The Calling (DrTrollinski & Zhai)

[DrTrollinski]

".. Mia..." He sighed as he was all tucked up in bed, and then slowly reached out with his arms and put his arms around her, pulling her close and hugging her for a few moments, rubbing her back as he did so. ".. Just watch until I go to sleep, okay?" He said. "I don't want you to be fit for nothing tomorrow... You've done enough, I swear." He gently pulled away and kept hold of one of her hands, and then gently squeezed it.


"Thanks, Mia... I don't know what I'd do without you." He said. ".. I'd probably be asleep on the bathroom floor if not for you." He chuckled weakly and then rolled over onto his side, so that he could face her. He wanted her to be at ease when he finally fell asleep so that she could get some sleep herself. Twins may be twins, but there was no point in her doing damage to herself over something that might not have even been that serious - Or was there? He didn't know.


"Goodnight, Mia." He said, "Love you." He added, and then yawned gently as he curled up into a ball and shut his eyes. He was grateful for the second blanket. It was really helping to keep him warm, seeing as he felt so cold and weak.

 

[Zhai]

"Love you, too, sickling. Get some rest." Mia reached forward out of her chair, patting her brother's shoulder, and giving him a tight smile. Christ, it was hard to shake the feeling that she should - no, could - be doing more for Carl. He keeps saying that he's fine, that's he's going to be okay but his actions were saying otherwise from his words. As well as the way he looked was defaulting his whole 'I'm fine. I'm not sick. I'm not dying' act that he was putting on.


If Mrs. Greene were here, that woman would have had on a pot of her super secret cure-all special soup before Carl could even get off the bathroom floor and into bed. Mom would have been freaking out, trying to get a thermometer in Carl's mouth, get him out of his clothes into his pajamas, and disinfecting every surface in his room - all the while trying to keep an eye on Carl and fleeting to his side at ever flinching movement he made. Dad would have probably been trying to cheer Carl up, in his Dad-way.


Mia blew out a deep breath, settling into the chair, crossing her arms over her chest, and crossing her ankles. This was going to be both exhausting and nerve wrecking. Carl says to just wait until he goes to sleep and then what? - Mia crawl into bed? No. She was already pumping herself up for the long night ahead, and found herself doing what...what Mom does. Leaning forward and holding her breath at every movement Carl was making.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. I'll try, Mia... Don't sit up late, okay?" He smiled weakly, and then closed his eyes tight. He was a little nervous over the fact that she was going to be sitting there watching him sleep, but it offered him a bit of reassurance, too. He didn't mind, in a sense, but at the same time, he just wished that he was alone with some bell that he could ring if he felt too sick. The sickness he'd been experiencing was only the coffee, the cheap food, and the stress. He was sure of it. What else was there that could be behind it - the only thing he could have got food poisoning from was really the cheeseburger, but that was ages ago that he ate that, almost twenty-four hours ago, so why would it be that?


Soon enough, he drifted off into a gentle snooze. He was just lying there for about ten minutes with his eyes glued shut, and he was in a state of confusion and drowsiness where he was half asleep, but half awake, too. The world was just spinning for him, and things felt really really weird, as if he was flying away, as if he was having some sort of Outer Body Experience - his soul was coursing across the streets of the little town they were in, right up the highway, and back up to their hometown.


Before things could return, he fell asleep.


He was sleeping for a good few hours. There wasn't really anything left in his system, and he hadn't thrown up the water thus far. He had something brewing up in his gut that felt like it was about to wake him, but his mind was occupied by something else. He was having a dream, a strange one. He couldn't tell if he was alone in it, because it was all in first person. It was horrifying. He was walking down a dark hallway. When he got to the end of it, there was a wooden door. When he pushed through it, there was a man sitting at a wooden desk at the far right corner of the room, and straight ahead of him, there were five doors. Five simple wooden doors that stood out in the darkness.


And then he felt something clasp down on his shoulders from behind.


He awoke with a yell, the sweat pouring down his forehead as he shot upright in his bed and took a few glances around. He was safe. He was with Mia, and he was safe. What could be better than that, right?

 

[Zhai]

What did Mrs. Greene say to count when you couldn't sleep? Llamas?


The moment Carl rolled over and his soft snoring started, Mia sat back in the chair, emptied the hoodie's sleeve to fold her arms across her chest underneath, and tried to imagine a llama. Mmm...it wasn't working. What the hell did a llama really look at anyways? Mia didn't have her phone either to Google what a llama looked like, and she didn't want to go searching for Carl's phone to do it anyways. Plus she had already found a comfortable place in the chair and was reluctant to wreck her brains trying to find it again if she got up.


Sighing softly and looking around, Mia conjured her mental Mrs. Greene image and replayed the moment she told Mia what to count when you couldn't sleep. Damn it, what was it? Sheep! Count the fucking sheep, Mia! She calmly leaned her head back against the chair, using the hood of the hoodie as a cushion against the wood's frame. Finally comfortable and eyes closed, she started imaging little sheep with numbers on their sides running from one side of her mind, hopping over a stupid fence, and running out the other side. How much time had passed? Mia couldn't even tell if she was asleep or even getting close by the time she made it to Sheep 124, a blue sheep that tripped and rolled into the fence; Sheep 126 somehow ran in out of order and started eating the number off Sheep 124.


