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39 years.
That’s how long he hasn’t spoken for.
39 years.
That’s how long it’s been since he saw his family.
39 years.
That’s how long he’s been trapped.
And maybe, just maybe, he was losing control.
Over the years (so many years) he’d visited each of his siblings realms, some longer than others. Destiny, he’d only toyed with momentarily. But despair… well, he was well acquainted with the silver fog and endless mirrors by now.
Delirium. She was a hard one, the trick found in knowing when you were with her at all. For all he knew, he had never left her realm. It certainly felt like it sometimes.
Days didn’t exist anymore. Neither did happiness. And, for the outside world, nor did sleep. He could feel it breaking, coming apart under his fingers, but he could do nothing except watch his work crumble to pieces, all at the whim of a mere mortal.
He found his own ways to find control. Like this. He hadn’t moved in what was, to his approximation, eight months. Just sat in his cell, legs crossed and eyes unfocused upwards, his one act of defiance against his captor.
After so long, he wasn’t even sure if he could escape, if given the opportunity. It was a moot point. The opportunity would never come. With every passing day month year he slipped further into despair, every second (he could count those, look, one, two, three) another spent not in the dreaming, not with jessemy, not where he should be.
He was dying. Maybe not in a way that other people would see, but in every way that mattered. He was going to die. A slow, sad, silent death, every last thread holding his sanity together snapping, one by tantalising one.
Roderick (was that even his name?) came… sometimes. Time didn’t seem too important to him. It was everything to dream. Every time the same. His one variety in not-life, nothing more than a repeated bargain, an endlessly echoed denial in the form of silence. Sometime he wished the man knew it wouldn’t be too hard to get what he wanted. You could take anything you wanted from a broken safe.
What did he want? This was one of his Important Questions, one of the ones that kept him ‘sane’. He wanted escape. He wanted revenge. He wanted anything, anything at all to tell him that the world was real (what if it wasn’t? What if none of it was? What if he was all that was left, and roderick would never come again?) and he was real.
What did he want? Who did he miss? What was his name? How did he get here? What was he going to do if he got out?
So many questions. As the time (the only thing he could call it) went by, it became harder and harder to answer them. It didn’t scare him as much as it should have. Maybe in surrender, there was peace. Surrender to his own mind. Surrender to his little sister.
“Hello endless. I’ve come to ask again. Will you give me what I request?”
His defiance (another cage, why did he keep making them) told him that even moving his eyes wasn’t allowed. But he could hear the age in the man’s voice. That scared him. When he died, as humans did, what would become of his prisoner? Would they forget about him? Maybe that was for the best.
Maybe if they forgot about him he would too.
“Hello? You awake in there? Of course you are. My patience is running low, dreamer.”
Ha. Haha. Patience. That was all he had left. Patience that one day, none of this would matter any more. If days still existed. Haha.
“Well, be like that then. I’ll be back.”
Goodbye, roderick. Hope to never see you again.
The cold loneliness pressed in again, but he hadn’t even seen that man’s face, why did he miss it (it still hurt, he was still alone, why had no one come for him).
No one was coming for him.
Maybe it hadn’t been 39 years. Maybe it had been 39 decades. 39 centuries. Maybe everyone had forgotten him. (Maybe they should)
Death could have forgotten him. She was so busy, after all. Destiny wouldn’t have come if this was written. Destruction wouldn’t bother. Despair would want him to fall, Desire would want to watch. Delirium had probably forgotten him 38 years ago.
No one was coming. Not now, not ever.
This was everything he had left.
This glass sphere (0.8m by 0.8m) was all he had in whatever of the world existed without him. Probably most of it. He’d never been that important. Who needed dreams, when you could die, desire, delight, despair, destine or destroy? Maybe there was a reason delight had grown up. His little sister, changing for a world that had never deserved her in the first place.
This was the most he’d thought of his siblings in a long time. Was that good? What if he forgot them? It couldn’t be bad at least.
No one remembered him.
***
Some years later, he received the news his captor was dead.
