Dreams and delusions.

Dreams and delusions.

17 years of nights spent dreaming and her mind had not yet stumbled across a dream as bizarre and as completely outlandish as the one Gwen's mind had currently conjured. What was most bizarre about said dream was the fact that she could have sworn on the heavens that she was in fact awake, if the dull ache on her repeatedly self-assaulted left forearm was anything to go by. But dream it surely was, she decided, pointedly ignoring the sting under her pinching fingers, for a room such as this one was not a thing of reality.

She lay on a bed of sorts, distasteful sheets covering her nightgown clad body, so similar in quality to the ones on her own bed, but so unpleasantly white. In fact, the entire alien room, which was surprisingly very alike, in dimensions, to her own, was washed in a rather dazzling and frankly offensive-to-the-eyes whiteness, as though the world were suddenly devoid of all color. Strange tubes sat on the ceiling as though they belonged there, and were currently glowing with an intensity most unnatural. What on earth?!

Squinting away from the aberrant lights, she propped herself up on the bed, resting back on her elbows and the sight that met her upon blinking away the dancing blue and red spots only served to add to the peculiarity of the situation, if the situation was capable of getting anymore peculiar. There stood her sister, bent over a stack of what looked like sheets of paper. It wasn't her presence in the odd dream, per say, as much as what she was clothed in that lead to Gwen's confusion, for she rarely saw the older girl out of her simple cotton dress. Presently, to Gwen's bewilderment, she donned blue trousers and a shirt beneath some sort of a white coat. Men's clothing!

"What have you got on, Elsa", she inquired, her tone more amused than disapproving, for she knew the fault must be hers – the dream was hers after all. "Mother would have a fit!"

Startled, her dream-sister looked up from the rectangular papers she was clutching, and stared. "Did you say something?" she enquired, in a strange urgent tone. Even in dreams, Elsa was strange.

"You are in men's clothing", Gwen pointed out, and Elsa looked more startled than ever, staring gob-smacked at her and then down at her attire. Gwen watched silently, bemused, as the other girl approached her. "Are you feeling all right, Ms. Cooper", she inquired, and Gwen's bemusement grew, not at the question, as Elsa fancied herself of extremely sweet nature and inquired of Gwen's health a couple of times a day, but at the use of Ms. Cooper. In dreams, she decided – as Elsa took her wrist in a hand as she often did for reasons Gwen, for the life of her, couldn't fathom – that in dreams her sister was even stranger. And without warning, the strange sister shone something very bright directly into her eyes.

"Stop that!" Gwen cried, wriggling out of her batty sister's grasp. "What do you think you're – ",

But dream Elsa, or rather, Elsa-the-brat, had already let go and was paying absolutely no heed to her indignant splutter. Instead, she whipped out a strange looking metallic object from somewhere inside the men's garb she was in and was already walking to some strange box-like equipment at the corner of the dream, fiddling with some knob like structures on its surface. She turned towards her staring sister, still fiddling and smiled. "Do you want me to get you anything?"

Gwen decided it wouldn't get any queerer – her mind was capable of only so much.

Moments later, she realized she had obviously underestimated her mind's aptitude for queer, as her father strode in wearing navy trousers and shirt with the same white coat her sister currently had on. More astounding than his attire was what floated to her ears, and Gwen wondered if she'd heard correctly and if it had, in fact, come from her father.

"Feeling alright, Ms Cooper?"

Heh, she probably heard correctly. It was only just a dream after all, an exceedingly curious one at that. Before she knew what had happened, her head was tilted back and her father was nonchalantly, as though he was just petting her hair, pulling at the skin under her eyes, causing her let out a rather comical sqwak of surprise. She squirmed and protested until he graciously removed his offending fingers. Her indignant glare was met with an infuriating smile, and her angry affronted sound was, obviously, interruped. 

Gwen fumed. 

"She's definitely lucid", he addressed Elsa, who now stood behind him and seemed to have somehow dragged the large box like structures towards them. Turning to her he said, with the same handsome smile that, at the moment, inspired some slightly violent urges, "Welcome back, Ms Cooper."

"This is the stupidest dream I've ever had", Gwen informed him, feeling a twinge of satisfaction when she realised that saying the dream was stupid would entail calling her dream-father and sister stupid. The satisfaction quickly morphed into apprehension as she wondered if her dream-father would be able to punish her for impudence. The smile widened and relief, soon as it had come, morphed to mild irritation.

