I’m starting a short story series inspired by dreams I have had in the past. A lot of it consist of assumptions of the way the dreams were carried. Stories are vague since there’s no true beginning or end. Some characters have no name and barely any dialogue. Also some of these stories are meant for an older audience since sexual situations are depicted. I’ll rate them as I go. Here’s part 2! Enjoy
I woke up in my bed. My mother caressing my hair. “Are you alright!?” I tried to explain that I saw something outside. Dad looked out the window. He sees nothing. Whatever it was. It was gone and I was trembling. Had I imagined it? I wanted to get out. I felt this sense of not belonging. My mother told me I was probably tired from the many nights of being awake and hardly any sleep. I bit my cheek and did feel tired from the ordeal. I drifted off to sleep. Was I even safe to dream?
Morning came. It was quiet. No birds chirping. Just the sounds of my parents murmuring. Coffee brewing. A knock on the door. My name being called and the shock of seeing a guy standing the middle of the living room. He hardly looked at me and gazed out the window. My parents introduced him and said they had been partnering with him for a while now. He would be working in the library for a few days and if I could keep him company while they went about their research that he was assisting them on. When I asked his name you could hardly hear his voice. But I nodded and took in his overall appearance. His hair dark as a raven’s wing barely covering his eyes. His eyes darker than the coffee he was sipping on. Skin was a cream color as if it hadn’t seen sun in a while. His facial hair was well kept and made him appear older. He was cold, distant, as if his whole world had crumbled in a past life from the gaze of his eyes. He stood taller than I was and his physique was lean but looked like he worked out at some point. Perhaps he stopped? Why was he so cold? The day carried on with his silence. He watched us. He sighed under his breath with dad’s failed jokes and sipped on more coffee while picking around the food. He would eat half and seemed to get lost in his thoughts. A place no one else could reach.
The library had more journals. Perhaps I picked up the last of it. The man in the book was vague and spoke of protective spells, defense against spirits and darkness. It was strange to think it was fiction or perhaps this man had gone insane on his own. Was the same thing happening to me in this place?
“What are reading?”
I sucked in a breath. The voice was so strange and deep with some kind of pain that I could barely reply. He stood at the doorway. Arms crossed and his footsteps were slow coming to me. I felt my heart quicken as he went to take the journal from me and there was a jolt. He shot a look of shock. It was the first emotion I had seen in him all day. He relaxed and took the book again. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He opened the journal and began to read curiously. I took another journal and started reading. He never said a word. So I didn’t either. We sat in the library til the sun came up. I felt myself drifting and I finally fell asleep. I woke up with a blanket. He was drinking coffee and looking at another journal. He took one good look at me and he wanted to say something. But he refused and continued reading. A few days would go by. I learned the names of different spells out of curiosity. The man in the journals had a wife that left him after having their son cause his “crazy delusions”. He claimed to want to protect his family and that the darkness spreading was too evil. The sadness could of caused his madness to worsen over time. And we were reading the aftermath of it all.
I would catch glimpses of him reading and whenever he spoke to my parents. It was nice to see them together as they treated him as their own. They mentioned he didn’t have family or anyone else around. To be nice since they’ve been working with him for a while to figure out a phenomenon happening in town. At times he would glance at me and even though I smiled he would look away. I never felt as though I liked anyone but something about this man and stoic personality. I couldn’t pinpoint it. I wanted to know more about him and his past. His interests and yet here I was gazing at him at a lost with words. A part of me couldn’t resist and I finally balled up the courage to ask.
“What happened to you…?”
The question was so sudden. He blinked a couple of times and I could see his body tense. It had been over a week of us studying the journals and barely saying a word to each other. He sighed and said “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…don’t ask me that again”
I bit my lip as I hung my head in defeat and decided to get a snack out of frustration. I sat in the recliner and sighed. How could I like someone who barely speaks or acknowledges my existence? He’d probably think I was crazy anyway.
Tap…tap…tap.
That sound….
Tap…Tap…TAP
I froze. Was it behind me? I slowly turned to the window. A pale hand. Through the sheer curtains. I could see it. A face was coming up. My throat went dry. I felt a pull. A silence around me. As I started walking towards the window. My heart felt as though it could burst with fear. It had no eyes. An emptiness. Why was I walking towards it? The shriek slowly building in my head. I wanted to run. Everything was telling me to run. Why can’t I run?
Sirua's Serenity 