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Keith had not always dreamed darkly.
He knew who he was.
He knew what he was.
He did not mind it.
Keith, in most things, liked himself.
Even now, his dreams are only half-dark, anxiety more than fear. Fear, more than despair. But so. Very. Quiet.
In most sentients, Fear can be subtle, but it isn't quiet.
There is violence, damage, shattering, a scream, something to shock, to unsettle, to unnerve.
Fascinating, really, how his absence had created nearly the same fear twice.
Most nights, Nightmare could run Dreams without much attention; present, aware, but not involved, if they felt the need. He was, to her, routine, his processing smooth enough to Watch with little interference beyond her presence, if she wished.
Tonight... the river of his mind was familiar, its currents smooth and dark, unruffled by the jagged edges of great trauma, of deep regret, of pains caused him. The Core of his Self stood, rigid even internally, hands crossed over his imagined cane. The Fears the plagued Keith did not crash into his chest, or his head, red and jagged and angry. Keith's fears swarmed at him like the shadows of minnows, small, but surrounding, at his ankles, at his wrists, at his neck. When she pressed him into Awareness, her palm to his sternum, theirs were only one set of teeth among hundreds in his skin.
As he was brought into Awareness, he was met with a Scenario he thought he recognized- that same peninsula again, so vivid when dreamt of, yet so easily lost. Hands crafting him carefully for the express purpose of committing nefarious deeds, passing him from ill fated owners through ill fated schemes, but this time, something had Changed.
When he, accompanying a lad he couldn’t see the face of, even in this world of dreams, tried to board a ship—one he knew he had taken, one he knew had brought him to the land of opportunity, the land of new cons and new marks where he knew he inevitably ended up, something Happened. The lad was stopped, searched, and the Key- the very culmination of Keith, his body, his mind, his soul -was discovered. This had never happened before. “Surely, there must be a mistake!” He said, in time with the lad, who was the only one the men could see, “That is just a house key! My fiancée, she mailed it to me, so I would know which house was ours in America!” The lad continued.
The men did not listen to him, or to Keith’s sudden, uncertain demands to know what exactly they were doing with him. They brought him to the edge of the dock, his body dragged along with them against his will, and in one smooth motion they THREW him overboard.
He plummeted into the water, falling faster and faster- struggling at first against the ocean’s currents, gasping, pleading for help, but of course, it was useless. He was a key, doomed to sink, and he damn well knew it. So as he sunk, he shut his eyes, murmuring to himself, “This is not reality, this is not what happened, if I open my eyes I will be free. If I open my eyes I will be free.”
He believed himself, as he always did, and so he opened his eyes just as he reached the bottom of the ocean, only to find himself…
“No. No, no no no, not here,” he said, breaking his facade down further. The dirt. The darkness. The wood above his head, the silent companions who were not companions at all.
He was in the crawlspace again. “NO! Let me OUT!”
Nightmare cannot see Sound Sleepers' dreams.
They are outside of her purview, even for those who it guides regularly. The Entity, however, Observes well, and can match patterns; it is clear, to her, when a path is well travelled by a Dreamer, even when that path is not always in their control.
It is obvious, to one such as Nightmare, that Keith nearly always dreams of himself, in his Sound Sleep and in his Anxiety.
They have seen much of the beginning of the dream before, and so has he; the hands, carefully crafting, the plans, carefully placed, the lies, carefully spoken. She does not Know when the true Memory ends and the Fear begins, but they can guess by his expression; he is young, in this dream, and less practiced. It would not surprise them, if in some version of this dream, he simply tells himself a fogged version of his life’s story, from beginning to ~~end~~, from craftsman, to Dorian. In Sound Sleep, it likely ends, with Dorian. In Nightmares...
The shift, from Memory to Metaphor, may be the moment he loses the edge of his confidence, even when speaking to a human who cannot hear him. It may be when his young man's face falls, his story unbelieved by the guard. The tell may be something in Keith’s cadence, in his scent, in the taste of the dream; the Key does not feel the need to lie, to himself. He knows who he is. He knows, then, when he is Afraid, and he is rarely Afraid, in life.