"This isn't a dream", he told her, pulling on white gloves seemingly made of rubber but not thick enough. "This is quite real, Ms Cooper."

"Now", he said, interrupting yet again as Gwen opened her mouth to notify him of the fact that he, in fact, existed only in her imagination and this was indeed a dream, and accepted a small strange device Elsa handed him, "We're going to conduct some routine tests. Nothing big. Please stay still for us."

"What -" she tried to inquire, but was quickly distracted as Elsa walked around her and carefully slid her hands into something soft and furry which were tied at the ends to the bed. Were they some forms of constraints? She stared, gaping stupidly, mind inconveniently blank and unprocessing, as her sister tied a blue strip of hard material around her left arm, very tightly. "That hurts", she said, panicking slightly now. "Get it off me", she struggled.

"Calm down, Miss", the dream Elsa said soothingly, in the same placating tone Gwen was used to during waking hours,making Gwen feel as though she were six years old. A very afraid six year old.

"We're only going to draw some blood."

Beside her, Gwen caught a glimpse of something sharp, like a needle, glinting at the end of the object in her father's hand. Alarm was quick to rise ,her stomach dropping, muscles rigid with fear. They were going to drain her of blood?

Gwen knew, at some corner of her wildly panicking mind that it was just a dream, surely she wouldn't get hurt. But in that moment, tethered like an animal and possibly being bound, fear defeated logic and she struggled harder against the surprisingly tough constrains and her sisters hands – firm, attempting to mollify in vain. In the midst of her stymied efforts to get free, her hair slipped out of the loose braid.

Gwen blinked, and her body, already tense, tensed further and stilled in shock as she gawked at the strand of stray hair dangling before her eyes. She looked down at her shoulder.

Her ebony hair was completely white.

A pinch of pain shot up her left fore-arm and her terrified, befuddled gaze was torn from the inexplicable hair color to where a needle was entering her flesh. Unable to fight the sudden grip of horror, she shrieked and jerked for all she was worth, dislodging the needle from where a stream of blood proceeded to flow and drip onto the pristine sheets.

" – calm down, ma'am", her father was saying as the sight of the dark red fluid caused her alarm to pitch higher still , brows sweating and eyes squeezed shut against the terror. "Calm down", he said again, as Gwen as frightened tears quickly made their way down her clammy cheeks.

"Ooh, oh I want to wake up", she cried, trashing desperately, smearing blood everywhere. "I want to wake up", she cried again, hysterically, willing herself desperately to leave the nightmare.

"Sedate her", a disembodied voice came and the prick in her shaking left arm was the last thing she felt.

She awoke in her familiar bed and her familiar room, feeling light-headed from the night night-mares. Light was streaming in from the small domed panel on the ceiling. She stirred and shifted to find Elsa standing over her bed, concern etched upon her brows.

"How do you feel", she inquired, her tone much more urgent that usual, moving forward to help Gwen as she tried to prop herself up.

Gwen smiled at the concern, relived to find her sister once again in the recognizable blue and white cotton dress. "Fine, thank you", she told her. "I had a bad dream."

"Oh", her sister moved back, taking her wrist in her hands like she routinely did. Gwen thought she saw a flash of disappointment waver on the solemn countenance. If it had been there, it was quick to disappear. As soon as her wrist was freed, she kicked off the plum sheets and leaned on her palms to push herself out of bed and start another day, freezing abruptly as a sharp twinge shot up her left arm.

Filled with sudden, inexplicable trepidation, Gwen lifted her forearm into focus. Sure enough, two little pin pricks stood out against the numerous nail marks against pale skin. Alarmed, she reached back for her hair.

It was white.

Breath coming in short gasps out of sheer panic, her face whipped up to scan the room. The whiteness, the glowing tubes, the perplexing boxes.

"Gwen?"

Her gaze flew toward the direction of the voice. Cold sweat lined her brow again, stomach coiled and turned into lead again, and she was on the verge of screaming when she saw Elsa standing near the door in her blue and white dress, her father half way in, clad in his usual dark-blue, checkered trousers. The walls were back to their peach, the sheets back to their plum.

Her father smiled handsomely at her. "Are you all right?"

"Yes", Gwen breathed, trying to calm her rapidly hammering heart. "Yes, thank you, father". She wiped her brow as they both exited, looking down at her hair – dark again.

"I think she may be emerging", she heard someone say, a voice that seemed to originate from somewhere outside the door, but also, seemingly, originating in her head. 

She wondered, as she pushed herself shakily out of bed, if she was losing her mind.