Lonely Sun

Participants:

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In Shadows:

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Scene Title Lonely Sun
Synopsis Aaron Michaels finds himself once again at the mercy of the Nightmare Man.
Date February 3, 2010

Dreamscape


Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum…

Warbling sounds of a warped record echo thorough the small confines of a dingy apartment. Yellow floral print covers the walls in peeling wallpaper, plaster falls from the ceiling in places, and old furniture is tattered and torn, foam stuffing protruding like distended organs from a swollen stomach. Languid and half-dressed forms lay draped over the furniture, skinny limbs and sunken eyes darkened around the edges, glistening with a thin sheen of sweat.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!

One of the young woman is curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the apartment, sobbing. Her chestnut brown hair sticks to her sweaty cheeks, a rubber tube is tied tight enough around one arm to cause the veins in her forearm to bulge. Those veins that show are luminous, backlit things that shine sapphire blue through her flesh. In one trembling hand, she holds a syringe of the same glowing fluid. Her eyes are wet with tears that stain her cheeks, black mascara creating dark lines down her face.

Mister Sandman! Bring me a dream! Bum, bum, bum, bum!

On the glass coffee table between the furniture, where the young woman lays next to, an old phonograph croaks out these tunes of the Chordettes. But here in this dimly lit apartment, where the shades are drawn down and only this distorted music plays there is more than the ghastly and emaciated form of this brunette and her company laying sedate on the furniture. There is a young man seated in a high-backed armchair, hair combed neatly, skin flawless, smile white, clothing impeccable. Everyone loves Aaron Michaels.

Make him the cutest that I've ever seen! Bum, bum, bum, bum!

From her position on the floor, sliding that needle into her veins, Peyton Whitney looks like a malnourished concentration camp victim. Wendy Hunter up on the sofa, all arms and legs, knees and elbows, looks no better. Her eyes are rolled back into her head, full lips parted to gasp softly, fingers twitching at whatever dream the glow in her veins is providing. Across from where Aaron sits, Gillian Childs sits with her head down, fingers wound in her hair, forehead rest against her palms. She's trembling from head to toe, blue and luminous veins spiderwebbing beneath her sweaty skin.

Give him two lips like roses and clover! Bum, bum, bum, bum!

Everyone loves Aaron Michaels, and seated in his armchair he awakens to this vision. Sliding out of his hand, a syringe rolls off his fingertips, bounces off the arm of the chair and lands softly on the carpeted floor. His eyes adjust to the surroundings, to the warbling music, to Peyton's soft crying and Wendy's gasping and Gillian's silence. Everyone loves Aaron Michaels.

Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over.

The light of the ceiling lamp flickers for a moment, sputtering and erratic, and in the dark all Aaron can see is the blue glow of his friends' veins, that iridescent shine of Refrain pulsing through their bodies, as if he could see every single artery and vein in them, and at the core their blue, luminous heart and sapphire shining brain behind glowing eyes.

Sandman, I'm so alone

Everyone loves Aaron Michaels. He's got that pearly white smile that he can't see, that perfect coif of hair and manicured nails. He's got that winning charm and magnetic personality. Peyton's crying aside, everything here couldn't be better, this is what he's always wanted— needed— craved; a captive audience to his own self-worth.

Don't have nobody to call my own

When the plunger depresses and the lights come back on, Peyton is rolling onto her back, the filmy fabric of her tanktop clinging to rapidly rising and falling chest as Refrain courses ice cold through her veins. She lets out a whimpering, keening sound as her teeth clench and eyes shut, a blue glow flooding from behind her eyelids.

Please turn on your magic beam

Everyone loves Aaron Michaels.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream!

It takes a while for Aaron's eyes to focus in the darkness, only the network of pulsating blue lines before him visible, and yet the place seems to be familiar to him. The overall shape. Partially in the smell, too, though that mildew scent is very much altered by the smells of sweat and other things lingering in the air. The song disturbs him, not just because it's coming from a warped vinyl record and its tune is equally bent, but because he just plain hates that song. And then he recognizes something above the song, or below it. Something he is sad to say that he could recognize anywhere. Something that turns his blood colder than the Refrain that courses through the veins of the people at his feet.