Well.
He had been.
Before.
In Waking, Keith could not have been thrown in the water. He had made it into the country, and then into the house, and then into the crawlspace. It is distinctly metaphor, when he drowns in the consequences of a great lie. Whatever the moment of memory shifting, the tension of his unknowing unease breaks, when he hits the water.
Confidence cannot overcome a Nightmare.
False certainty cannot contain Fear.
Belief cannot supersede the Reason for his Dreaming.
And Keith does not have to capacity to process, as he is.
When he begs to be released, the shining facade is gone.
Keith is afraid, of the dark, and of the quiet. He Knows what it is, to be buried ~~alive~~, aware, and aching for freedom, and he hates it.
He cannot see that the walls are covered in their Eyes.
Keith is far younger than he should be in the confines of the Crawlspace. The man he was in that moment should have no concept of this fear, nor any fear. The man he was when he still had black hair, still did not know the lay of the land, was still finding his footing, was a foolhardy man. Still a manipulative asshole, mind you, but he had less control over his mind and body. The man he was should not be this afraid of the location he is in.
But he could not control that. And where the Keith of the present’s fear emerged in a quiet shutdown of all but the most essential functions, this specter of the past erupted into rage. “What is the meaning of this?! Let me out! Let me out, I say!” He yelled, lapsing into his native language of Spanish for some of his tirade. “Do you know who I am? What have I done to deserve this treatment? Free me, or I swear to god I will tear this place apart!”
The Silence was deafening. There was no response, from anything, anywhere. He tried to see through the trapdoor above him, but either the carpet covered it wholly or… or…
“What if I am alone?”
“That is ridiculous! I cannot be alone.”
Two separate voices simultaneously. The Keith who went through this torture in reality, addressing the Keith who hadn’t even gotten onto the boat. “There is a whole house up there, idiota, imbecile! We are not alone! I am not alone! I am not forgotten!” The Keith who had been through it all berated his younger self. “He’ll find us. He has to.”
He has to. He has to.
The words echoed around them both. He’ll find us. He has to.
But what if he didn’t?
After all. He didn’t.
“He won’t.”
It wasn’t clear which Keith had spoken.
“He gave up.”
“I don’t need him. They found me. That is enough. I am back to how it was before.”
But saying it out loud didn’t make it true.
One of the Keith’s was gone, or perhaps had changed. The one who remained dropped to his knees, sitting beside his object. “I do not like these dreams,” he declared to no one,
“I never remember them, anyhow.”
“This isn’t a dream. But I still won’t remember it. Or maybe it is! Maybe my life Outside is the dream, instead. Maybe I have always been here.”
He looked at the trap door again. Nothing.
Fears such as this one do not require much intervention, but they do create an opportunity to observe, and this fear was longstanding. Keith’s mind had conjured this space frequently when he was trapped within it, his days and his nightmares blending into each other. Keith’s mind still conjured it, now that he was free of it.
Keith-as-he-was could be taught, if he was willing.
It seemed unlikely that he was willing.
It was, however, its purpose, to teach.
“I do not like these dreams,” he declared to no one.
Nightmare could intervene. If he does not remember, if he represses the memory, he will never improve. Nightmare chose. Quietly, smoothly, half the eyes pulled themselves from the walls, and coalesced themself behind him. The Lion spoke, harsher than most heard it, and in his native tongue.
“It has not always been so, Soñador. Change is possible.”
Silent and dark as the space was, its presence could be felt, more than seen.
“Mierda-” the man jolted, pulling himself away from the edge of the crawlspace, turning to face the Lion. “You-” he snarled- while he could be, and was, perfectly peaceful with Nightmare in the waking realm, this was not the waking realm. This was Its domain as much as it was His mind. “Have you come to mock? Or-“
Then its words actually processed. He stopped his lashing out, stilling, staring. The air felt oppressive, like a mud flow through his lungs, and the Silence bore down on him like thousands of angry piranhas. “I can’t remember a time where these dreams stuck fast. They always leave me, Pesadilla, before I awake. What makes tonight different, hm?”
