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#46 - Part 5
2001-06-25 @ 9:55 p.m.

I'm about to go attack my husband now. Wish me luck.

Story Posts so Far:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5:

The next dream I had was three days later, and in the early evening. I knew it was too early for my Love to be sleeping and dreaming of me yet, but still, I searched for him frantically. I roamed strange hallways, avoided brooding, robed goblins, searched the shops of Kailua, Hawaii. I sat down heavily on the sandy beach, and glared out over the perfectly blue water.

"Am I truly insane?" I asked no one. "Was my Love merely some bizarre dream?" I choked on hot tears in my throat, and lay back into the warm sand, crying.

Then I remembered the power. It had always been there, in the back of my mind, but I had been so busy searching, I had just ignored it. Now I flared it to life, and it consumed this place around me. I was then in a grassy field, wild flowers everywhere dancing in the faint breeze, and butterflies playing around my head. I sat up to gape at this aching beauty. I could see forever in all directions, but for that behind me, which was a looming darkness. I searched the fields desperately for him, but there was not a sign.

A thought occurred to me, that I could use my power to spread out around me to search, because surely it could touch his power and find him well before my eyesight could. I closed my eyes and sent my tendrils flying. They did not go nearly far enough on their own, so slowly I stretched each tendril until they were all taught around me as if to almost break. Nothing. I let go of my hold, and they all flew back into me with a snap.

I turned then, and considered this gaping darkness. We had never discussed what it had meant, this void that was always present in our dreams together. Could it be some doorway out of my mind and to the outside world, via which somehow I could go to him? It sounded a bizarre thing, even after all that I had experienced up until now, but I had tried everything else I could think of to find him. I picked myself up and went into the void.

The darkness went on for long enough for me to panic that I had been lost and would never find my way out. Then light slowly began to filter in ahead, and I ran for it. I emerged in a tall forest that was populated by the oddest halflings, all milling about and yammering away at me in some strange tongue, pressing in closer and closer to me. One of them touched my knee, and I yelped and fled.

Suddenly I was in Hawaii again, in my house, my parents arguing over me. I was just a little girl in her nightgown, crying at their feet as they screamed at each other above. I wailed and launched myself up, running from them.

This time, I was in a long hallway filled with smoke, and fire was suddenly chasing me! I ran and ran from it, until water began to trickle into the hallway at my feet. Relieved, I ran to find the source, thinking the water could save me from the fire. As I ran, the water rose higher and higher around me, and I stopped when it was at my waist. I turned back to see the fire still advancing on my position, but I did not need to move forward to get to deeper water, because the water was quickly filling up the hallway. In an instant, it was at my neck, and I put my head under to wet my hair, so that the fire would not singe it. But when I tried to raise out of the water again, I found I had to swim, higher and higher until my breath almost left me. At the last possible moment, my head broke the surface, and I took in a giant lung-full of air in relief. Only the air was smoke, and I began to choke and cough, almost drowning as I was treading water.

I looked about me and saw the smoky air being chased away by this ever rising water, the ceiling not a foot away from my head now. I gasped as I was rushed towards it. Before I could even panic, my head bumped the ceiling, and water covered me in entirety. I could not breath! There was no way out! Now that I was panicking, I almost didn�t feel the electricity that flowed through the water and then into me. It went straight into the core of me, and pulled my power out in a flood of it�s own. Together, the twinned powers pushed away the water and in it�s place left a grassy pasture with the sun shining over head.

I gasped and sputtered water, flopping around in wet clothes in the grass, frantically checking that I was safe. My Love was instantly beside me, soothing my panicked tears. He was hushing me and brushing the wet hair from my face. At his touch, my hair was instantly dry. His power leaked over me, and the rest of me was dry as well. He had dressed me in a white summer dress with bare arms, and the sun warmed me, so I was quickly calming in his arms.

"You went into the void, didn�t you, Mary?" he asked.

"I had no idea!" I exclaimed, nodding my head and then shaking it in amazement. "What on earth was all that?"

His hands were still smoothing my now-dry hair from my face, and it was amazingly soothing. I realized my hair was chin length and straight. I gasped and sat up, looking at myself. I was my real self here! I was� "I�m fat!" I exclaimed in horror.