Though his first urge is to kick the infernal phonograph to the floor, as the lighting in the room brightens, and flickers again, he realizes he does recognize the place. It was the first hovel he lived in, with six other people, when he first found a place to live long after the bomb. After he'd finally gotten back to actually having a place to live. He preferred the tiny room he had above the grocer. The light flickers, accenting the network of luminescent blue, and drawing his attention back to the sound, because he sees the person it belongs to.

His original urge to kick the phonograph is swiftly transformed into something more pressing. Aaron vomits right next to the armchair. The entire scene sickens him to the very core, and he vomits again. He's not even sure what comes out, but it doesn't make him feel any better. Once his stomach is under control, however, he moves first to Peyton, removing the needle— although he sees soon it's pointless. It's already empty.

Lost in whatever hallucination she's now trapped within, Peyton Whitney's eyes roll back in her head, mouth agape and tiny, gasping breaths indicating whatever sensations are being drawn back to the surface in her mind. She's twitching, much like Wendy is, but not as eerily motionless as Gillian. The record skips, repeating the same phrase over and over again from out the blooming flower head of the phonograph.

Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone

Peyton's unresponsive, Gillian refuses to move, and Wendy is so lost in her own thoughts it's hard to tell if she'll ever be able to swim out of them. By Peyton's side, crouched on the floor beside her, Aaron can see the pockmarks of needle holes in Peyton's pale forearm, sees the glow beneath her skin, the glow now suffusing out of her eyes, like Refrainis replacing the blood in her body.

"Wow!" Comes a jarringly sharp and cheery voice from behind Aaron, "look at all these friends!" Behind Aaron, in the doorway to the ramshackle kitchen is— Aaron. Arms outstretched and a smile spread across his face. He looks delighted to see everyone gathered here, one hand moving to rake thorugh his sandy blonde hair. As he walks in though, it's clear that his presence disturbs Peyton and the others, for the closer he gets the more the noises they make begin to sound pained.

"Who're you?" Asks Aaron's mirror image, not quite interrogative but more surprised, the way someone on too many uppers might act unreasonably nice to someone that doesn't deserve it.

Aaron's moved on from Peyton, who is at least apparently alive to Gillian by the time the jarringly cheerful voice disturbs him from his scattered train of thought. His head jerks to the kitchen, only to face … himself? "What the fuck?" The words escape his lips as little more than a whisper as he hurriedly turns back to Gillian to try to find a carotid pulse, even when the other him walks closer into the room and provokes such a pained reaction from his friends.

"Maybe you should just back off a bit, friend," Aaron says to his mirror image, gently resting Gillian down, satisfied that she's alive. At least for now. He doesn't move from his spot though, taking on a bit of a defensive posture for all three of them— even Wendy. His own arms are not outstretched, and he's definitely not smiling.

Gillian, like Peyton, looks to have been crying, but save for the very faint noises she's making in the presence of the other Aaron, she seems almost entirely inert. Her lips don't even move when she makes the sounds, just a tiny bit of movement at the front of her throat, like someone who is paralyzed trying to speak. The other Aaron seems confused, brows disappearing behind the fringe of his bangs, toothy smile diminishing some. "Hey now— why're you acting so glum chum!"

Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone

"They can't hear you anyway, but just look at all the good they're doing for us!" Us? "See how much better everything is now that we know what we can do? Imagine what the future can hold for the two of us! Nothing can stop someone with a go-getter positive attitude on life!" Aaron lightly slaps a fist into his palm to punctuate his point. "We're gonna' get ready to go out there, and take on the world!"

Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone— Sandman, I'm so alone

Turning his head, Aaron's double looks at the phonograph with a crooked smile, a few steps taken closer into the room. When Aaron draws nearer, Peyton twitches violently on the floor, curling her arms around herself, much as Wendy starts to curl into a ball like a dying insect. Gillian— Gillian seems entirely unphased now. "Come on, best bud!" Aaron's double offers out a hand to his more defensive self, palm up and fingers curling in beckoning gesture. "Let's leave these mopey dopes behind and go and do something fun! I bet we can find some people who want to listen to us sing, and then just imagine how great we'll feel when we're done!"

Aaron shakes his head and backs away. "How great we'll feel when we're done?" He tilts his head to the side until he realizes the implications. Know what we can do? How great we'll feel. His blood runs as though ice, his face blanching as he comes upon the realization that his ability has somehow turned around and is working in the opposite direction. "What did you do?" He points a finger at him, waving his other hand at the fallen bodies that — as much as it pains him to think of it — may as well be corpses. "What did you do?" The sound of glass shattering muffles his final word as his foot punctuates his question, crashing into the phonograph and driving it through the glass of the coffee table. His blood is thawing. Fast.