He had to fight his own panicked mind to actually converse with the Observer of his fears.“And must I run in circles every night, returning to the place that I left? It is beginning to feel as if I never left at all.”
A pause. A hard swallow of the lump in his throat. “But I have left, have I not?” Despite his lucidity in this moment, he was still within the Dream. He could not perceive much of the truth of his own reality from this angle.
“You are no longer within the crawlspace, Soñador, in Reality, no. Your mind, however...”
It gestured, half grinning, and revealing a Shadow-Keith, sitting on the floor, his knees pulled to his chest and leaning heavily against the wall of the room. The man looks old, even to his current self, like time had passed far longer, here, than in Reality.
“Some portion of your mind will likely always live in this space.”
With another gesture, the near black of the room brightens, from near-black to a medium gray. It reminds Nightmare of Dorian’s featureless room, though it would never tell the Key. Watching through two pairs of eyes clearly disconcerted the man, and she Grinned, widely and in stereo, at his discomfort, teeth glowing. This lesson would not be without Pain. This lesson was not, entirely, for Keith’s benefit.
“You work very hard to pretend he does not exist. It does not surprise me that that includes this sort of Dreaming. You have few true connections, outside of this place, outside of yourself. You do not allow him to be seen, Soñador.”
The Lion remains, facing the Core, but the Snake addresses the Fragment.
“You cannot think to begin to heal, unacknowledged. You, Soñitador, Know what it is to feel pain.”
Nightmare wondered if anyone ever called him, with that sort of affection. He had never been a child, and his memories were clouded to its gaze. Would he be as he is, if he had?
He stared at himself.
He stared at himself.
Eyes watering
Eyes furious
The Self that did not exist
The Self that exists, damn you, damn you, you bastard, pendejo, look at me, LOOK-
He was not yelling.
He was yelling?
He was silent. He listened to the Snake, eyes wide, reaching out, like he did not trust his own senses anymore. “It is so dark,” said the Fragment. “He does not look at me, Serpiente.”
He scoffed. “What use is he? I am here now, I am free now! I ought to move on, ¿no?”
¡NO!
Both of them clutched their heads, but the Fragment looked up first. “You know we will not change our ways,” he said, matter-of-factly. Like he was resigned to it. He simply accepted it as fact, but he didn’t quite believe it. “We have always been the way we are.”
“I have never lived in two halves. I do not know what he is talking about.”
“We have always been so self-contradictory.”
“Callate.”
“We probably always will.”
“I SAID-“
The Core’s voice died in his throat, as the Fragment waved him off. They both focused back, on their respective Guides.
Fragments like this were rare, in dreams, and Keith had never allowed one to speak, before this, though they knew that he had repressed much of his trauma. It should have expected something like this to occur, eventually. Perhaps that is why it had felt compelled to guide this dream actively. Perhaps he was given space to participate because they were there. Nightmare could not tell, and did not care truly for the why; this was interesting.
The Snake lowers itself to meet his gaze, their body still standing, but its eyes on level with the broken thing. When it spoke, to the old/young self, it was quiet, smooth and Kind in a way Keith had never seen someone attempt, in earnest, in Reality, from one who Knew him, and what he had done.
"I Know how you have been, Soñitador. I Know that Change is possible.”
When the Lion speaks to the Core, to the part of himself that Keith allowed himself to be, it is angry, but calm, the predator’s teeth sharp as it smiles. It looks down to him, as he kneels before them, and it does not like what it sees.
“I do not expect it. It would help you, Soñador. You will not enjoy it."
The Entity Speaks, each grinning mouth, each glowing eye focused entirely on the pair man beneath them.
“ʇɹnɥ ʅʅᴉʍ ʇI, Soñitador. Him, more than you.”
