Up above the town a lone figure appeared, his pitch black cloak billowed in the night air.
"Where are you Bans?" Iazel looked down at the town with contempt," Why are you here? This miniscule construct of mortals is unbecoming of a Vessel and you especially."
The town lights ebbed below in a beautiful tapestry that few people could ever see, yet in Iazel's eyes it meant next to nothing. The appeal of the mortal world was in his eyes not something a Warden should think of.
The wind blew his hair roughly along with his cloak, yet his focus remained steel sharp.
"Huh? I sense... that can't be right." With a flash of shadow, Iazel appeared on the top of the town hall building, a lovely structure built in the year of the town's founding and only rebuilt once since then.
"Nothing. Not a sign of any... this place, Bans what are you doing here?" Iazel's form jumped down to the street and he started to walk on the pavement," I'll find you, regardless of how long it will take."
...
"Noooo! Help me! Please!"
I woke up with a scream.
My eyes looked around in panic as each shadow seemed to possess unquestionable menace. Memories of fear, death and darkness momentarily overlapped with reality and I felt myself back in that shadow pool, drowning.
Pale yellow eyes looked down at me with cold merciless detachment, uncaring and filled with unfathomable darkness.
My breathing was quick and hard, but as the residue of the experience slipped back into my subconscious, my fear started to fade away, until I felt a remnant of calm.
Glob darn it, I swore mentally and punched my pillow, why won't you leave me alone?
It had been a week since I'd gotten home now, and I'd slowly started to acclimate to my thin body, and mom had even bought me thin clothes for the time being. I'd gotten to eat alot of pastry delights this week, and other healthier stuff since I didn't want to get fat.
Visiting Lucas kept my mind busy and all the schoolwork I had missed kept me really busy, especially since I couldn't copy Lucas's work anymore.
Everything was getting almost into a form of normalcy.
Almost.
Each night, each time I slept, the same nightmare would come with the cruel delight of a demon. It would start the same way, I would be running in the street of New York, alone, being hunted by the shadows, each one stretching towards me, to catch me.
My fleeing would last for a brief while but eventually the shadow's grip would get me and I'd be swallowed whole.
Then the suffocation would start.
My lungs would start to beg for air but none would be there. No gasp of oxygen to ease me, nothing to lessen the craving hole in my chest. The craving would turn me frantic, as a burning sensation started to come up, and my hands would flail around, grasping at nothing and holding nothing.
Finally when my consciousness was about to start to fade I'd use the last bit of air in my lungs to scream for help, asking someone to save me.
No one came, except for the one person I did not want to see, the person who put me there.
Pale yellow eyes.
They'd appear when I reached my brink, my utter limit and hope was gone, as if to savour the life finally being snuffed out of me.
Then I'd wake up screaming, as I had just now.
"Sarah? Are you okay?" Mom's worried voice sounded as the door opened.
My mom stood in the door with heavy and concerned eyes, bags bellow them from sleepless nights caused by me. I hated that everytime I had my night terrors my mom would pull herself up and rush here as if my life was on the line.
It wasn't until I had my second nightmare that I realised how much I'd spooked her when I was unconscious.
She'd suggested I sleep in her room but I refused, making her worry more. But I had the tendency to sometimes mutter in my sleep and I didn't want her to hear me mutter crazy things and end up at the doctor.
I couldn't do that to myself, or to her and I knew it didn't make anything easier.
I was scared.
I was scared of being crazy, of sleeping and worst, of those things being real.
I vehemently hoped it was all a dream born from my subconscious mind when I was unconscious, but it barely brought me comfort. I was starting to lose it, but I couldn't crack or else mom would break too.
"Mom!" I sobbed heavily as my eyes shed tears uncontrollably," I... want Lucas back. When will... he wake up?"
"It's okay, Honey." She hugged me tight and rubbed my back, and that only made me cry harder.
Several minutes later, I'd cried myself exhausted and fallen asleep again, my mind now too numb to conjure a dream. My mom's eyes stayed on me for a few minutes before she eventually left, unaware of a pair of purple eyes on the ceiling staring down at us both.