Natalya
Present
This time I know I’m dreaming.
Sometimes it feels like my mind gives me a short break from the constant guessing, like a small mercy, or a pause. And because of that, I know I don’t have to be scared now.
He’s above me again.
His face is heavy with regret and something softer that hurts more—pity. The mesmerizing blue eyes keep flicking left and right, restlessly searching for mine like he’s afraid I might disappear if he looks away for too long.
“I’m sorry, Angel,” he says.
His voice doesn’t behave like a normal voice. It slows down inside my head, stretches unnaturally, and the words repeat over and over.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
As if my skull is an empty room with bad acoustics, and every sound refuses to die.
“She kept having outbursts,” another voice cuts in. This one is deep, raspy, and older.
I don’t see him. I only hear him. His words echo too, crashing into the first voice, bouncing off the walls of my head. I wish both of them would stop talking. The echo is unbearable now, sharp and irritating, like an incessant ringing I can’t escape.
“I’m not risking anything because of your obsession with her,” the voice continues flatly. “I just made her calmer. More cooperative.”
“You should’ve asked me!”
“It’s one of the most effective treatments modern psychiatry has ever developed,” the old voice snaps back.
That’s too many words.
They trip over each other, pile up, blur together until I can’t tell where one ends and the next begins. I can’t hold them long enough to understand them. I still don’t see the face that belongs to that rusty voice.
There’s only him.
Young, beautiful, and familiar. Still above me.
Something inside me tightens, because I feel like I lost something. Not recently, but all at once. Like someone reached inside and took something important without asking or leaving a trace. I don’t know what it was. I don’t even know how to look for it.
So I focus on him instead.
Suddenly the silvery blue of his eyes blurs and one tear spills over, breaking the image, almost distorting it.
He’s crying. I never saw him cry before.
He saved me. I know he did. And now he’s crying.
What did I do wrong this time?
I can’t remember anything beyond this face. Nothing before it or nothing after. Just him. I tilt my head slightly, trying to force my vision to clear. The world feels unstable, like it’s sliding. I realize we’re moving. Or maybe he’s moving. He’s definitely holding me.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone here,” he whispers, guilt staining his expression.
His words echo again, folding in on themselves, repeating until they lose meaning.
It really feels like there’s nothing left inside my head now. Someone came in while I was gone and took whatever was there, and now all that remains is space. A hollow and empty room.
I think I’m scared. I can feel it in my hands, legs, and my chest. There’s tension and the instinct to recoil. My body knows fear very well, but I don’t feel it. Not properly at least.
I latch onto his sharp, pale face instead. The space around him begins to darken. Slowly at first, then suddenly it turns crimson red, violent and bright, contrasting sharply with his light blonde hair.
For a moment he looks like something out of a painting—an angel of death hovering above me.
The red flames around us grow too bright and aggressive for my eyes. I squeeze them shut and grab my face instinctively, pressing my palms against my skin like I might be able to compress the headache back into something manageable.
My fingers slide to my temple and suddenly a sharp, burning ache explodes from that exact spot.
“Don’t touch that,” he croaks.
I hiss, breath catching. The pain jerks me awake.
My eyes fly open.
That damn vast ceiling. Of course.
This one isn’t changing anymore. Thank fucking God. It doesn’t pulse or bleed color. And there’s that fresh breeze, cool and faint.
But there’s also warmth beside me. I can feel it immediately. It’s close enough to register without touch.
So I didn’t wake up after all. I just opened my eyes into another dream.
That thought settles comfortably, like it explains everything as I turn carefully onto my side.
And there he is.
I knew it. It’s him again.
I shouldn’t think of his name. I know that. If I do, I might say it out loud by accident and he’ll start burning the moment I do. So I keep it locked inside my mouth.
I push myself up, bracing on one arm so I can see him better.
He’s lying on his back, completely unguarded. One arm is tucked beneath his head, the other hanging loosely over the edge of the bed. His face is tilted toward me, lit by the gray, clouded light filtering in from outside and his eyes are peacefully closed.
Is this what he would look like now?
My vision hesitates like it’s trying to decide which version of him to give me. This isn’t how he looked in previous dreams. In those, he was younger, thoroughly more innocent, and his face still carried that boyish sweetness, that reckless mischief he wore like armor against the world.
This version is different.
Now he looks… rough and older. As if time had been deliberately cruel to him.
His cheekbones are sharper now, cutting deeper shadows into his face.