“We are just looking for the next good time, over, and over, and over! We cannot stop moving! It will kill us one day! That’ll be it! Gone! Dead! Muerto!” The Fragment protested to his Core- louder than any of them had ever been, fear gripping his throat, “Or it will be back down here, with me! You do not want this! We do not want this! Why do you insist on keeping the cycle going?!”
The Core willfully, deliberately did not hear him. He was trying to block them all out, trying to center himself- but not the parts of himself he did not like. “Why, then, would I do it? Why would I do something i know I will not enjoy? It will not be worth it! To lay my sins bare, show everyone my cards when I have a full house? To reveal to them who I am, and face the loathing that that will bring? I am here for a good time, Pesadilla. Why would I ruin it with this?”
The walls had gone sharp, metaphorically. The Contradiction of the two, the Whole who knew who he was and felt no shame, the Fragment who needed a change. The air in the Room was hostile, literally. The Core felt that gnawing, that death by a thousand cuts that had started the entire dream. He could not see a source.
“We have done this over, and over, and over again! We pick someone up and toss them aside! We bring them close, and we shatter their hearts! It happened in Gibraltar, it happened in New York, it happened all across this damned country, and you CAN’T! REMEMBER!” The Fragment had changed, again. With the mentioned places he slid, from what constituted Keith’s youth to how he was when he first came to the House.
“It is what I do!”
“You destroy every good thing we have in our life and claim you are chasing entertainment! I cannot bear to look at you!”
This too, was a thing Keith Feared, though he did not often allow it to enter his mind. He had never allowed it to Speak. Nightmare lent the Fragment weight, pulling the environment to match him, his anger, his pain. When his last words were spoken, the Lion resumed, Addressing the kneeling Core.
“There are pieces of you that ǝʇɐɥ what you are, Soñador.”
Nightmare pulled the River of his thoughts closer, swirling their hands through the eddies of his thoughts, dredging for memories long-buried, pulling them closer. Though the minnows remained half-shadow, he could see their teeth, now. Thought-water filled the earth beneath the Core’s knees, where the Fragment sat, and under Nightmare’s hooves. A thousand cuts, each one carefully clipped and burned over the years, were working their way open, fueled by Fragments' rage.
“You are in pain, already.”
The Crawlspace had flooded, before. The floor had grown damp, then wet, the water inches deep. Almost negligible, to his kneeling self. Overhead, to his physical. Iron rusts, in water. He had feared Drowning, then.
“These pieces do not know how to be otherwise.”
The minnows shifted and morphed, their edges flickering, less like fish, and more like Keys.
“You have never tried. Honesty is often painful. You will not like it.”
The Lion's words had grown sharper, each biting phrase punctuated by his thoughts’ sawing against his skin, by the rustmarks forming on the edges of his clothing, by the cold, hungry stare of his Fragmented Part. The snake’s smooth, quiet voice was a balm, in comparison.
“It would begin to heal, this.”
A minnow had floated towards Nightmare, its key-formed self attempting to place itself in her palm. She allowed it a gentle caress with their fingertips, cautiously, like an injured wild animal.
“It would hurt.”
Keith looked around, in a panic, trying to avoid the water. The Core did, anyway. He couldn’t speak any longer, pushing himself into a corner, trying to pull himself up- knowing it was fruitless. The Ladder didn’t exist here. For the Ladder was Dorian, too. And he had not helped. He couldn’t have. Keith had no way of getting to higher ground, or avoiding the rust, or anything. “Why does it have to hurt? What have I done to deserve that?” He demanded, of the Fragment and the Lion.
The minnow sheltered itself with her, shivering in an unminnow like fashion. So many neglected parts, so many fearful, desperate parts. The Water was Rising.
The fragment stayed where he was, unmoving, staring at the Core. He spoke no longer, not to the Core, turning his attention back on Nightmare. “I do not know how we will carry on,” he said, “After this. We cannot keep going the way we have. But I fear we might.”
