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Sometimes, Sarah thinks to dream. Rather—more accurately—wishes to dream.
Dreaming came as an automatic feature to most, but not her; at least not anymore. She had to truly want it and grasp at it, greedily cling to it as if food to a starving animal.
At first, she often wondered if it was some rebellious part of her subconscious that had become purposely obscured to her surface-level thought process. The potentially voluntary forfeit left her at an intolerable fork in the road though, leaving her to worry which path her desires would force her to take.
Was the denial of her dreams to spite him or was it actually to spite herself? Then again, did it truly matter which reason it was? Perhaps not.
Truthfully she hadn’t even noticed the change until long after she had left the Labyrinth. Life—though something about the way her life functioned now rang a bit hollow—went on as usual. Nothing seemed amiss except for the knowledge that she had denied something that most might not, something that she very much did not want to. She didn’t notice she wasn’t dreaming until she wished she was one night.
In the beginning, she dreamt of acrid, claustrophobic air and animated tendrils of dusty, decayed velvet. Yet even so, she could never bring herself to find the damp and musty world of the forgotten completely unpleasant. There was something undeniably comforting about the feelings it stirred within her chest during the darkest hours of the night, something even she, in her stubbornness, couldn’t deny. Deep down, she knew that she ought to though; a pity that.
Turn back before it’s too late.
But she found she couldn’t.
Those dreams had been fleeting and hard to hold onto at first, as if she were trying to recall a dream she’d had a fortnight ago rather than one she’d had only moments ago. Like most things she put her mind to however, she got better at it over time.
Then, the dreams changed.
It was so slow at first that she hadn’t noticed it. Well, perhaps she hadn’t wanted to notice it either, because she knew the implication of such a change. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too, for she was greedy like all people were. She wanted to keep one foot in each world; she wanted to have it all. Who could deny such a fantasy if they knew what she did?
Sarah was getting worse at reasoning with herself.
She was at the outskirts of the Labyrinth, running her hands along the walls now, debating whether she wanted to embrace them, or pull them all down. The cold and damp of the wall was so palpable under the weight of her touch that it took all her effort to convince herself it wasn’t real.
It’s just a dream.
Oh, how utterly good she’d gotten at repeating that to no one at all.
Once, she thought choosing her dreams would be an easy decision, but she knew better than that now. She knew that it wasn’t a freedom to choose, it was a bargain. An offer, tit for tat. How terribly unfair it was.
Reality could be cruel too—she often proclaimed to herself—especially in the dreams where she would deign to press her cheek against the living walls below and truly listen to what was on offer. And oh, how it was all so tempting to give in.
Looking back on it, those dreams were quite quaint to her now. The beginning to her… end?
No, no. End wasn’t the right word, was it?
Then the next dreams came very suddenly and fiercely. They were so much more alive and they ebbed and flowed as surely as a quickened pulse. These dreams had been both enticing and overwhelming in their truth. She found herself yearning for them while a niggling thought at the back of her mind told her to run from them. Sarah knew she should run. If she were strong enough and oh so good enough, she would run far away.
Run to them, Sarah.
Whose wish to dream was this, truly? She couldn’t see so clearly anymore because the line had become so blurred. She supposed it didn’t matter either way.
In this dream, she felt him as surely as she felt her own energy. She found herself feeling him, but never seeing. If she’d been less beguiled, she’d have seen the taunt for what it was. He knew after all; he had to. It had been so clear by then that it was all by his design. Every quickened breath she took while searching frantically for him, every thread of the fabric that clung to her dewy skin in the room of stone, every chill of anticipation and terror that ran down her spine at each corner she turned in search of him.
He must have enjoyed the taste of her regret, for these dreams went on the longest of them all. These dreams of ‘in-between’. These dreams where she still had time to turn back, but he knew she wouldn’t.
If she were forced to admit the truth, she knew it too.
By the time her last dream came, Sarah could feel it approaching on the horizon as surely as the sun rises each day. She put it off for so long, trying to convince herself that it was because she was afraid. The words that went unsaid weighed the heaviest.
You’re afraid of the choice you know you will make.
She didn’t know when her innermost thoughts had become so inextricably melded with his, but she could no longer ignore it. Now she knew that he had tasted enough of her regret, and was ready to taste her flame.
And now she knew—for better or worse—that she was ready to let him. There could be no other way.
So Sarah wished to dream forever.
And, as always (always for you he’d say with his cruel and magnificent smile), he obliged.