Nightmares, a story for the January OrigFic Bingo

[aldersprig]

This is to ysabetwordsmith's prompt to this January card for origfic_bingo.

It fills the "nightmares" slot, and is in no established verse.


Warning: nightmares.









Sleep falls. It's not been something I greet as a friend in quite some time, but even out here, once in a while a body needs to sleep. So I give in to it - no drugs, the drugs only make it worse.

(The things back home helped more, but the things back home lost me my job and the house and got me on this ship. So now I do without.)

I let sleep overtake me, not fighting it, not trying to steer it. There was a guy here for a while, tried to teach me lucid dreaming. It just made it worse.

Seems like almost everything makes it worse. Wonder what that says about me.

The nightmares come first; they almost always do. The train is on fire again, and the Beasts are coming one way and the soldiers are coming the other way and I know, just know, that there are still people on the train, but I can't move.

I struggle and fight against it but I know it won't do any good. There's this sense of horrible finality as I watch the face press against the glass of the train and then, only then, does whatever is holding me (not whatever I know what but dreams work in allegory, not memory) release me and I go running for the train, just in time for it to explode in my face.

And that is both allegory and real, I can still feel the scars.

I don't wake. If I woke then I could stare at the ceiling until my heart stopped but instead, damnit, damn it by whatever gods still care, blast it into space, I fall into the other one.

The one where you're alive, holding my hand. Where you sit with me in the hospital and tell me it's okay.

I had that dream so many times, so long, while I was healing that when I woke up for real and they told me you were dead...

...well, that's when the pills started.

But it won't let me go. You won't let me go. You're there every night, tracing my scars and telling me it's all right, it's going to be okay.

And I wake, damnit, blast it out the airlock, once again I wake, alone in my bunk in this fragging ship and you're dead again.

I'd rather have the nightmares.

Comments

O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

Nailed it.

Re: O_O

[aldersprig]

Thank you (I think?)

Re: O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes, that was a compliment. This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted.

I am intrigued that, like my Tripping into the Future series, this is written in the rare second person.

Re: O_O

[aldersprig]

I don't do it often, but I'm glad that you liked it. I'm not sure why Protagonist decided to be a space... miner or something. In space, at least.

[thnidu]

Oooooohhhhh!


((i.e., that's a very good story for what it's for))

Re: O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I don't do it often, but I'm glad that you liked it. <<

Second person only works in a few rare instances, but in those it is definitely the best tool for the job.

>> I'm not sure why Protagonist decided to be a space... miner or something. In space, at least. <<

I like that part.

Re: O_O

[aldersprig]

>> I like that part.


Me, too. :-)

[aldersprig]

((Thanks for the translation))
Sad or not, I like this one.

[kay_brooke]

This is sad, but also very realistic for someone just unable to cope with their grief (space miner or not).

[aldersprig]

Thank you. I tried to make it feel realistic.

Re: O_O

[natf]

*confused*

I thought that the "I" person in verb conjugation (used here) was 'first person' and the "you" (not used here) was 'second person'?

Re: O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

Oh ... yeah, I guess it is. I was focusing on the "you" part of the poem.

[clare_dragonfly]

WOW this is awesome and terrifying.

[aldersprig]

Thank you!