I woke to see you.
Hale always dreamt about everything there ever was to see behind closed eyes. As a child, he had an imagination that lent to the greatest of times, even when the world around him seemed to wither from the slightest change in season. Happiness was its own reward, they had said to him, and so he fostered happiness by the boatload. He sought solace in sorrow, yet allowed himself to wallow in despair, as despair brought the clarity of tomorrow.
His honesty with himself brought him great comfort, but it also troubled him deeply. For, he reasoned, if even one thing were to change, would this peace be changed as well?
It was another dream.
Dreams like this never failed to wrack his nerves and his senses, piercing him to his core as he jolted awake. Every waking day, if he was lucky enough to wake at day’s light, he found his hands gripping the sheets, trembling hands coming to his sides as he sighed into the open air. No dream was alike, but they all ended in what he could only believe was his death. And each time he laid his head to rest, it was a surrender to another breathless morning. His heart would swell in his chest, blood racing through his body as his pulse thumped, raw in his throat.
Every night he laid his head to rest, the stalker would begin the game. Hale didn’t have to see him to know, he could simply sense it; the way he was being hunted was intimate, as if a part of him were trailing himself. The stalker in question was hardly a man, and moreover, it was hardly Hale. At times Hale would see himself in the stalker, but the flicker of recognition always faded to the chase. The shadow had a keen sense of purpose. It strode as if it knew where Hale was at all times, but loosened the line to all but confirm the kill down the road. It often raised its nose to the wind, feeling the hazy, heady air for a scent before it caught him.
Hale could run and run, but he would never find sanctuary, not even in this facet of his own mind. And when he was caught, slaughtered or worse, he awoke. That was the thing that made him scowl. How could this nightmare have the audacity to be just a dream?
Everything in that nightmare stunk of acidic metal and blood. Things he could barely help to notice blurred underneath his vision as he fruitlessly fled his assailant at every turn. He wanted to go back, even in his free, waking hours, just so that he might be able to make sense of it. But, he could not, even if he had the opportunity. The walls he clung to in that realm, stalking their edges for even a facade of safety. But these walls, they were flesh, hostile and pulsing with an ego, wanting nothing more than to betray both Hale and themselves. At the slightest touch, he felt them twitch into a spasm, and in mere moments, the shadow was at his heels once more. He had learned better, knew not to touch them, and yet he was truly helpless when it really came down to it. If he left them alone, begged them for silence, he still was found. So was there really any hope here, when it seemed his own mind was against him?
Despite everything, there were times when he gave in to that terrible creature. He would grit his teeth and face it, tired of running and being tired all throughout the day. In return, perhaps he expected a quick death, or at least something that would shift their dynamic. But, ever so cruel, the creature simply turned its heel and disappeared into the crude mists. It left him alone for what seemed like entire eternities, as the creature was the sole being who could end the night. And so, it waited cruelly as the ambience turned to a chilling darkness, waited until Hale was close to tears from the cold before it returned. Punishment came swiftly after that, and before Hale could even peer at the shadow, he awoke once more.
Even if the damned thing killed him slowly, exiled him, or if it hunted him from Hell and back, it was still just in his mind. That’s what killed him, made him angry and scared to the point of exhaustion. No matter what he tried, what he considered, or what he did, there was nothing he could do about it.
Even as his legs wobbled getting out of bed each morning, he still put on some clothes and made some food. He had been increasingly paranoid about getting to bed early, recently. All his nights involved getting to bed so he could rest, even as he felt like his body would give out from the stress of it all. Dreaming was supposed to be good for you, but every time, he woke up bruised and battered from thrashing around and biting himself at night.
It was a day like these days. The weary Hale opened his eyes as his trembling body shuddered to life. For once, he let his eyes open with purpose, turning over in his bed to face the window. This day, for no reason at all, he wanted to take the visitor from his mind and wrench him by the neck, wrench all the strife he felt into this visitor’s mind.
As he cast a very subdued glance across his room, his mind turned to a certain image. The Magia Clinic, or the “Old Hope”... He could get this checked out, but they were known to turn people away at random… the whole reason Hale didn’t go. But at this point, he couldn’t afford to endure much more of this.
On a previous afternoon, right before dusk, Hale received a flyer for the service in the mail. At first, Hale considered it to just be one of his relatives he had confided into. Someone who urged him to get help, even though he very much had these self destructive tendencies to return to this Hell.
Only days after laying hands on it for the first time, the dreams had gone from occasional to near daily. He reasoned, his heart sinking that day, that he had been either cursed or ‘saved’ by a wild prophet. It was, most likely, the former explanation. But Hale, still the optimist, clung to the latter.
In his childhood, Hale had always been one for adventure and whimsy. And as a young adult, the feelings remained, but tinted with an unusual hesitation. These “deaths” began in his late teens, grounding him and silencing his louder half. Back then, when it was still “Old Hope”, he had considered turning to the Clinic, but he constantly shied away. The imagery of magic and doctors, people poking at him.. it never failed to unnerve him.
When he lived too loudly, got drunk and partied, that thing would come for him. He assumed it was a dark guardian of some sort that hunted him as punishment for hedonistic heresy. But then, one night, it beheaded him when he turned to see its face. He could barely see its eyes, but it was Malice, a kind of tangible sin that branded the memory of the first kill forever in his mind.
He pondered the thought for a moment, as he always found himself doing. In fact, he couldn’t help but to think. Thinking of sleeping alone and eating alone, nodding off in public and waking himself with a sudden jerk so as to not hurt anyone.
And so he winced as he thumbed over the Magia flyer in his hand, his eyes narrowing as he picked it up off the bedside table. Hale, the one who had never been to even a normal pediatrician out of pure fear… his eyes fell to the floor as he considered, finally, that he had no choice. His arms wrapped around his torso for just a moment before he let himself exhale for once. Yes, he had to go there.
He thumbed the flier in his hands, before crumpling it up and heading out the door.