chapitre : 12
1043 Words
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In the days following his union with Day, Smith's happiness was of an intensity that took his breath away. He felt anchored, bound to his Alpha in a way that defied understanding. Their connection, now consummated, had become a constant, comforting presence, a warm golden thread linking their souls even when they were physically apart.
But the brightest light casts the darkest shadows. And the shadow of his old life, which he thought he had exorcised, began to haunt him.
It started with dreams. Not just bad dreams, but nightmares of terrifying clarity. He would see himself back in his car, the rain streaming down the windshield, but this time, he couldn't move. On the other side of the glass, he saw Day's face, smiling, reaching out for him, but an invisible force held him pinned to his seat. Then the scene would change, and he was sitting at the dinner table with the Chois, the unknown young woman smiling shyly at him, while his mother's voice, sharp as a blade, said: "You see, Smith? This is a normal life. Wake up."
He would jolt awake, drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding wildly. The first time, Day immediately pulled him close, murmuring soothing words.
"It was just a nightmare, my love. I'm here. You're safe."
Smith curled into him, desperately seeking the warmth of his body, the scent that reassured him. For a moment, it was enough.
Then the "echoes" began to infiltrate his waking life. They were brief flashes, fleeting dissonances that froze him in place.
One morning at breakfast, the radio played an old, sad song, a hit from his old world. A wave of such familiar, crushing melancholy washed over him that he dropped his spoon, which clattered discordantly against his bowl.
"Smith?" his mother asked, concerned. "You're pale."
"It's nothing, Mom," he managed to say, forcing a smile. "Just a dizzy spell."
Another time, in town with Julien, he caught sight of a fancy restaurant's storefront. For a split second, he didn't see the restaurant's name, but the name of the place where he was supposed to have dinner with the Chois. A sudden nausea twisted his stomach.
"Smith? You have that look again," Julien said, taking his arm. "The shadow?"
Smith had just nodded, unable to speak. That was it. "The shadow." It was the word they had started to use.
The worst was the evening when, getting ready for a date with Day, he picked up his phone. For a second, it wasn't the colorful phone of this world he held in his hand, but the sober model with the black case. The screen lit up, and he read, clear as day: 1 Voicemail - Mom.
The panic was so visceral he almost dropped the device. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, his usual phone was back, displaying a photo of him and Day as the background.
These insidious assaults were eroding his happiness. He began to be afraid of falling asleep, dreading the hunting grounds of his nightmares. He became nervous, distracted, jumping at the slightest unexpected noise.
Day felt it, of course. His Alpha could sense the turmoil in Smith's scent, those sour, anxious notes marring his usual soft aroma. One night, after a particularly violent nightmare where Smith woke up crying, Day didn't just comfort him. He turned on the light and looked him straight in the eyes.
"Smith, this can't go on. These... echoes. They're eating you alive. Talk to me. Tell me what's really happening."
Exhausted, vulnerable, his defenses down, Smith broke. He talked. Not about the other world in an abstract way, but about the concrete details. The car. The rain. The Chois' name. His mother's disappointed look. The crushing weight of normality.
"I'm so scared, Day," he sobbed. "I'm scared that one day I'll wake up and all this will be gone. That you'll be gone. That I'll be back there, and all of this will have just been a dream to punish me."
Day listened, his face growing graver and graver. Then he held Smith against him with a fierce strength.
"Listen to me, Smith. You are not crazy. What you are living is real. I am real. What we have is real."
He took Smith's face in his hands, forcing his gaze to remain locked with his.
"That other world, it's trying to reclaim you because it felt you escaping. Because you are happy here. But it has no power over you, except the power you give it. Do you hear me? You chose this life. You chose me. You chose your family. And we, we choose you every day."
His voice was low, vibrating with absolute certainty.
"These echoes, they are just ghosts. They have no substance. But we do. Our bond does. The next time you're afraid, when you feel the shadow approaching, hold on to me. Hold on to our bond. Feel me. I am your anchor. I will not let you go."
Day's words didn't magically erase the fear. But they gave him a weapon to fight it. They gave him a focal point, a recourse.
A few nights later, as the anxiety-inducing images began to invade his sleep, Smith, even in his sleep, instinctively turned towards the familiar warmth beside him. He curled into Day, burying his face in his neck, inhaling his Alpha's scent until his lungs were full of it.
In his dream, the image of the car in the rain began to waver. He felt a hand on his, warm and real. It wasn't the cold hand of despair, but Day's firm hand. The nightmare receded, as if burned by this presence.
He didn't wake with a start. He emerged gently, still entwined with Day, his Alpha's scent enveloping his mind like a shield.
The shadow was still there, lurking on the periphery. Smith knew it might never completely disappear. But it no longer reigned as the absolute master of his happiness. He now had a weapon, a bulwark, an oath.
He had Day. And that, he thought as he fell back into a peaceful sleep, was more real than any echo from the past.
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