You'll know it's there when you hit the word "autopsy."

I shouldn't be doing this to myself. This is torture. But the music is too good.

I'm encased in squishy padding. My body is cocooned in the soft blanket. Wilbur's terrycloth in my arms anchors me to home. The music does too.

The CD player sits on the pillow, right next to my head. It pumps electric power through the wires and into my earbuds and into my skull. Track 11 is still the best. There's no light in this casket, so I can just sink into it. Drown in it. Become it.

This album was a birthday gift. For my 10th, if I'm remembering right. So was the CD player. And the earbuds, now that I think about it. His gifts were always my favorites because he was the only one in my life that shared my taste.

There's something about the violence, the chaos of this music that awakens something in me. An electric shock to the system that gets me going. Tells me that I can do anything. That I'm not powerless. That I am power. 

He got that. It was the same for him. I'd show up at his dad's music store, eye black and lip bloody because the kids at school were relentless and he'd remind me that the world was bigger than them. I was bigger than them. He didn't tell me with words. He told me with music. And I spoke to him the same way.

But this morning ritual isn't the same anymore because I still hear him in every note. The music that would bring me back to the real world after the constant nightmares is now pushing me deeper into them. Because he's part of the nightmares now.

So I should probably stop listening, right? But the music is too good. 

Star and I are supposed to be at the stables by 10:30, I guess so we can have time for breakfast. But my breakfast is in the stables anyway.

Almost all of the students' horses are already gone. I guess being stuck in one building, even one as big as this place, gets claustrophobic after a school week. I also guess the Land of Light is filled with morning people. I've seen enough of Fairy Dust Falls so I'll leave them to enjoy it. I don't think their horses like me very much anyway. Guillotine, on the other hand, is real happy to see me. 

"Morning, buddy," I say as I put down my bag and go to stroke his neck. As usual I'm careful about going around the wad of gauze taped to the side. I look up into his blank eyes and can feel him looking down into mine. I sense the warmth coming from him even if on the outside all I see is something straight out of a nightmare. Or an album cover. Yeah I like that more. Speaking of nightmares... "You hungry?" I ask. Instinct tells me the answer is "Yes." I gently pull his giant head down until it's at the level of mine, move the hood of my cloak up and out of the way, push my forehead between his eyes, and dig through my brain to remember last night's horror show.

I've had autopsy dreams before but this one's getting to me more than the other ones. I mean obviously being cut open and feeling everything and seeing my own organs being pulled from my stomach and somehow puking all over my own guts gets to me every time it happens. But this time it was Boris doing the job. And he wasn't laughing like the normal guy. Everyone watching was laughing but he just stared into my soul. Every time I begged him to stop he only got rougher as he dug through me. The part I remember best is when his fingers sank into my intestines and he let them linger there so I could really take in the raw pain. At that point all I could get out was a desperate "Please..." He stopped for a second. Got so close I could taste his breath.

"Traitor," he spat. Then he yanked out my intestines harder than they'd ever been yanked out before, spraying bile everywhere. That'd been enough to wake me up.