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Chapter 6
That night, Don couldn't sleep that well. Dreams of her plagued him, filling his senses until he could swear the dreams were real. Usually, his dreams were pleasant. The two would be going to the park or walking through the woods or hanging out at each other's house. There were romantic drives at sunrise or sunset, lying on the beach seeing the stars twinkle high above them. Mixed in were the memories of talking and just being together… Always fun… Always happy… In a lot of ways, almost magical. He looked forward to these nights when he could just dream, one day hoping that these dreams would come true of course.
But tonight, the visions he got in his head were anything but pleasant. She was there all right, but everything was wrong. Her gentle smile was replaced by a mouth screaming and howling. Her wonderful eyes, which were usually lit with happiness, were now bright with tears as pain and terror stared back at him. Her body, so small and fragile looking in reality now looked tortured… Bruised… Beaten… Bloody. Oh, the blood. It covered everything: her body, the floor… It had even splattered on the bars around her, the cage they'd locked her up in.
Their eyes locked and she screamed out to him. "Help me! They're killing me, Don! I don't want to die! Please!" Her screams echoed in his head and he tried to get closer to her but his feet remained rooted to the ground underneath him. She reached her arms out through the bars and his own stayed limp by his sides. As another scream issued from her throat, he found his own mouth unable to even give a reply.
And then a shot echoed in that large space. In slow motion, he watched as her body crumpled onto the ground. Without realizing it, his body was finally free to move and he rushed to her side, the bars disappearing just as he reached them. Don bent down to cradle her, hands fully aware of the sticky blood that was hers. She still breathed, the bullet apparently not meant to do more than just stun her and give her another wound to worry about.
Wait… Why was she even screaming? The girl Don knew didn't complain. She never complained. She just took it all in that characteristic way of hers and dealt with the pain on her own when she was alone, from what he remembered. She never asked for help either. As Don held her in his arms, trying to protect her from the enemy he couldn't see and didn't know, the image of the x they'd found earlier that day came into view in front of him. He saw the original picture as it had been before it had been cut up to give just her picture. It now included him, the only picture they'd had together. His own face was crossed out with the same, bloody x as Mel's had been. His mouth opened to scream as he felt the painful lashes of a whip tear away pieces of his flesh and rough hands pulled the girl from his arms. From the edge of his senses, he could hear dark laughter and a loud pounding echo as he screamed and tried to find shelter.
Still screaming, Don woke himself up and sat straight up in bed. Someone was pounding on his door and fearfully, he got up and saw that a small group had gathered outside. Quickly, he opened the door. Mrs. Marchetti barged in with a guy he presumed to be either her husband or a night watch. "What's going on, Don?" she demanded as the others slowly filtered into the room after her.
"What do you mean?" he asked back, finding his voice unusually raw and sore.
"We all heard you screaming in here. It's three in the morning. Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong. I just had a terrible dream, that's all."
Mrs. Marchetti looked skeptical and seemed as if she wanted to question him some more but the man told her nothing was amiss in the room and that they should all get back to bed. Don stood by the door, mumbling his apologies for disturbing their sleep. He caught Mel's eye as she tried to slip out the door unnoticed by him. Seeing that she'd been spotted, she hesitated, giving him a sad, knowing smile as if she knew. She made her way out before he could even say anything to her.
When everyone had gone, Don sat on the foot of his bed trying to analyze what had just happened. He conjured up the images of blood and darkness in his mind. He knew something was going to happen soon and he and she were tied in this. That wasn't the surprising part. He knew this would happen sooner or later. The thing was he didn't know if he should take the dream seriously or not. Was this literal or a symbol for what will or could be? Or was it anything at all but a dream?
No amount of reasoning could tell him what he wanted to know and he knew that the answers wouldn't have come to him anyway. Sighing, he forced himself back into bed and stared up at the ceiling. In the couple of hours he had left before morning, he gave a feeble attempt to distract himself, imagining that he was with Mel again. The feeling of his hands holding hers comforted him as he imagined them gliding across the ice together once more. Her laughter replaced the screaming in his mind and he drifted off.