"I— I didn't do anything!" Aaron's shadow haltingly defends himself, voice cracking at the very end. "We did this, we— this is how we work. This is how our future is, don't you realize it?" There's a hesitation to his smile, pearly white and all sorts of anxious when the table shatters. Amazingly, none of the three woman react, they just tremble and shivver as Aaron's shadow makes a step forward again. Wendy and Peyton whimper in pained fashion, while Gillian does absolutely nothing.

"It— it's not my fault they're so sad. I just— I wanted to be happy! I wanted us to be happy!" The shadow keeps smiling as he says that, pearly-white teeth gleaming, even when the lights go out, all Aaron can see is his shadow's Cheshire smile and the blue veins of his friends. When the lights come back on, his shadow is standing just inches from his face. It's only here he notices the Shadow's irises are gold.

"All you do is suffer, and hurt, and take in the misery of everyone around you…" The Shadow's dark brows rise slowly, a piteous expression. "When do we get to feel good? When do we get to feel happy? What about //me!?" Slapping his palms against his chest, the mood swing is readily apparent, and when the Shadow's mood drops down to morose whining, Peyton and Wendy begin letting out pleasured noises, husky breathing and soft moaning all together. Gillian is still and silent, save for her breathing.

"All— all you do is force down all these terrible feelings! All you do is bottle up all this pain and sadness and anger!" He's actually crying, the over-emotional gold-eyed replicant of Aaron is shedding tears at the drop of a hat in this histrionic fit. "So— so we decided to take something new. We learned how to steal people's happiness for ourselves! Isn't— isn't that wonderful!?"

"You think this is wonderful?" Aaron asks, turning about the gold-eyed doppleganger. "You think the desecration of souls is something to be proud… something to be happy about? Don't make me sick. And stop saying we. I had no part in this, you sad, pathetic man." It's his turn to move closer, almost touching noses with the monster, "You ever think you didn't deserve to be happy? Because I have, plenty of times. And if I could ever turn into something like you, I was right."

Aaron has been so distracted it hasn't quite clued in on him that this is all a dream. All a nightmare. But now he knows. Because this is his nightmare. Everyone close to him is dead — or may as well be — and he's standing there alone once again, in the centre of it. Only this time he really is the cause of it. It really is his fault this time. Only, and he totally understands this, it's not really him. He takes a step back, shoe crunching on glass.

"But you know what? I'd never do this to my friends. Never." Aaron looks towards the three, focusing on Wendy, "Not even her." He points a finger at the Shadow, "I think I've figured you out, though. You know, they all talk about you, and I think I get you better than anyone else. You're just like me, aren't you? Only you took your suffering one step too far, and started lashing out and giving it to other people. That's not how it works, friend. Get yourself a therapist."

Brows furrowed together, Aaron's shadow quirks his head to the side. "You don't get it do you? I'm you and you're me." Golden eyes assess the young man, but his tone of voice has entirely changed. "This isn't fake, this is what we've got going on inside, this is us, this is out truth." Looking over to where the languid forms of Aaron's associates lay squirming on the furniture, the Shadow focuses his attention on Aaron again. "Just because I'm showing you what you become, doesn't mean it isn't real."

The shadow takes a step away, and the lights flicker out, leaving Aaron sucked into the dark, save for the blue glow in his friends' veins, and the flahs of white that comes form his Shadow's teeth, and now the haunting yellow rings of his irises in the gloom. "We're parasites, Aaron. We feed off of people's misery, their happiness, their everything. One day— this is going to be what we are, because you can't acknowledge— can't come to terms with what we are."

When the lights come back on, Gillian, Peyton and Wendy are gone. It's just Aaron and the Shadow now, staring each other down. "I'm you. I'm every negative feeling you've let stay suppressed, I'm every bad thought you've kept to yourself. I'm everything you refuse to admit about who you are… and if you don't start to own up to it…"

The lights flicker out again, and when they come back on, this time the scenery has changed. White tiles mixed with a few black ones fill Aaron's sight, showing nothing more than a perfecltly cean bathroom in his current apartment. A cold bath has been drawn in the tub, water filled with crushed ice from empty plastic bags crumples on the floor. Resting precariously on the side of the tub is a errated steak knife from the kitchen.

