Your muse finds my muse curled up on the bed, crying. Send “Hush” for a 1-35 generated response to why.
20. I had a nightmare.
Indistinguishable voices echoed off of invisible walls--enveloped in a chilled, damp darkness, the child quickly realized his attempts of seeing hidden specters were futile; in the pitch blackness, the boy couldn't even see his own limbs.
Something about the scene was familiar--but the memory was much too fuzzy, too faded, for the young one to recall it clearly. This place was one seen frequently in the child's nightly journeys, as if his brain was fixated on making sense of the voices, the environment, his beginnings. Slender fingers rapped against what seemed to be a metal table, finding themselves frail and ultimately useless in his ongoing endeavor to escape--or at least, to sit up, and prove he had some control of his body.
Paralyzed on an icy alter, the child tried his voice--to yell, call out for some answers, or at least, an escape. Tears finally found their way to the child's eyes when nothing but a hot exhale was released from his lips, silent sobs lifting his chest as emerald eyes darted through the shadows--in search for some visibility.
To find himself mute was nothing new--and yet, each night, a fading hope was reborn in the heart of the child; that maybe once, something would change. Unfortunately, it never did--and soon enough, even if the child didn't know it, he would wake, to the bright sunrise over the capital of light. But for now, he was bound by darkness and fear.
❝…W-Wait, wh-who is--
Wh-Why does he look like—❞
A small, trembling voice broke through the deafening silence, his tone shifting from panic slowly into a nervous, confused anger--and all the while, this stranger's voice was laced in terror. Taking one last glance towards the origin of the voice, the child's own tear-blurred vision caught a fleeting glance of crimson hair and emerald eyes, before the other turned away, fists clasped over pale ears.
And within moments, the vision was gone. replaced instead by a warm spring sun. For a moment, scared to move, the child works to open pallid eyelids, rimmed by the red and blue hues of uneasy rest. Slowly, cautiously, then, the crimson-haired boy sat up in his bed, turning his gaze towards the threshold separating him from the world outside. Hushed voices could be heard from beyond it, but they didn't harbor the same fear as the fabricated ones--for they were easily identified as his parents.
Slowly, as if the strangers still lurked in the unseen corners of his world, the youth retreated back to the warmth of his blankets, pulling the white cloth over his head. It was then, finally, that the suppressed terror of sleep erupted back into the child's consciousness, sending shivers throughout his entire being. A flood of tears overflowed finally onto ivory cheeks, his knuckles white in their relentless grip on cotton blankets.
Withholding anxious screams as if to not worry the elders outside, yet allowing breathy sobs to lure them in, the trembling boy clamped his eyes shut, clammy hands releasing the sheet reluctantly to instead take on the task of feebly blocking out noise.
It wasn't until Lady Fabre--his mother, peeled back the thin sheets that the youth finally allowed sleepy eyes to open, his ears to fully listen to the world around him. He wasn't ignored by those around him; there was light, warmth. But yet, in the kid's bloodshot eyes, tears still feel. To a young child, the reoccurring nightmare wasn't something easily forgotten, not like those memories of a time of rebirth.
The young heir didn't trust his voice--or, he didn't dare try it just yet, but he was certain, through heavy, quickened breathes and those bags under his eyes, that his distress had been adequately conveyed. Emerald eyes frantically darted between the seated Lady and the standing Lord, and while he longed for reassurance that they were there, he still found himself paralyzed, which only caused more tears to fall, without so much as an slender arm to wipe them away.