Okay, this must be the beginnings of sleep. Eventually, there's a whole herd of out of order numbered sheep before Mia feels the blackness of sleep calming her...but it's abruptly ended with some wild banshee scream. In her mind all of the sheep flee, even taking the damn fence pieces with them, and her eyes open so fast that for seconds, Mia doesn't see a thing until the grogginess clears and she blinks several times. Straightened out of her seat, her arms pushed back into the sleeves of the hoodie, and her breathing pattern nearly that of hyperventilating - Mia crocked out a few words that even she didn't understand. She cleared her throat and spoke again, clearer, "Ca-Carl...are you okay? What's...wrong?"


Mia had to keep blinking until the image of became clear. Sat up. Sweaty. Panting. Wide eyed. What the hell, Carl? Mia leaned out of her seat and onto the edge of the bed, her hand hovering over Carl's hand. "What happened?" Seriously. That was the least innocent question Mia could think of asking and asking if he was still feeling sick would just set him off.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. No, no--.. I..." He gulped a few times and then slowly kicked the covers off, and then slowly shuffled out of bed. ".. I need to use the bathroom... I'll tell you what was up when I get back, okay?" He said, and the shakily but surely wandered out of the room and went over to the bathroom right beside his door, stumbled inside, locked the door, and instantly made his way to the toilet and dropped himself onto it. Yeah, the caffeine and junk food was still fucking with his system. With no solids left in his system, though, he'd only drank water - You know what that equaled when he sat on the toilet?


I don't think I need to explain how bad it was.


He was there for at least five minutes before the toilet flushed. He washed his hands, sprayed some air freshener, splashed some water on his face, and then made his way back to his room, collapsing into bed and instantly pulling the blankets back up over him. He was shivering like crazy, and quickly reached out and gulped down the half glass of water on his nightstand, and then set the glass back down.


".. I had a nightmare..." He said, wiping some more cold sweat from his forehead. ".. I--.. I think it was a nightmare. It was like a lucid dream... Like I was really there." He gulped and then set his head back down on the pillow. He was feeling really drowsy. ".. I... It was a dark room, there were five doors at the end of it. This random guy was sat there, and... I was about to start walking, but... I felt someone grab my shoulders. Like. Really grab them... and... I woke up." He sighed. The dream was really weird to experience.

 

[Zhai]

"Wai-..." Mia's hand rose in an attempt to catch her brother but his retreat was hasty and she was left reaching for no Carl. "Okay..." She sighed, her had hand dropping back onto her thigh as she was left looking at the closed door of the bathroom. What if he was throwing up again? Ugh; Mia had just gotten over the sounds of Carl's retching from earlier and she wasn't prepared for a repeat listening session. Instead she rose from the bed, hesitating if she had time enough to leave out of the room and come back before having to possibly rescue Carl from the bathroom floor. Mmm, two minutes passed and Mia felt confident Carl might be in the bathroom long enough for her to grab a drink and come back.


Out of the room, through the living room, and at the wet bar - Mia opened the mini fridge, going through the few shelves and finding them stocked with various drinks. Orange juice, apple juice, a small bottle of wine, liquor, bottle water and sparkling water. Great, where were all these options when Mia needed something other than water earlier? Her fingers pinched and turned the little bottles around so she could see the labels better, and she smirked to herself when she touched the liquor. Damn, they could use a drink right about now. They were still kind of lost, short on money, and the least they could do was celebrate together; share this small bottle of liquor and a juice, and relax.


Mia thought better of that idea, knowing Carl was sick and someone had to keep an eye on him, so she couldn't drink it either. Instead she took one of two glass bottles of orange juice, searched high and low until she found the bottle opener, and poured the orange juice into a plastic cup. She sipped and slowly made her way back to the room, deciding to sit in the chair again instead of the bed, just in case Carl came barreling out of the bathroom. This orange juice was so damn good she didn't want him to ruin it running into her.


Just as she sat down again, Carl indeed came busting out of the bathroom door and onto the bed, guzzling the water at his bedside and taking in deep breaths. Mia stopped sipping her drink, her eyes wide and her ears ready. "Well?" When Carl starts explaining and finally finishes, Mia is still sitting in her chair - speechless and barely holding onto her cup in her lap. Her eyebrows jump up momentarily when she finally takes in a deep breath and straightens in her seat again.


"I-I don't even know what the dream might mean, Carl. Um.." Mia sighed, staring down into her cup and swishing the juice around. Maybe the answer will float up in her cup? Looking back up to Carl, she shrugged and sighed again, still lost for words that might give insight to his dream. "Maybe you were just...shit, I don't even know, Carl." Mia hadn't had a dream in years and certainly didn't know how to interpret dreams.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. I can... Hold on a minute." He slowly reached over to his nightstand and swept up his phone, quickly flicking it on and going onto the internet on it. He sighed as it loaded up - the signal was much stronger here, and he knew that they could look for answers on the internet. He was hoping he wouldn't find something depressing, but he wasn't expecting it to be a glass of warm milk and a blowjob waiting behind the doors. Once he was on the internet, he typed in on Google 'What does it mean to dream about doors?'