"Aaron…" His voice sounds muffled, coming from the other side of the bathroom mirror where his Shadow watches him like a reflection. "You can either admit that we are what we are… that we're emotional parasites that use people to get what we want." Golden eyes look down at the bathtub, "…or maybe you can do something good with our life, for once?"

It's not the darkness that chills Aaron to the bone. It's not the talk, the insistance of the Shadow that they are one, that he's some kind of parasite. It's not something he hasn't though about before. He needs to feed on people's misery, or, as the doctor suggested, it might just kill him. Nor is it the blue glow of the veinous Refrain network, or their disappearance. It's the bathroom. The ice. And the knife.

The hairs on the back of Aaron's neck stand on end and he can feel his heart beat quickening. His eyes flicker from the monster before him in the mirror, to the knife, to the tub, and back to the monster. How the hell does he get out of this? Isn't he supposed to like, try to conjured up some sort of protective apparition? He licks his lips. He always was good with his words, maybe it's time to make use of that. "Fine, we're emotional parasites that use people to get what we want. And I don't mean that as the whole you're me thing, I mean that as in we share that commonality, Mister Nightmare Man. Only I don't go around killing people. How about I promise to do good if you do, huh? Maybe you could go around into people who are depressed and suicidal already and make them not so, huh? No?"

Aaron eyes the knife. He knows full well the potential is there that he's sleepwalking, that there really is a knife there. He's not about to use it on himself or the mirror— not that a knife is particularly useful for breaking a mirror. "I've got a better deal for you. You're pure misery. You're pure pain. You are pure suffering. I make that go away, so you can either get out of my head, or I'll drive you out." Apparently he's gotten his spine back. His hands reach for the waste basket, siezing it in his arms and wielding it against the mirror, "Either way. Get. Out." With each of his last two words, he slams the waste basket against the mirror.

Each time the basket hits the mirror, the glass cracks, it fractures and splits, dividing Aaron's reflection up in it until the glass shards fall out from the frame and clatter down into the sink, some slivers landing on the tile floor. Breathing heavy from the exertion, the bathroom is silent save for the drip of the faucet slow and steady into the tub. The silence lingers, absent and empty, and it's only now that Aaron realizes that there's no door out of the bathroom, just four tiled walls and a cracked plaster ceiling. The tub remains chilly and full, the knife still perfeclt balanced on the tub's edge.

Then the lights go out, a staccato flickering, and in every other flash of light, something is changed in the room. Like someone playing with a strobe, Aaron can see his own movements in flicker-frames of jerky animation. In one flash, the tub is filled with blood, and he can see himself hunched over it with one arm dangling in the blood red and icy water.

When the lights come back on steady, Aaron can see his Shadow lounging in the clear water of the tub, head tilted back against the porcelain edges. His eyes languidly turn to look up at his other self. "Have you ever wondered why we're always so depressed?" There's a piteous sound to his voice. "Because all we ever do, is suck on people's sadness, and depression. We're a sinkhole, and all we do is take in the bad, draw it in and never think about ourselves. But that's what we are, we feed on that negativity."

Squinting, Aaron's Shadow looks to the knife, then back up again. "You really don't believe it, do you? All I'm trying to do is make you realize… make you understand… I don't kill anyone, I've never taken a life. All I do, is show people the truth. Some people can't handle it, and they're happier dead. It's how the world works, Aaron. Some people are happier dead."

Gold eyes turn down to the knife, then angle back up to Aaron holding the waste basket again. "When were we ever happy?"

Aaron just shakes his head, dropping the waste basket onto the ground. "Yeah, I kinda noticed I suck negativity out of people. But I don't always take it on, and if I can control it, I bet I can stop that from happening altogether." He comes closer to the tub, but still out of range of a knife swipe if the Shadow should choose to pick up the knife. "So no, I haven't really wondered why I'm always so depressed. I already know. So tell me another of your truths. Oh wait, your truths don't resonate with mine. You manipulate these so-called truths to your own ends. You don't need to kill a person to still be responsible for their deaths."

