She Dreams of Fire

TW: Graphic depictions of a car accident. Melanie Mel types out six more lines of code before she gives up for the day, quitting two hours ahead of her normal schedule of 5:30 am. She groans and tries to rub the symbols from her eyeballs, but she wouldn't be surprised if square brackets started floating in her cereal.  She stumbles into the bathroom, wincing as she throws on the light, "Lookin' good Mel, only two days' worth of eye bags today," She sighs again before thrusting her toothbrush into her unclean mouth. This job is killing her. She's been working 12 hour days, coding ugly character designs for a stupid game that she'll never play. She hasn’t been sleeping, and honestly, it’s starting to get to her head. Between the long hours, and the nightmare that's been on repeat since May,  she's dead on her feet. Mel makes her way from the bathroom and crawls into bed. She desperately prays to whatever deity can hear her to make the dreams stop so she can finally get some much-needed rest. Her head hits the pillow and its lights out. Soon she’s stumbling into her own subconscious, an entity freely floating in brain soup. The rain starts. The dream starts. Every night the same terrifying righteous nightmare tears through her mind, and it always begins with the gentle fall of rain on leaves. It's a comforting sound, and Mel feels at peace with the light drizzle. There's a fuzziness to the dreamscape, and she hasn't yet opened her eyes. She lies there for a moment, the ground below starting to give off that fine aroma; the simple perfume of wet earth. She comes to, at first with the gentleness of the storm beginning, still trying to enjoy the ease of the rain. But as she regains consciousness, she begins to feel it: pain. Her vision is still fuzzy and she can't make out any details, but she reaches out and notices the fine pinpricks of broken glass. She can't move. Panic shoots through her body, and she feels around frantically for the cause of her constriction, but the sudden movement sends crushing waves of pain down her legs. She tries to cry out, but she can't fill her lungs. Then she can smell it: the potent fumes of fuel leaking into the cabin all around her. Before long, a bright glow begins to grow before her, light licking shadows on her face, the heat reaches out its sharp fingertips. Mel is pinned beneath her seat and struggling to breathe. The car jerks slightly with her movement, slowly slipping down the muddy embankment. She knows the rest, but she can’t wake up. Terror floods through her. But then something changes. This time the car doesn’t slip, tumbling down the side of the cliff and into the lake below her. This time she isn’t trapped, the car slowly filling with water as she begs herself to stay conscious. This time her lungs don’t scream out, the pressure of the water scorching her chest before she wakes up gasping for air and fighting the need to scream out to someone.  This time, she sees a figure. She squints, her vision still blurry. Mel decides that is definitely the shape of a person, so she does what anyone would do in a similar situation, she screams at the top of her lungs. “Help, please, ohmygod do somethi—“ She’s cut off by her own lack of oxygen, but still, the figure moves toward her. A twinge of fear runs down her spine but it’s quickly replaced by a calm stillness as the stranger moves closer. She can see their face now, illuminated by the flames. Medium length hair messily falls out of a bun, framing dirt-smudged cheekbones. Olive eyes meet with hers. There's a tangible magic in the air, as if for a moment those eyes alone might save her. The now spreading fire casts a spark that mirrors the connection she feels. She is still calm. In the middle of what should be certain panic, of what has been for so many times before, Mel instead feels calm. She reaches out, the person now close enough to touch her hands. A crinkle of confusion forms between the stranger’s eyebrows, and before Mel can touch them, she wakes up. She’s surprised when she rolls over and sees the sun shining through the window. She checks her phone, 2:22 PM. "Weird." She mumbles into her drool-covered pillow. She hasn't slept for a full 8 hours for what has seemed like centuries, and unlike every other night for the past 5 months, she feels well-rested. She crosses her fingers and kisses them before lifting them toward the sky, and hopes that her prayers were heard. She shakes her head, chuckling to herself, and throws the covers off. "No, gods aren't real. I'm on my own with this."