He took my hands in his. "No, my love, you are not fat," he told me.

"Yes I am! Look at me! Just look at me!" I jumped up to my feet. "What the hell is going on?!"

He rose with me, and again clasped my hands. "Mary, the void only confused you, that�s all. It is chaos in there. After using your powers, to enter the void is to succumb to the chaotic dreaming that we would normally be enduring. Only it�s so much worse, I think because the initial darkness makes you forget your powers, and then you�re not using them at all, when normally you would use them at least a little subconsciously to make sense of the chaos."

I was frantically searching his eyes, trying desperately to understand. I was afraid, afraid of this. "So why am I fat? Why am I fat, when I�m here with you and out of that place?"

"You�re not fat!" he exclaimed. He took me into his arms and kissed me deeply. "My love, this is how I see you in real life, the real you." He searched my eyes, as if waiting for understanding to dawn in them. He found none, and continued. "When I found you and awakened your powers, you were so busy saving yourself by eliminating the water, you forgot to change yourself for once. When I dried your wet clothes, I had to replace them with fresh ones because you had not. Everything else, I left as I had found it, because this is who I see by day. You are truly the woman I love."

He put his hands to my face, and kissed me tenderly. "You are not fat," he said again. "You are a Raphealic goddess, and you are by no means fat."

I gazed into the adoration of his eyes, and melted all over. I slipped into his arms and sighed against his chest. I had been so afraid of this moment, of revealing myself to him, and being rejected finally. The fact that he knew the real me during the day and still loved me had never really struck home until now. Ah, this was the man for me.

"Are you all right now?" he was whispering. "Promise me you�ll never go into the void again, not without me to be there to help you fight it."

"No!" I exclaimed. "I will never go back in again!"

He chuckled quietly, and we just held each other for a few more moments. Then he sat me down in the grass and began to heap wildflowers in my lap, placing a few in my hair. I giggled as he caressed one against my cheek, and he smiled.

"You made this place?" I asked, glancing around at the meadow, far away ringed with trees.

"Yes," he answered. "You were too busy with the water."

I nodded, still just taking it all in. A breeze washed over me, and I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath to get the smell of it. "It�s glorious," I whispered. I laid back into the grass and opened my eyes to look up at him.

He was leaning over me, his fingers brushing my cheek. "My Mary, are you calm now? Is your harrowing adventure behind you?"

I just nodded my head, gazing up adoringly at him. I wanted so badly to take off that silly brown derby hat and comb my fingers through his hair. When on earth was I going to finally see the true color of his hair?!

"Mary," he began. "Where have you been the past 2 nights?"

"Hmmm?" I asked, raising one hand to trace a finger over his lips. What he said began to take meaning in my mind, and memories of the answer welled up inside of me somewhere. There had been a reason why I had been so desperate to find him. I sat up quickly. "I�ve been gone for 2 nights!"

He just nodded. "I was worried," he said. "Word came that you were all right, and just resting at the hospital, but for 2 nights I searched for you and could find you nowhere."

I knew vaguely where I had been the past 2 nights, but it was that morning when I had awoken from the coma, and the day I had just spent with my husband that horrified me. "I was drugged," I started.

"Drugged?" he asked, startled. "What do you mean?"

"Darling, it�s terrible, but let me tell it," I said, and took a deep breath to calm my nerves. I was terrified of what I had to say to him.

"When I awoke from the coma, I remembered you," I started. "I started babbling on and on about you, and how we loved each other, and it had been you who had found me in my coma and told me how to wake up." I shook my head, confused at these foggy details. "He was flabbergasted, then angry, and he left the room. When he came back, he had a doctor with him, and I was injected with something. My husband was telling me that I was hysterical, and I needed to rest, and then I was unconscious. I didn�t wake up again until this morning. I didn�t know it had been two days until you told me.

"But when I awoke that time, I didn�t remember you again. Not only that, I had to be told about the operation and the coma, because I didn�t remember about that either. And then he took me home and kept me on the couch all day, bringing me things and going on and on about how he had nearly lost me. He seemed amazingly relieved to have me there, and I� I was so happy to be with him!" I shook my head again in consternation. This was the hard part. How to tell him?