This should have made him happy. But it merely set in stone what he had already predicted, playing destiny himself. Alex was no better. More interesting, maybe, but his mind had been so dulled by the solitude the rages and the curiosity all seemed the same.
41 years.
Nothing.
42.
Nothing
43 to 48 somehow held even less than the previous two.
By this point, the years had faded to a blur, nothing more than his own imagination. Once, he tried to measure out a whole year by counting the seconds (he could count seconds, the one things he could do). He made it to September before he lost count, distracted by a movement of nothing in the corner of his eye. He’d spent a solid four months after that staring at the patch of emptiness, hoping for something to be there.
Since then, he’d started seeing rainbows. Not big ones, and maybe they were even real, but sometimes, just sometimes, there would be a faint glow around Alex (he knew the name this time) or a sparkle on the imprisoning runes.
Del’s work. He was falling to her. He’d never been more scared of his sister, and for the first time he understood why death had to experience human life. They each held terror for mortals, in their own way. Right now, his terror lay in the rainbows. He’d gotten over the silvery sheen to the world, like looking through a two way mirror. Despair was easier to contend with, in her own way. At least you knew where you stood.
“Dream. I’ve got something for you.”
He twitched at his own name (was it his? Had it ever been his?) then again at what followed it. Something?
For the first time in 10515867 seconds, he moved, turning his head oh so slowly to look through the warped glass. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t react. Not through any rebellion, but mere exhaustion.
Then his mouth fell open.
Jessemy. Sweet, innocent jessemy, held tightly in Alex’s grip, tweeting and struggling furiously, but with no hope of escape. Just like him.
“Found this one trying to peck its way through the door. Fucking stupid animal. Guessing it’s one of yours?”
Never in just over five decades had he wanted so desperately to speak. But he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t, it didn’t matter.
“Thought you would want to see what happens to it. So you know, this is what I’ve wanted to do to you for a long time.”
No. No, this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be the first thing to happen to him in so long.
He was so close to breaking. So close to yelling aloud, yelling for the man to stop, but he was too slow, too indecisive, too fucking useless to do anything as jessemy’s neck was twisted to the side, once, sharply.
Crack
The sound hurt his ears. It wasn’t just the harshest thing he’d heard while here, but it was the sound of hope dying, of anything he had left falling to pieces.
Alex dropped the raven to the floor dismissively, stamping on the meek corpse as he walked out.
Leaving dream alone with the body of the only thing that had cared to come for him.
And finally, he broke. Shattered, into a thousand pieces, each one made of rage, and want, and fear, and grief, and everything he had known for these fifty three years, eight months, and thirteen days.
And dream screamed.
“Please, i don’t- I can’t- please- someone help. Someone help me. Please.”
His tongue moved strangely around the words, unfamiliar with them after so long, and he collapsed.
Seconds. He could count seconds.
One. Two. Three. Four. Fi-
“Well well well, look who finally gave up their pride. All you needed to do was ask, you know.”
Desire stood, leaning against one of the nearby pillars, nails examined one by one for any slight imperfections.
This couldn’t be real. He had surrendered, finally, and this was the beginning of delirium. There were tears rolling down his cheeks, because some part of him, somewhere, told him this was real.
“Pull yourself together brother. It hasn’t even been a century yet.”
Everything hurt. He shouldn’t be able to feel pain, but everything hurt (maybe it had always hurt) and he was going mad, this was his end, his beginning, and everything in between.
“Say it again for me, dearest dream. I want to hear it one more time.”
He didn’t hesitate. Not for a second. He would do fucking anything to indulge this fantasy.
“Please help me.”
His voice cracked, and it didn’t sound like his anyway, and he was broken, beyond repair.
Desire froze, their golden eyes darting up, snake like, terrified.
“Fuck. Dream…”
In an instant, the glass was broken, he wasn’t quite sure how, and he was in desire’s arms, lifted gently away from the gleaming shards.
“Dels coming. I- I think death is too. It’ll be ok dream. I promise.”
