Fatal Dreaming [[OLD]]

Chapter 17: We're Only Going Down

A/N: Ok bois, fanfic hiatus is officially over! Here we go!!

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Chapter Warnings:

 - Dark themes
- Descriptive spiral to unstable mentality
- Triggers (Somewhat implied suicidal thoughts)

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His breath shook as he exhaled. His heart was pounding, he could feel the beads of sweat clinging to his forehead, as Plagg sat right in front of him with wide, worried green eyes. The kwami's mouth was moving frantically, he must've been speaking, as he occasionally moved around or made exaggerated movements only to end up back in front of his owner again.

Adrien registered none of it, only the ringing in his ears.

It had been a minute or two, at least he thought. He was sitting upright in his bed, the covers now tangled around his legs and his hair unkempt. Adrien felt as if his senses were blocking out everything else in the world, he could feel every sting from his healing bullet wound whenever he moved, he felt the way his stomach flipped with nausea and his eyes were weighted like bowling balls. He could only grab any sort of focus onto himself, nothing else.

But he didn't care. He didn't care how sick he felt, all he did was stare straight ahead as he drew raspy breaths to try and calm the memories of his latest horror.

It was another one of his lucid dreams, he realized that what he was seeing around him was not real. Both a blessing, and another piece of this curse. He knew that he was having a nightmare which helped his mentality, but whatever power that seemed to control these dreams seemingly hated whenever Adrien did that, and only made everything worse until he was forcefully thrown back to the waking world.

It had been months since the initial blast. As much as he hated admitting it, the gruesomely repeated death of his favourite girl in the whole world wasn't the piece that affected him as much anymore among all of this. The worst part of all, and most likely the source of the spark that ignited Adrien's anxiety, was the terrible shadow of failure constantly hanging over his head. A cruel reminder, every time he fell asleep.

You failed to save her again, his inner voice reminds him. You've always failed to save her life. If you can't rescue Marinette in a dream, what's preventing her from dying in real life? Nothing. Nothing holds her from being hurt, because you've never been able to protect her. If you, someone right by her side, can't save her when she needs someone, then who can?

Some partner you are.

With hesitance, Plagg's voice broke into the space that was filled with nothing but Adrien's labouring breaths. "Adrien? Please, you've got to calm down. Can you hear me?"

He wanted to answer yes, yes he could hear his pleading kwami, but no words were able to come out. It felt like... like some invisible force had a choke hold on his throat.

Adrien was scared- no, he felt terrified. Something was happening to him, like slowly but surely the strings of his very being were being tugged by a different puppeteer, every layer that made up him being stripped away like a decorative sticker.

Was he going crazy? Is this what it felt like to lose your sanity? Was Fatal Dreaming getting a hold on him so badly that he couldn't hold onto his own mind anymore? He dug his fingernails into his scalp and his teeth grinded together in agitation.

The curse was going to kill him, Adrien was sure of it. Whether he went crazy, or the scar drained his remaining life energy from his body, or whatever else Hawkmoth's freaky powers had triggered this spell to do to him, he could feel himself spiraling downward at an alarming rate. He was going to die, and nothing could be done.