#nightmare

That subtle sense of relief when you wake up, trembling, ears ringing from a nightmare and a loved one, still asleep, mumbles something softly and pulls you close so that all you can hear is their heartbeat and breathing. All you can smell is their scent. The warmth of their breath against your shoulder relaxing you back to sleep.

Night from Dreamtale is the only Hated Child becomes the supreme hybrid princess ever.

I chose a wrong path to infidelity. I tied my limbs to unbreakable bonds. I lost my breaths over moments that did not exist. I let myself burn in ashes and smoke away in ghosted air. I have been my own enemy.

 I do not really fall asleep, I am always stuck in a transition phase -my soul hanging between the two worlds. I dream of things that darken my days like nothing else. Nightmares, not of ghosts, but of people. People hunting me down, taking the best of me, in ways words cannot describe. I wake up, breathless, not moving for an hour cause I am never sure if I am still being looked for, if the monster is gone, so I hold my breath, I don’t move. I lay there, still, haunted by the shadow of someone who is so eager to hurt me, weaken me down, I almost feel dead.

/ / I KNOW THE REAPERS GETTING CLOSE / /

when we all fall asleep, where do we go?

What have we misread 

of our dream that this nightmare 

is here to convey? 

Red Leaf Haiku by © John Clark Helzer

Izuku caught his breath, feeling his gut twist with fear and horrified awe as he watched Touya rise into the air, propelled upwards by concentrated blasts of blue flame, the same technique he’d seen used by both Endeavor with his flames and Kacchan with his explosions

“He can fly?!” he cried aloud, to no one in particular, at least as far as he could tell. He could sense the presence of other people around him, but he couldn’t see them. The only person he couldsee was Shoto, across the battlefield from him, struggling to his feet while bleeding from a dozen nasty looking wounds.

Up above their heads, so far that he looked like nothing but a tiny black speck, Izuku saw Touya cease moving and hold himself still, hovering in mid air. He swore he could feel his cold blue gaze on him, and he realized that he must have been scanning the battlefield below him, searching for… something. Suddenly, he dived, and Izuku realized what- or rather who- he was after a split second too late.

“Shoto!” he screamed, calling up One For All to launch himself across the battlefield toward him, desperate to reach him before Touya did, knowing what he would do to him if he got his hands on him. He was half a second too late, his fingertips just brushing the fabric of Shoto’s costume before Touya snatched him away.

“No!” Izuku cried, and gave chase, using Float to pursue Touya as he returned to the air with Shoto in tow. He still didn’t have a lot of experience using Nana Shimura’s quirk, but he didn’t care. He had to catch Touya before he reached the apex of his flight with Shoto. He knew with sickening certainty what he would do once that point was reached, and he was even more certain that he couldn’t allow it to happen. He couldn’t lose Shoto. Not like this.

“Give him back!” he yelled, putting on a burst of speed to get within shouting distance of Touya, doing his best to supress the sudden flashbacks he had to the last time he’d been in a situation like this. Touya suddenly jerked upright and came to a halt, hovering in place, his fingers curled menacingly around Shoto’s neck.

“ ‘Give him back’?” he asked mockingly, parroting Izuku’s words back at him. “Alright then. Catch.” With a strength that was surprising, considering his thin, seemingly close to emaciated frame, he gripped Shoto by the collar and hurled him into the space between himself and Izuku, whereupon gravity immediately took over to pull him toward the ground far below them. Izuku moved quickly to intercept him, but his relative inexperience with Float proved to be his downfall- he didn’t know how to brace himself against impacts in midair, and when Shoto slammed into him, the jolt of the collision drove them apart, and though Izuku reached desperately for Shoto as he began to fall again, his hand closed on empty air. Then, in one final act of malice, Touya hurled a fireball at Shoto as he fell. He screamed in agony as he ignited with fire not his own, and his plummeted to the ground, burning like a phoenix as he fell. But unlike a phoenix, he would not rise again.

“Shoto!” Izuku cried, sitting bolt upright in bed. Beside him, there came the quiet rustle of sheets, and then Shoto’s arms were around him, drawing him gently back down onto the bed.

“Ssssh,” he whispered in Izuku’s ear, his warm breath tickling his neck. “It’s alright. I’m here.” A broken sob clawed its way out of Izuku’s chest, and he rolled over to cling tightly to Shoto, his overactive amygdala refusing to let him accept that the nightmare was over until he could hold the man he loved in his arms and feel him breathe and know that he was okay.

“It’s alright,” Shoto whispered, rubbing soothing circles on Izuku’s back as he cried. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m okay.” Izuku choked back another sob at that, this one of relief. Shoto continued to rub his back and murmur reassurances, the creature comforts he was in desperate need of in that moment, until at last he was able to regain his composure. 

“Nightmare?” Shoto asked softly once he’d calmed. 

“Yeah,” Izkuk whispered hoarsely.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shoto asked, running his fingers through Izuku’s hair.

“No,” he said, wrapping his arms more tightly around Shoto and leaning further into the protective circle of his embrace. “I just want you to hold me.”