“Stop this,” the Core pled. The water was at his neck, and yet the Fragment needed no air.
“When we make our fatal mistake, I do not think it will be bombastic. I think it will be slow,” the Fragment said. When. When. Not if.
Nightmare moved with practiced ease, through the water, walking like it did not exist; Dreams are ephemeral, no more affected by water than by walls. Key-minnows scattered before it, then reformed behind, swarming amongst their eyes, like his pieces, too, were watching.
The Water rose, over his chin, but below his mouth.
“I think you are right, if y̞͎̋̔͘ŏ̷̶ͬ̉ű̖̥͊̆ stay this path, Soñitador.”
The fragment stood, falling into the swarm with the same instinct as the minnows, the pain in his eyes burning almost as brightly as the Swarm.
The Water rose, over his mouth, but below his nose.
Nightmare was closer, now, to the Core, than it had started, looming inches away, their yellow eyes glowing in the reapproaching dim. Reaching for it proves fruitless; dreams are ephemeral, no more solid for his hands than for the water, unless they wish to be, and Nightmare bears no sympathy for this grasping part of his psyche. The Chorus voice was somehow worse than the Lion’s predatory hunger.
“You will remember this Dream, Soñador. I am willing to help you, if you choose it. I will enjoy watching you fail, if you do not.”
The Water rose, over his nose, but below his eyes, and he struggled to stand taller, gasping, flailing, reaching for purchase. There was nothing to reach for, here, not anymore.
Nightmare’s voice was clear, even as the water filled his ears, his mouth, his lungs, even as he plead, drowning, screaming soundlessly into Water that could not be real, for the second time that night. When he sank, this second time, no amount of self conviction could cover the feeling. This was not a false memory. This was a consequence, perhaps the first of its kind, for who he had chosen to be so long ago.
“Choose wisely, Soñador.”
The Water rose, over his eyes, over his head, and past the reach of his fingers.
When Keith Woke, skin soaked with sweat, the image of their eyes, his keys, and the burning Fragment’s face is seared into his mind.
Keith awoke screaming, for just two seconds, hunching over where he had sat, by the table his object had rested on since he was found-and coughing, instinctually trying to dislodge water that did not exist from his airways. Once he regained himself, realized where he was, that he was safe, he breathed a sigh of mixed pain and relief.
It was right. He could remember. He could remember every damnable minute of that horrible dream, and it made him curl up as he so often did in the crawlspace itself.
“Pesadilla,” he wheezed, for he knew he could be heard, he knew it was paying Attention. Maybe it was the panic, maybe it was the sharp reminder that some parts of him had not always been this way… maybe it was the exhaustion, the twice borne shock of drowning. But his next words shocked him, even as he said them aloud. “Pesadilla. I am willing to consider your offer.”
Nightmare had not expected his words.
Nightmare had not considered this, as an option.
Nightmare had not thought that it would work, at least not this quickly, but his mind was open to them in a way it had never been before, the crack between Core and Fragments acting like a window into his thoughts.
And he had Meant his declaration.
From behind him, surrounding him, a fog lifted from around his head, a shimmer of dark energy and a hint of eyes swirling into a shadow-shape, coalescing in form between blinks, suddenly seated on the table beside where he had woken. Their eyes had settled into her fur, and she seemed smaller, here, than in the dream, like it was making an effort to be at once, less frightening, and more solid.
“Few can surprise me, Soñitador.”
The Snake’s voice was smoother and softer than had been the Lion’s, still speaking Spanish even in this waking space. She had spoken with...fondness? Even knowing who he was, what he was, and that the fragments were his smallest pieces. This was a genuine offer, if not of friendship, at least, of Understanding.
“You have managed it.”
He stared at her in fear and surprise, still reeling over his own words. “I surprised myself,” he replied, body shuddering, shoulders still heaving. “Quickly- lest the others awaken. I think that my cry was… likely audible.”