The skin beneath his closed eyes is darker, bruised by exhaustion that sleep doesn’t seem to erase.
There are tiny scars everywhere, scattered like punctuation marks left behind by years of violence or survival.
Some sit on his lips, barely visible, revealed only by the sharp angle of daylight.
The skin along his jaw isn’t youthfully smooth anymore. It’s textured and uneven. It would probably rasp slightly beneath my fingers—a faint promise of stubble. I don’t dare to test it though.
The one thing that hasn’t changed is his hair. It’s still dark, still curling softly, threaded with a warm, almost golden undertone that catches the light when he moves. I want to touch it so badly it practically hurts to not move. But I don’t. I don’t want to ruin this dream.
There are more tattoos on his skin now. They climb higher, creeping up his neck like they’re trying to escape his body. I want to see all of it.
He’s shirtless, but partially covered by the sheet, the fabric pooled low across his torso.
I don’t remember deciding to move, but suddenly my fingers are curling under it, slipping it down gingerly, just enough so I can see more of him, until my fingertips brush the hem of his pants and I realize I should stop.
A medical patch is stuck to his side. He’s wounded.
Beyond it, the ink pulls my attention back in. Every drawing is instantly recognizable. Every single one. All my scribbles.
I bite down a smile.
They’re layered on top of each other now, messy and overlapping, as if there was never enough space for them all and they had no choice but to collide. Some lines tangle together, ink crossing ink like unresolved arguments.
My fingers move again before my mind can stop them, tracing the shapes instinctively, without any pressure so he doesn’t dissolve. My hand remembers and it doesn’t wait for logic, it just follows the ink automatically, guided by muscle memory instead of thought.
He feels bigger, heavier and more solid. His body has more weight to it now. He feels worn in the way favorite things are.
The boy from my dreams is gone.
I feel like my brain gave me the version of him he’d be if he had a chance to grow older with me. The veins on his hands are more prominent and the hair under his navel is thicker and more spread out.
He feels safe.
But he also feels raw, in a way.
I let my head fall to the side, throat tight as I swallow hard, allowing the idea of him to spill into my other senses. My breath slows and my lips part.
An electric, undeniable bolt of need drives through me.
Yeah.
I want to be handled by this version of him. I want to disappear under that weight.
But I don’t move.
What if I move and he disappears, like he always does? What if he turns into something else—another reality or dream that doesn’t let me stay?
So I remain perfectly still, breathing shallow and watching, trying not to wake up.
The silver cross slides down the side of his neck, pulled by gravity and sleep. I reach for it and brush the material with my fingertips. It’s already warm from his skin and polished smooth by years of constant wear.
And then it hits me.
I’ve never felt it on his skin before.
That’s usually the moment, the one tiny, wrong detail that tells me I folded reality the wrong way again. Such as a glitch or a warning sign, and usually the thing that snaps everything back into a nightmare.
I brush the chain, feeling every curve and every link press into my fingers.
It’s real.
Panic blooms sharp and sudden in my chest, breath stuttering before my thoughts can catch up. My heart starts racing like it’s trying to outrun something I can’t see.
This is too vivid.
I lift my gaze and stare at the ceiling, tilting my head, studying it the way I’ve learned to and waiting for it to betray itself, flicker, then darken and ignite, and finally for the fire to start.
But it doesn’t. The ceiling stays exactly the same.
Then I hear it.
The smallest shift in his breathing, barely a sound at all, but I can tell. I look back at him and his eyes are still closed, but he’s awake—I’m sure of it. I can feel it in the air and in the tension humming between us.
He’s pretending. He’s letting me think I’m still alone in this dream.
This is a trick.
My breath turns rapid, tearing in and out of my chest as my hand slips under my pillow. My fingers close around the edge of the cold glass shard while I move smoothly and automatically.
I drag my leg over him and sit up, straddling him tightly before my mind can interfere and I press the sharp tip of the glass against his neck, right where his pulse jumps under the skin.
His eyes fly open.
Unbearably sweet chocolate brown.
But he’s not startled or afraid. He seems like he’s…waiting.
I can feel his heart pounding hard and fast beneath me, loud under my body as an undeniable proof of life. His gaze moves over me shamelessly, taking me in like this is exactly where he expected to end up. Then his eyes find mine again.
He doesn’t flinch and he accepts the blade.
I press a little harder, just enough for the glass to bite into his skin. A single drop of blood wells and slides down the curve of his Adam’s apple, bright against his dark olive skin.
But still, he doesn’t move.