He leans in a bit closer, narrowly chancing being close enough to be slashed at. "I was happy once. Actually, I was happy a lot of times. Then the bomb turned my world upside down, but you know what? I survived. And I love the people I live with. They make me happy." He leans in ever closer as he says those final words, before backing away. "Maybe not as happy as I'd like sometimes, but you know what? Life sucks sometimes, it's not always fair. In fact, it rarely is. There's a truth for you." Once again, he points his finger at the shadow lurking in the tub, "Here's another: You can try all you like, but you can't hurt me."

He thinks of Peyton, and Cat, and Gillian. They were all trying to tell him how to beat this guy, and of all the times to throw a tantrum he had to throw it when something useful was being discussed. Something he should have asked questions about. OK. Gillian had her faeries. He recalls how much she likes faeries. He couldn't think of a song about faeries to sing for her when she found out she was dying— only she wasn't dying. Cat had a panther, though he knows not the significance of it. What had Peyton's been? Does it matter? It just has to be close to his heart. Something important to him. Something meaningful.

Or someone.

"I don't intend on hurting you…" Aaron's Shadow states with that mercurial shift of moods from pleading to calm, "…you're going to hurt yourself. Because as much as you want to control that ability of yours, you can't. It's like flinching or sneezing, it's reflexive. One day you're going to wake up, and you're going to see what you saw around you, everyone whittled down to nothing, because you don't understand what your ability could become. You're so full of yourself, so sure you can change and make things better." The Shadow lifts one hand from the tub, gold eyes settled on his counterpart, motioning to the broken shards of the mirror.

"You can deny it all you want, but at your heart you're a parasite a leech and a danger to everyone around you. If you don't recognize how dangerous you are… you're just going to keep bolstering yourself with false confidence until one day you've killed everyone dear to you, or turned them into emotionless zombies— which to me, sounds worse."

Rising up from the tub with his hand on the edge, Aaron's Shadow stares at him from the modest increase of height afforded by the raised base he's standing in. Rivulets of water run down his clothing, chunks of ice fall into the receeding water line. "Aaron," his Shadow pleads, "I don't want to hurt you. I want to save you."

"No," Aaron says, resisting as best he can even if the bastard's getting to him, constantly reinforcing this bad idea. One of his worst fears, to be precise. He's been resistant thus far, expecting something to appear to help him. Or someone. It doesn't really matter, it just has to happen. He can't keep fighting. Or maybe that's his problem. Maybe he's not fighting the right way.

"Peyton! Gillian!" he calls out. Why not use the bastard's own tools against him. If he's sleepwalking, maybe he can get a message out through his own lips. Not that he expects they'd let him wander off monitor without verifying he's awake. "He's here!" If he takes up the knife and stabs himself, he could kill himself. If he stabs the Shadow, he could kill someone else. That's how the bastard works, right? Didn't Gillian mention someone who killed her cat because of these nightmares?

Aaron grits his teeth. "If you want to save me, you'll leave me alone!" He prays that wasn't said aloud to anyone in his apartment that might hear. What's the use in calling for help if you then tell them to leave you alone? "God damn you! What do you want from me?" He looks up at the golden eyes of the vile insult to his own self-image. "I've controlled my ability before. I've made it not work. I can do that again even if it kills me. I'm sure as hell not going to take myself, give you the pleasure. Gillian and Peyton would be destroyed if I did. And if by some miracle you've managed to get me past them, they'd never forgive themselves for letting it happen."

Stepping out of the tub, the water-soaked Aaron shakes his head from side to side, slowly making his way up to his counterpart. "Call for them all you want. Deny what you are all you want. I know what I am, and I know what I do. You're trying to hide from the fact that you're a destructive, self-absorbed leech. If I leave you alone, you'll just keep doing what you've always done— you'll keep being who you've always been— and then so many people will get hurt."

The Shadow's golden eyes narrow. "If I had done for the Midtown Man, what I am doing for you now, can you imagine the lives I could have saved? I'm not taking chances any more, I'm not letting dangerous people like you continue to hurt people that she cares about. I will not let you continue with the predictable path of self-destruction that will ultimately drag others down with it."

Aaron's shadow stands face to face with his other self, Gold eyes reflecting their truer color. "Just admit it… we need help, and we aren't going to get that by pretending we're normal, that we can control an ability like this ourselves." One ice cold and wet hand comes to rest on Aaron's shoulder, fingers squeezing gently. "You can either take the easy way out," The Shadow looks to the serrated knife on the edge of the tub, then back to Aaron, "or you can listen… you can learn… I know people you could turn yourself over to, people who could help you."