Sticking to a language most did not understand made it easier for him to drop his facade, but he clung to part of it for his image’s sake. He wasn’t ready to let it all go. His facial expressions, his bodily movements, they did not match the words he was saying- and it was plainly deliberate. “I do not know what to do, Pesadilla. I am myself! My hedonistic self! I do not bring care about others into the equation. And yet.”
And yet. And yet he had agreed to try. He knew he had to try, at least, before calling his own conclusion foregone. His own mind foretelling his doom had unsettled him to say the least, he knew he had to do something. Anything.
“Something has to be done. Is it possible?”
"Yo Sé."
The phrase escapes her by reflex, quiet, almost inaudible. She did know, that he had surprised himself. The window into his mind, the taste of his confusion.... Keith had never been this open, not with Dorian, not with the nameless boy in his memory, not with them. Even half-collected, even masking his words, his fear was as palpable, to it, as it had been in his mind.
"I am not suggesting that you change everything about yourself, Soñitador. I would not ask that of you. You could not do it."
Gently, so as not to startle him, it placed her hand on his shoulder, mouth shut, teeth hidden. Careful. Kind. Cautious. The Snake hovered closer to his face, within reach, but not as close as in the Dreaming.
"Many would be willing to match you, were you honest. Hedonism is not a foregone path to Despair. It is the Using of people that harms you."
He flinched, but allowed the touch to happen. It did not have any of the burning fire his touches with Dorian had, or the gentle hesitance of Jerry. It simply… Was. Keith wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“I have done nothing but,” he murmured- he seemed still proud of this, but that pride was being eclipsed by his fear. “What do I do? How do I- you must help me, I do not…”
His words died in his throat. He was trying to shift responsibility and he damn well knew it. Really, given no one in the house knew it was ever a facade, the reasonable answer was to… stop treating it as one. But that wasn’t less frightening than any alternative.
In one hundred and nineteen years, he hadn’t once been so genuine as he was now. It ached like a disused muscle.
Watching him struggle, he looked so much younger than he had, even in his dreams; without the suave confidence he wore like a mask, there was very little to hide the panic in his eyes, and she could Taste it, clouding from his skin like steam.
“You do not know how to be without the mask. Few know you, and fewer know you well. Start again.”
The snake swayed before him, Observing his expression, mouth open to scent his adrenaline, and his confusion.
“I do not Know that you have ever once had an interaction that was both genuine and kind, Soñitador.”
There was a weight, on his shoulder, as they shifted forward, moving to stand in front of the table instead of sitting next to him on its surface. Without moving her hand, it now stood in front of him, looming close, almost in an echo of his dreaming, but here was no water, here; no keys, no minnows, no fragment.
Only Nightmare, smaller in Reality, smiling widely across six mouths; he could feel her teeth, through the shoulder of his jacket. In the Dream, they were powerful, but it was still physically imposing even in the hall. They made no move to harm him, pulling her hand back to rest by its side, and then, gently, slowly, reaching out in a common gesture with the other, into the small space between them.
“Allow me to be the first.”
The palm reached out to him spoke quietly, and alone.
He stared at Nightmare as it shifted positions, silently listening to her. It was right. It was right, of course it was. People had treated him with kindness before, but could it be genuine if he’d been couching it in his machinations?
No, not truly, even if they didn’t know. He shuddered, the vestiges of the dream still clinging to him, the memory of water and fearful pleading. But Keith, whole, watched the hand.
With hesitance, he took her hand into his gloved one, shaking it gently, before releasing it. “Gracias, Pesadilla. I am in your debt.”
Whether he’d stick to his word remained to be seen, but at least he’d agreed to try. That was progress of its own.
"You Are, and I will collect, Soñador, if you fail."
The warning in their words was smaller than the Warning, in their tone; Nightmare was Kind, but Nightmare was very capable of Harm, if it wished it. He could feel their words, as much as hear them, their teeth clicking against his glove as several mouths spoke.
"I will Know, now."