Untitled Project, Chapter 1

He jolted awake, ragged white t-shirt clammy on his chest. His mouth opened and he panted frantically as he stared around the dark room, disoriented and frightened. Wiping a thin hand across his forehead, he barely noticed that the top of it was flecked with sweat.

How many times had he awoken this way? He had no clue. It was those dratted nightmares of his that were the source of these dreadful awakenings, and he wished fervently that the nightmares would stop.

But if the nightmares vanished, would the good dreams vanish too? If those went away, he would willingly bear any amount of nightmares just to catch a glimpse of her. If she left him like everyone else already had, he didn't want to live. As it was, she was the only thing keeping him going.

He cradled thoughts of her deep inside himself, protecting them. She might only be a figment of his imagination, but that didn't matter. She was the strangest thing he'd ever known, a strange, beautiful creature that perplexed him and hurt him and filled him with love all at the same time. He lived for the moments when her hands wrapped around his and he understood that he was something that could be loved, not a good-for-nothing forgotten teen that no one cared about or wanted.

"Darian?" whispered the child in the bed next to him. "What's wrong? Why are you awake?"

"Shut up and go back to sleep. Everything's fine," he muttered, although in reality it wasn't. Still, it was uttering little mistruths like that that made things less complicated, and if there was any one thing that Darian wanted less of in his life, it was complications. Running his fingers through his sweaty hair, he inhaled a shuddering breath and tried to calm himself.

His entire life had been complicated. From the first few years of his life, when his parents had contemplated putting him up for adoption but had decided to hold on to him for a little while longer, to the current time, after his parents had given up on trying to raise him and sent him out into the world all on his own, everything had been complicated. At times, it had been thoroughly unbearable. There were innumerable moments when he'd almost thrown up his hands and screamed that he was done with it all.

But, in reality, he wasn't done with it all. He couldn't let go of life because there was still one thing that meant everything to him, and he was unsure whether death would separate him from it. It was pitiful, that only one thing forbade him to dive into the black depths of death, but it was the unadulterated truth.

So he, Darian, stumbled through life trying to make his way to her, all of the while understanding and realizing that he might be grasping at straws. Along the way, he'd manage to accumulate a few experiences he was actually proud of, like the time he'd defeated a horrible bully in the Dalerty schoolyard, but other than that, he felt profitless. He staggered through his days, bleary eyes tired and full of longing, waiting until the blessed hour when his head hit the pillow once more and his tortured mind was encompassed by her gentle caresses.

So, amidst the subdued snores and sounds of the other children, Darian Felicio attempted to sleep again.

He waited, half awake and half drowsing until sleep's miniscule fingers trickled over him in the most plasant of ways, dabbling over his flesh and slowly drawing his body back down until his bare skin touched against the pillows and the sheets. Drowsily, he pulled the covers back over himself. His eyes drifted shut; the next moment, he was dreaming again.

The dreams always started out beautifully. There were castles and clear skies and pristine clouds, and everything was overlaid with a fairyish sprinkle of mist sparkling iridescently like starlight.

Then, the dreams darkened, the edges of the sky smudging and bloodying like an enormous bruise. The sun slowly grew musty, dulling until even the bloody pangs of orange and red at the edges of the sky muted and drew in to form purplish colors, and every hint of passion and happiness abandoned him. He stood in the midst of it all like a lone soldier upon a battlefield, his bloodied robes shaking and quaking in the wind, ragged and unraveling. He was alone amidst the ashes of a fallen world. 

When he almost couldn't take it any longer, when he was about to wink out like a weary star, she would wander through the shadows and stumble upon him. Her grey eyes would stare into his in that crooning way of hers, that undeniable quivering gaze that shattered his insides and melted him out and left every ounce of abandon screaming at the edges of his bedgraggled frame. She would take his hair, the ragged dark edges of it, and twist it in her fingers, leaning in until their lips touched.

It was incredibly beautiful, like the end of a song that you wanted to keep going on and on until the end of time, until the earthquakes came and birds fell from the sky and everything vanished in a flash of white light.

But just when he was incredibly happy, just when everything was wondeful, he would awaken.

In the darkness, he would cry, sobbing horribly. Mighty Darian, lord of Dalerty, hardened by the world, would cry. He couldn't help it. 

His emotions ran immensely deep, sprang up in him like blood from a gaping wound. In the darkness, he would sob and feel his emotions coursing over him, painful and undeniable. He was sure she was like him, that she must be so full of emotion and love that it streamed from her eyes in breathy glances, gushing out like rays of sun. 

Oh, death, if it had taken her, he wanted death. He begged it to take him. But if she was alive, he wanted to live.

Always, just before he fell asleep. He would whisper her name.

"Lilac."

And then, sleep took him again.