The Shadow's brows raise, head tilts back, "Don't make this any harder on those poor girls than it needs to be."

"I wasn't always like this, remember. I only turned into this after the Bomb," Aaron retorts. He grits his teeth through the Shadow's diatribe and then shoves the cold, wet hand off of his shoulder. "Who, huh? And you might considering turning yourself over. Whether or not you did it intentionally, you led to the death of so many people. Did you give them the chance to listen and learn of the people to turn themselves over to, or were you not that nice? Why show people gruesome things, horrible things, if you're just trying to help them? Why not try to reason with them first before resorting to such despicable means?" He backs away, wishing there were a doorknob, or a door for that matter, so he could slip out of the bathroom. Then a horrible thought occurs to him.

"Do you do this to children?" Are there evolved children? Surely there could be. Would it matter to the Nightmare Man? He can almost picture a child, warm in bed, clinging to a teddy bear while being tortured in their dream by this sick monster. He remembers the little brown teddy bear he bought Peyton, with its cute, red plaid ribbon around its neck. He'd bought it and left a note with it so she wouldn't worry when he was out of the house for a while. When he started seeing a shrink.

"Would you subject a child to the kind of treatment you showed me? Showing them their worst nightmare come to life? Because that's sick, man. I won't deny I need help, but I don't think you or anyone you suggest could help me. Only I can do that. And the people I care about. They can help, too, but all change comes from within." He imagines that's somewhat that Bella might say. Or Gillian. She's been wise, too. And got him that cute stuffed tiger he clung to so hard when she was in jail and then wherever it was she went for community service. It meant so much to him, and in ways it means even more now. She came back.

"There are some people beyond help…" The Shadow states flatly, head tilting back as his hand moves away from Aaron's shoulder, forefingers and thumb rolling together. "I help people too afraid to face the truth, show them what they need to see, show them what they're unwilling to face. Nothing I show is made up, nothing is false or a lie. Everything I present is everything that has been repressed, hidden or pushed aside. Everything I am is what has been repressed."

The Shadow takes a step back, away from Aaron, and turns his back on the young man. "You won't deny that you need help, and yet— you won't get it. You won't listen. You think you can help yourself? You're deluded." The lights in the bathroom go out again. "I wanted to believe in you… but you're just like the others."

This time there is no Cheshire smile, nothing in the dark bathroom save for the drip of water amidst the blackness. Then, like a skipping record, everything comes back into focus when the lights sputter back on. All Aaron can remember, is how disappointed his other self looked when he turned around.

%tBum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum…

Warbling sounds of a warped record echo thorugh the small confines of a dingy apartment. Yellow floral print covers the walls in peeling wallpaper, plaster falls from the ceiling in places, and old furniture is tattered and torn, foam stuffing protruding like distended organs from a swolen stomach. Withered and broken bodies lay draped across the dirty living room. A lanky, skeletal form is laid across a sofa, dried flesh pulled tight over bone and shriveled muscle. Dark hair is patchy across a barren skull where sunken eyes have withered into hollow sockets and lips have receeded to reveal teeth.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!

One of the young woman's corpses is curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the apartment, unmoving. The matted remnants of her chestnut brown hair sticks to her sunken cheeks, a rubber tube is tied tight around one of her emaciated forearms. Swolen veins blotched with bruise colorations show are faintly luminous, backlit things that shine sapphire blue through her decomposing flesh. In one bony hand, she holds a syringe of the same glowing fluid. Her eyes are gone, these shriveled little milky white things in deep sockets that were once so simple and beautiful and expressive.

Mister Sandman! Bring me a dream! Bum, bum, bum, bum!

On the glass coffee table between the furniture, where the young woman lays next to, an old phonograph croaks out these tunes of the Chordettes. But here in this dimly lit apartment, where the shades are drawn down and only this distorted music plays there is more than the ghastly and emaciated form of this brunette and her company laying dead on the furniture. There is a young man seated in a high-backed armchair, hair combed neatly, skin flawless, smile white, clothing impeccable. Everyone loves Aaron Michaels.

Make him the cutest that I've ever seen! Bum, bum, bum, bum!

