Chapter Text
There’s a man that visits me in my dreams.
I don’t know his name, but I see his story.
Plastered with the blood and blooming bruises, locked in the darkest oceans of his eyes – we do nothing but haunt each other.
We dance through adventures of high emotion and coursing adrenaline, words whispered softly in the world of slumber. Every story unfolds as we race hand in hand; swimming through the expansive seas and climb mountains with curling breath.
Every night he visits, halting the nightmares and holding out a hand. As our fingers intertwine the monsters dwindle into dust.
But not tonight – tonight is different.
It’s dark. Our city broken as sirens yell impatiently, lost in the sound of his laboured breathing. He clutches his arm close, wincing as blood glugs between his fingers. Huddled behind a car he tries to gather himself, body shaking and pale. Panic shrieks closer, ringing so real that it hurts.
He grinds his teeth, throwing a panicked glance over the hood and grimacing at the sight of police tumbling through the streets.
He’s moving again, feet clomping as he runs. Everything rushes past, the mall abandoned and cracked with graffiti, the pier drowning its sorrows in the water.
I try to keep up, screaming for him. But he can’t hear me, the sound of my voice swallowed by the wind and fear taking over the footpaths.
He doesn’t stop until another bullet embeds in his shoulder.
His knees hit the asphalt, streetlights flickering in their cheers.
He’s in burning agony, lost with nowhere left to turn.
In his pain I have enough time to catch up.
I can’t hear the sounds of my panting, can’t feel the cool air whipping through my hair – and neither can he.
He looks right through me, eyes searching the darkness as he crawls into a nearby alley; shielding from the sirens.
They roar through me as I watch him bleed, feeling nothing as the cars glide through my body.
For a moment static radio fills my ears, sparking words catching my attention as they search.
And then I hear his name between the demands for the Vagabond, and I don’t realise I’m screaming it until he finally finds me.
Across the blood soaked street he stops moving, eyes locking on as though he can’t quite believe it’s all real. Like there’s no way I should exist on this cluttered, broken world.
He shuffles in the alley mouth, uncertain.
I feel myself moving, cars continuing to course through me with more snippets of static.
Kill on sight.
I hold out a hand to the wide eyes buried in smudged charcoal paint, his name dripping down my front.
“Ryan.”
He’s running again, grunting to standing and racing towards me, hesitating by the gutters.
I step back, beckoning him to follow with my hand still outstretched. Another step; and then another.
It takes him a moment, but eventually I hear his groans of pain drawing closer.
I whisper through the streets with leisure, ghosting through the darkness with him in tow. Past the apartment buildings and through the trees until the house glows dim in the nothingness.
Up the familiar steps, his mind growing panicked as he rushes ahead and towards the quaint door.
His fingers numbly work the lock, tumblers clicking as I turn my back to him, smiling at the sky.
Then yelling comes, cutting through the peace with the bullet.
It tears though my throat, blood spewing down my front as I watch it soil my nightshirt.
And I’m falling, bullet no longer able to hurt him because it’s too busy hurting me.
He wants to run back to me, but I’ve already disappeared into the ground.
Nothing left but the open door calling his name.
I wake with a jolting gasp, rocketing in bed and clutching my throat.
There’s a man that visits me in my dreams. I know his name, but I don’t know his story.
All I know is that he’s stood in my bedroom now that I’m awake, stuffing clothing into a bag and telling me we have to go.