Work Text:
Dreaming Within A Dream
by kinky_carter
Elizabeth never noticed that it came, how it had come. So unbeknownst, disguised as a dream of humanity. The great pains and scars one must endure for merely being human. Her guilt is like shackles to her wrists and her shame to her ankles. That sorrow, the confinement, its like a diathesis of gut wrenching evisceration. The decisions she has made...her mistakes, the lives she’s lost under her command. Those lives, men and women, those souls that haunt her still. They linger and watch, they blame her, they beguile her. She can’t bare to sleep because they constantly bombard her with nightmares of their deaths and pain. Every minute, every emotion, every life sucking moment that was their last.
Through the countless cups of black coffee she finds herself clutching the railing to her evening terrace. Where on nights the Atlantean moon is full and shadows are mockingly vivid. She finds herself clutching that railing from the other side. Where the waves crash below her and the wind blows whispers of tauntment. How she finds her way back to the other side is beyond her, who that figure is that always saves her. Some man shrouded in cloak and hood, whom always seems to come to her at the right time and coax her back from the edge.
Who for a short time holds her and quenches the pain and belittles the voices until they vanish. So he stays and holds her their as she sleeps for once in a great while until the sun sets and she wakes alone and lost. Gathering herself and yet not too soon afterwards they return, those voices. And she must suffer once more, even though she starts each and every day pleading with them and telling them how sorry she is. Still never crying but always showing agonizing remorse. There are the days and times when she will feel such remorse she can’t remember who she is or where she is. Yet there may be hours that are unbearable, there are also the hours that aren’t so unbearable. She still doesn’t know why they haven’t realized it, or if they have why they haven’t said anything. Is she getting what she deserves?
So this is her punishment, it’s almost as if she’s dreaming, and she can’t ever wake up but there’s someone out there trying to wake her from the nightmare. As she slowly wastes away with those eyes that penetrate deep into her very being, the eyes that can tear her apart and break her. Then, then there is only one escape from those unwavering gazes. Just a little escape that way tomorrow will come again for her, no matter how painful.
end prologue