From her position on the floor, Peyton Whitney's corpse is hard to recognize, but painful to bear witness to. Wendy Hunter up on the sofa, all arms and legs, knees and elbows, looks no better. Across from where Aaron sits, Gillian Childs' corpse sits with her head down, fingers wound in her hair, forehead rest against her palms. She's a motionless, dessicated thing from head to toe, blue and luminous veins spiderwebbing beneath her jaundiced skin.

Give him two lips like roses and clover! Bum, bum, bum, bum!

Everyone loves Aaron Michaels, and seated in his armchair he awakens to this vision. Sliding out of his hand, a syringe rolls off his fingertips, bounces off the arm of the chair and lands softly on the carpeted floor. His eyes adjust to the surroundings, to the warbling music, to Peyton's curled form and Wendy's bony limbs and Gillian's silence. Everyone loves Aaron Michaels.

Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over.

The light of the ceiling lamp flickers for a moment, sputtering and erratic, and in the dark all Aaron can see is the blue glow of his friends' veins, that irridescent shine of Refrain pulsing thorugh their bodies, as if he could see every single artery and vein in them, and at the core their blue, luminous— yet dead— heart and sapphire shining brain.

Sandman, I'm so alone

Everyone loves Aaron Michaels. He's got that pearly white smile that he can't see, that perfect coif of hair and manicured nails. He's got that winning charm and magnetic personality. Peyton's corpse aside, everything here couldn't be better, this is what he's always wanted— needed— craved; a captive audience to his own self-worth.

Don't have nobody to call my own

When the panic finally sets in and the lights come back on, Peyton is still dead, the filmy fabric of her tanktop clinging to unmoving chest. Just like a skipping record, everything starts over again.

Please turn on your magic beam

Everyone loves Aaron Michaels.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream!

Panic indeed. The son of a bitch just disappeared when he thought he might finally be able to beat him. He thinks. It's a little fuzzy. What had he been doing? Arguing. He distinctly recalls the disappointed look on his own face… or one like it. Golden eyes.

Aaron twitches in the chair. He can see that the bodies are dead, he doesn't need to touch them. Doesn't want to, he's repulsed by them. And infuriated at the monster that did it. The monster that may or may not be him. He slowly rises from the armchair, his palms sweaty, his mouth dry. "What is this, the horror version of Groundhog Day?" This time he grabs the phonograph and throws it across the room, letting it break against the floor without shattering the glass coffee table. Then his eyes turn to the kitchen, expecting his Shadow to creep out from it. Again.

There's bricks over the kitchen doorway, old and crumbling mortar that is slicked with moisture. The ceiling is brown in spots, where water drips down thorugh from something on the second floor. When Aaron starts scanning the rest of the room for changes, he finds the bricks over the windows here as well, equally old and cracked, overfilled with mortar that has hardened in gray rivulets down its surface. Every exit to the apartment, even the front door has been bricked off, sealing Aaron up inside with the corpses of three women closest to him, and yet—

"Aaron Ray Michaels." The stern voice booming from the middle of the living room is unmistakable, and the moment Aaron's attention jerks over his shoulder to the source, what he sees standing there isn't anything other than the worst possible illusion his mind could have conjured. Dark brows are creased disapprovingly, wrinkles across his forehead, blue eyes cold as ice. The way the corners of Raymond Michaels' lips downturn into a frown is something Aaron hasn't seen in three years. "What the hell is going on here, boy?"

The tone is sharp enough to cut glass, full of disappointment and resentment, the way he looks at the apartment is judging, the way he looks down at the bodies is heart-breaking, and the way he looks back at Aaron after all this time is truly something out of a nightmare. It's one thing when a parent, a loved one is mad at you.

"I am so disappointed in you."

That is something else entirely.

The voice makes Aaron freeze for a moment, every nerve in him prickling with fear. His anger is temporarily misplaced as he jerks his head around, and then slowly lets his body catch up. His first instinct has him moving forward, his hands clasped behind his back, nervous, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Until he realizes how riduculous that is. He clearly intends to preserve himself and hangs back, sapphire eyes narrowing at the man. The sight caught him off guard, but logic is setting in. He's in a nightmare, and his father has been dead since November of 2006. Almost three and a half years.