Ha. A promise from desire, worth as much as Alex’s vows to get him out. This was real (was anything real) but he didn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it.
A young girl poked her head around the corner of the gates to the basement, and squealed with delight as she saw her two siblings, running forward in glee.
“Dream! It’s been ages. I’m all different now, or did you know that already? You looked like a fish in there.”
Dream laughed weakly at delirium’s… her-ness. She would never have hurt him. Not like this.
And they had remembered him. Oh god, they’d remembered him.
“Heya dream.” A cold hand on his forehead. A glimpse of elaborate, twirling makeup. A black lipped grin. “Good to have you back.”
He felt a small hand tightly grip his own, a gentle ruffle of his hair, a warm grip on his body.
He could count the seconds, of pure happiness.
One. Two…
“We’re going somewhere safe, dream.”
Three…
He didn’t get to four.
***
“Is he ok? What happened to him? Does he need a fish?”
“He’ll be alright del. Is our elder sister still here?”
“Nope. She went to the place she goes when she wants to be alone.”
“Hmm. I rather respect that. But someone needs to take care of the idiot. Has anyone else said anything?”
“Despair said that she was… that things where you’re a but not happy but kind of ok with it anyway. And I think des- def- destiny said he was glad.”
“No word from our lost brother?”
“Nope. But I had this great idea, like a real one, a really fun one and if you want to help-“
“I’m not helping anyone else for a long while. This little rescue mission is taking up most of my altruism for this century. Ask our dreamer, if he ever wakes up.”
He was awake. So awake. But still, he couldn’t (wouldn’t) talk. His siblings chattering faded to a background buzz, and he was left alone.
So alone.
But not alone anymore. He had to remember that. He would add it to the list of Important Questions to ask himself.
From across the probably-a-room he could hear desire cooking. Then the patter of excited feet, and a whisper near his head.
“Hi dream. I want you to know I know where you are, even if you don’t. I know what it’s like to not know where you are, and I wanted to tell you I do. I said that already, didn’t I? I also know you’re awake. There’s a lot of things I know. Ok, bye now.”
That didn’t seem like a bad way to return to the waking world- or maybe not. He wasn’t sure he could stomach that place for a while. The dreaming only for him, at least until he… recovered (some things you couldn’t recover from).
He rolled over and in one smooth motion stood up from the questionably squidgy bed, realising probably a few moments too late he was still naked.
“Hello desire. Do you have any clothes I could wear?”
His sibling turned, and raised a delicate eyebrow while stirring.
“I pity anyone who saw you in the last fifty years.”
A snap of manicured fingers, and dream found himself clothed in a robe that still somehow managed to reveal half of his body. It would have to do. He wasn’t in much of a position to argue with desire.
Speaking of, the endless pushed a bowl of soup into his hands and turned away, making it clear thanks were not to be given. Dream was going to try anyway (always trying too hard).
“Thank you, dearest sibling.”
“Stop calling me that. You never mean it. Eat your soup, dickhead.”
“I heard that! You said a bad word.” Deliriums voice carried over from the next room inside desires threshold.
“My apologies for the language.” Desire smiled softly, then gave him a sharp look. “Eat it. You may not need food to exist, but you do need it to function.”
Grudgingly, he did. It was good, unsurprisingly.
“I shall thank you anyway. I believe I am in your debt.”
“What, for rescuing you? No. I accept no responsibility for that until you are truly rescued from yourself.”
But he was fine (he wasn’t) he was home, and safe, and alive, (and still lonely, still seeing rainbows)
“I-“
“It is an issue for another time dream. For now, I have things I must attend to. Perhaps you can convince our sister to not run off on her latest harebrained scheme.”
Desire didn’t wait for a reply, instead sauntering off to go bother some poor mortal lovers instead of taking the irritation out on him.
If he didn’t know better, he would say this was a dream. But those were the one things he understood in this vast (lonely) world, and knew them well enough that it wasn’t.
He could count the seconds. Seconds of rest, before he tried to fix himself. He would give himself five.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Time to wake up, dreamer.