"Darling, it was not until I dreamed tonight that I remembered that he had drugged me," I said. "He didn�t tell me."

My Love was shocked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that when I woke up, I had no memories of the coma or our dreams, or that morning after the coma when he thought I was hysterical and had the doctors drug me. And he let me believe that I had been in a coma for those extra two days!"

Horror covered his face, and then he clutched me into his arms. "He means to keep you from me! He knows about us, and wants to keep us separated!"

I sobbed in his arms at the desperation in his voice, at our situation. "No," I mumbled. "No, I don�t think so."

"Yes! He is lying to you! He drugged you to keep you from me!" He was almost shouting. He picked himself up then, and began to pace. "I�ll stop him," he was muttering. "I�ll rescue you from him."

"No," I was trying to say, coming up to take his arms in mine. "Wait, stop and think a minute. I don�t need rescuing."

"Don�t you? He�s got you held prisoner there, with drugs even!"

"No. No, he doesn�t! Look, I�m here, aren�t I? He let me leave the hospital and go off the drugs. He�s sending me off to work first thing tomorrow, so that the environment can help me get back up to speed from the operation."

"But he wants to keep me from you!"

"No," I said, raising my hands to his face that was so filled with rage. "Listen, he is not trapping me. I don�t know what he�s thinking, but I�ve reasoned that he believes I really was just hysterical, and now he just wants me better. Can you see the logic in that? Please, calm yourself."

He just stood there, breathing quickly in anger, staring at me as if he didn�t want to believe. "He�s a monster. He�s kept you prisoner."

"No," was all I said.

"Yes, I will go to you tomorrow and take you away from there."

"No, you cannot do that," I said, and now my anger flared. "Do not let your own desire to be with me make hasty decisions that could hurt us."

"Me?!" he protested. "But � "

"No," I stopped him. "Listen, I believe that you are wrong about me. I think that if you revealed yourself to me here, I would be fine. However, I do know that if your identity was revealed to me out there, it would be too much for the state I am in. Out there, I am still very foggy mentally."

His mouth moved to deny, but I stopped him again. "No. I know this is true. I am very fragile out there right now, and to have a sudden shift in reality like that would rattle me to the core. It would do more harm than good."

He sighed heavily at me, and his anger was slowly replaced by resignation. "I have to trust you then," he finally said.

"Don�t you already?" I demanded. "You can�t keep making the decisions about this relationship based on what you think is best from your past experiences here. I am living this too!"

His face was crestfallen, and he pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. "Don�t be angry," he whispered. "I didn�t mean for you to think I didn�t trust you."

I sighed, letting the anger dissipate. His lips pressed against mine softly, and a quiet calm enveloped us. Birds began to chirp from the distance, as if providing soothing music to comfort. I put my arms around him, and rested my head against his chest, breathing in the smell of him. I was shorter than him now. He began to pet my hair slowly, and I snaked a tendril of power out to lengthen my hair.

"No," he whispered, pulling away. "I want to see you the way you are."

"I am still the same," told him, as his eyes roamed to confirm I had not thinned myself. "I am trying to grow my hair out in real life. This is how I truly see myself, with long hair. But mostly, I wanted to give you more to play with." At that, I took his hands and put them back into my hair.

He stepped forward, and combed my hair back over my shoulders. He planted soft kisses on my face as he tangled his hands into my hair. "You are the perfect woman for me," he murmured. "I cannot wait to hold you in my arms in real life."

I sighed against him in contentment. "I feel the same way," I said. "Only, we must give it time to sink in out there. I have to remember all of this when I wake up first."

"Agreed," he said.

~ * ~

When I awoke that morning, the taste of him was on my tongue, and I shivered in delight at the memory. But suddenly my husband�s mouth was on mine, and he was pulling me from the bed. "Hurry now, you mustn�t be late for work your first day back!" With that, the rush of reality and the coma came flooding in. I was rushing about to get ready, anxious to start my day. Something fluttered in my stomach at the idea of being out there in the world again, but by the time I was sitting in my car and had time to contemplate it, I had no idea what it was I was so looking forward to. I had forgotten all about my dreams.

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