"Be disappointed all you want," he says, regaining himself and his train of thought before it was interrupted by the shift in venue. How he wants to be touched, held, taken out of this madness and into somewhere comfortable and safe. Or hell, he'd settle for the stuffed tiger Gillian gave him, or the teddy bear he got Peyton. And then he feels something fuzzy behind him, where his hands are still clasped. He grapples with it, and feels it, his eyes widening and his mouth gaping open in a grin. His eyes flicker up at his not-father, or precisely on the man's shoulder. Then he lets out a whoop of laughter. A small stuffed tiger hangs over the man's shoulder, like a predator about to attack it's prey. Which it does.

It throws itself at the incarnation of Raymond Michaels, attacking the man's face as other stuffed animals appear. They crawl up from under the bodies, creeping and slithering over them. Aaron recognizes all of them. They're Annie's. She had a huge collection of them. A pink Carebear is joined by a blue one, trotting along and clambering up Raymond's legs as a tiny stuffed alligator is joined by a fat and fuzzy snake. It's a deluge of plush animals, crawling along the floor out from every conceivable space (and the not-so-conceivable ones), all piling themselves onto Raymond.

"Get out! Get ooooout!"

Shakespeare had words for this; O how ignoble a fate to suffer, or something like that.

That a Liliputian army of tiny stuffed animals comes swarming over the image of Aaron's father is perhaps the most surreal aspect of this dream. The stuffed animals swarm over his figure, topple him to the ground when he trips over the table and crashes down onto his side. Like a swarm of hungry Pirrhannas the stuffed animals leap at and cover the body, some of them mingling together, stitches popping and stuffing coming out, fabric quilting together and the noises made by the consumed Shadow become something alltogether different.

Having devoured Aaron's Shadow, what moves on the floor now isn't so much a figment of his imagination as it is a portion of his personality. Patchworked and made out of a half dozen different stuffed animals, the four foot tall Chimera of stuffed animals looks something like the eponymous monster out of Greek myth. One green alligator head looks up at him with googly eyes, a blue carebear head turns to glance at one of the brick walls, while the striped tiger's head on the right side simply nods once, and the whole amalgamation of forms soon breaks up into motes of silvery light that then rise up and form a solid shape on the wall, coalescing into a six foot fall and three foot wide mirror with a wrought wooden frame.

On the other side of the mirror, stands a female figure in a black linen robe, white sash drawn tight around her waist. A black blindfold hides her eyes, hair moving as if she were perpetually trapped underwater. She moves with the erratic motions of a film missing several frames, slapping her pale hand against the inside of the mirror, which holds up a tall card to the glass for Aaron to see.

It depicts an unclothed blonde child riding atop a white horse, holding a fiery orange banner in one hand. Silhouetting the figure is an enormous golden sun with a stylized face, wavy rays of light spreading out behind it. At the top of the card, is a bolded Roman numeral: XIX At the bottom of the card is an equally bolded title: THE SUN.

Hokuto Ichihara hovers there in the mirror for a moment, but as her image disappears, it is replaced by a location unfamiliar. It resembles Aaron's apartment, but instead of furniture there is a single baby grand piano of glossy black finish, surrounded by twelve tall mirrors. It looks as though he could just… walk through.

Aaron holds a hand to his heart, the other holding the small teddy bear he got Peyton. Before the stuffed animals have comingled into Plushzilla, he lets out a whisper a single whisper: "Thank you, Annie. I'll always remember you. From now on, you'll always be the light that guides me." Then he watches as things change, and the mirror shows him the tarot card. He steps forward, squinting slightly at it. Didn't Gillian mention something about the tarot? He'll have to ask her about it. When the figure in the mirror disappears and he sees the piano, he stares at it longingly.

For a long time, he's been without something vital to living. It doesn't really matter what a person believes or whom a person believes in, it just matters that they have something or someone to believe in. Something to have faith in. Aaron takes a deep breath and walks towards the mirror, fully intending to walk through it to the piano beyond. To a new life.

That may not be exactly where Aaron finds himself, but through the looking glass there is a piano, and a ring of tall mirrors, each depicting a constantly changing landscape of dreams and memories, visions and portents, images and hallucinations. The piano, though, is real and so is the tarot card leaning up against the open keyguard. It is the same one he saw held up against the glass, the same one he'd been offered by whatever that phantasmal woman was.

But this isn't where Aaron Michaels' story ends, or where his confrontation with the Nightmare Man draws to a close. He wanted a new life, and he made that choice consciously.

Now, he will have plenty of time to regret that decision.

Or embrace it.

Wherever he is.


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