CHAPTER EIGHT: THE NIGHTMARE.
1153 Words
**Chapter 8 — The Nightmare**
Sera didn't mean to fall asleep.
She had gone back to her room after the door cracked — after Kael had told her not to open it, after she had stood in that corridor watching the wood flex and groan like something alive was pressing against it from the other side.
He had handled it. Whatever it was — he had put his hands against the door and spoken words she couldn't hear properly and the shaking had stopped.
Just like that.
Like he had done it before.
He probably had.
She lay on her bed still fully dressed, staring at the ceiling, telling herself she was just resting her eyes for a moment.
She was asleep within minutes.
The dream started quietly.
She was back in the hospital. Room 114. Mia's room.
But something was wrong.
The lights were too low. The monitor beside the bed wasn't beeping — it was silent, the screen black, and the bed was empty. Sheets pulled back like someone had left in a hurry.
"Mia," she said.
Her voice didn't sound right. Too small. Like the room was absorbing it.
She walked to the bed and touched the sheets. Cold. Like they hadn't been warm in a long time.
"She's not here."
Sera spun around.
There was a figure at the door. Not Kael. Not anyone she recognised. Just a shape — tall, dark, faceless — standing in the frame of the door the way Kael sometimes stood. But this felt nothing like Kael.
This felt wrong.
"Where is she," Sera said.
"Gone," the figure said. "They always go."
"What does that mean —"
"You couldn't save her." The voice was smooth and cold and patient. "You couldn't save any of them. You just delayed things. That's all you ever do."
"That's not true —"
"The contract didn't save her. *Nothing* saves them. You gave yourself away for nothing."
Sera felt it then — that particular fear that lived in the deepest part of her. Not fear of demons or dark manors or ancient things behind sealed doors.
Fear that she hadn't been enough.
That she had never been enough.
"That's not true," she said again. But her voice was smaller this time.
The figure took one step into the room.
"Wake up," it said.
And the room collapsed.
Sera sat up gasping.
The room was dark. The gold candle on her desk had burned all the way down — just a small pool of wax left, the flame completely out. The silver candles had dimmed to almost nothing.
Her heart was hammering. Her hands were shaking. Her face was wet and she pressed the back of her hand against her cheek and felt the dampness there with something like embarrassment even though there was no one to see.
She pulled her knees to her chest and sat in the dark and breathed.
*Mia is fine,* she told herself. *She woke up healed. Kael said so. It's done. She's fine.*
She repeated it until her hands stopped shaking.
It took a while.
She didn't hear him come in.
One moment she was alone and the next moment she was not — just a shift in the weight of the room, the air changing slightly, and when she looked up Kael was there.
He was standing just inside the doorway.
He wasn't dressed for the day — no jacket, just a dark shirt, sleeves pushed up, like he had been awake but not moving anywhere in particular.
He looked at her sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up and her eyes still too bright from the dream.
He didn't say anything.
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
Not close. Not far. Just — there. Present. Like he had made a decision about it and wasn't going to explain the decision.
Sera looked at him.
"How did you know," she said quietly.
"I heard you," he said.
"I didn't make any noise."
He looked at her. "You didn't have to."
She didn't know what to do with that. She looked back at the dark window instead.
"It was just a dream," she said.
"I know."
"I'm fine."
"I know that too."
She almost smiled. "Then why are you still sitting there."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Because you're not as fine as you are saying," he said. Simple. Direct. Not unkind.
She opened her mouth to argue.
Then she closed it.
Because he was right. And they both knew it. And pretending otherwise felt suddenly like too much effort in the dark at whatever hour this was.
"It was about Mia," she said quietly.
"I know."
"It told me I hadn't saved her. That it didn't matter what I did." She pressed her lips together. "I know it wasn't real. I just —"
"It felt real," he said.
"Yes."
He nodded once. Like he understood that specifically. Like he knew exactly what it felt like to be told your worst fear out loud and have part of you believe it even when you knew better.
She looked at him.
"Do you have nightmares," she asked.
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Not nightmares," he said. "Memories. Sometimes they feel the same."
She didn't push. She just let that sit between them in the dark — his answer and her question and all the space around both of them.
The room was very quiet.
After a while her eyes grew heavy again. She fought it for a bit — didn't want to fall asleep again, didn't want the dream to come back, didn't want to seem like she needed him there.
But the dark was soft and the room was still and he was a steady, solid presence at the edge of the bed that felt — despite everything, despite every reasonable thought she had about who and what he was —
Safe.
Her eyes closed.
He didn't move.
When morning came and pale silver light crept through the window —
He was still there.
Sitting at the edge of the bed. Back straight. Eyes open. Watching the door at the far end of the room.
The sealed one.
Watching it the way someone watches something they don't trust to stay still.
And Sera — still half asleep, barely conscious, in that soft place between dreaming and waking —
Saw him reach out and very gently pull her blanket up over her shoulder.
Just once. Carefully. Like he had thought about whether to do it for a long time.
Then he put his hand back in his lap and went back to watching the door.
She closed her eyes before he could see that she was awake.
But she was smiling.
And in that smile was something neither of them had said yet —
Something that was going to change everything.
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