"Okay... Dreaming about doors means that you're going through a transition in life... If the door's clean and undamaged, the chances of the transition being smooth are higher... If things are dark and depressing on the other side of the door... It's a bad transition... Seeing a door may also mean that you need to look harder to find the answer you need." He sighed and then flicked the phone off, and then quickly dropped it back down onto the nightstand.


"I'm sorry, but that... is fucking creepy." He shuddered and then snuggled back up under the bed. Could all of that be relevant to the situation they were in. ".. I need to get through one of the doors, Mia..." He said, gulping a little. Would it even be possible to go back into the dream world? It was definitely worth a shot, even if it did take more than one night.

 

[Zhai]

Mia sighed softly, sipping the juice again. Okay - doors, transition, dirty bad, clean good, no damage, dark bad, light good. Got it, what else? Was that it? Mia exhaled, relieved that they knew what the dream meant not but not so much liking what Carl said after; about going through the doors.


"Carl...I don't know if you're talking about some Inception type of stuff or whatever but..." Mia shrugged, looking at her brother wide eyed and confused as to what to say or do next. Get through the door, huh? How was Carl going to get through the door if he couldn't make it to the door without being touched, waking up screaming and freaking out? "What if someone's keeping you from the door? You said someone grabbed you so...what if there's something keeping you from getting to the doors? What the hell does that mean?" Mia was still trying to swallow the fact that Carl was having a life changing dream or a transition or whatever, but also there was something keeping him from the dream.


"What if you go back to sleep and you don't have the same dream?" That was the golden question - well one of them. "You don't know if you'll have the same dream, Carl." Mia was going based off a documentary she watched months ago - ironically about dreams - and she remembered that it was unlikely to have the same dream right after waking up. It wasn't impossible but unlikely.

 

[DrTrollinski]

He grabbed his phone again and looked up what it meant to be grabbed. His face went a little bit sour when he read over one of the answers he found.


".. Shit... Being grabbed in a dream is a sign that someone's going to betray you." He explained, and then sighed and slapped the phone back down on his nightstand. ".. Right. I could give that another shot... I might not dream the same dream, but... what if I try a lucid dream? I've seen something where you can actually go into lucid dreams by... preparing it, if you will." He sighed and then looked around again. He wasn't sure if he wanted to do it or not.


"You basically lie on your back, close your eyes, and take deep breaths for twenty minutes... If you don't fall asleep, your chest starts to feel heavy, and you go into REM... When that happens, if you open your eyes, or try to... You start the lucid dream that you can control, manipulate, and just... just dream it. I can try it, but... You know." He gulped. "You can go into Sleep Paralysis and see some really scary shit, but--.. You'll be here, right? You'll be there to wake me up if I went into that stage, right?" He asked, gulping once again.

 

[Zhai]

Mia eventually stood out of her seat, pacing at the foot of the beds, walking until she reached her bed and turning to walk back to Carl's bed, and then back again. She was still listening to everything Carl was saying but she wasn't feeling good about it. There were some things in the World Mia felt like you shouldn't mess with; ghosts, vampires, Sasquatch, and the meaning behind signs. It wasn't like that black cat crossing your path, dog in the road, cracked mirror kind of signs but things like dreams. Feelings. Intuition. That unexplained sixth sense people sometimes believed, and Mia's own gut feeling was telling her that maybe Carl shouldn't go chasing the dream. When it was ready to happen again, it would or wouldn't happen. Who knew?


Mia stopped at Carl's bed and sat her cup down on his bedside table, folding her arms over her chest and blowing out a deep, drawn out huff of air. "How am I supposed to know when you're seeing scary shit?" Her arms unfolded and her hands flopped up in the air, questioning Carl's plan. "What if you are having a scary ass dream but you're not..showing an signs? Like you're just laying there....still looking like Sleeping Beauty on the bed and I'm over here worried sick if you're seeing some fucked up shit." That was plausible. Mia didn't thrash around in her sleep when she was having a terrible night's dream, and she only knew that because she woke up intact; blankets not disturbed, hair not a mess, no sweat on her.


"Carl...what if something goes wrong? Not like Freddy Kruger comes visiting you in your dream or anything like that...but if you...pick the wrong door?" Mia shrugged slowly, her fingers intertwining nervously.

 

[DrTrollinski]

"With sleep paralysis, you're awake, and you can see things... You just can't move." He sighed. "That's how you'll know. I'll just be lying there, wide-eyed." He added, and then took a long-winded sigh. He didn't know what was going to be best to go with. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to toy about with this and try and have some sort of OBE to get into a dreamworld where he was supposedly going to come across five doors. Honestly, what was the worst that could happen to him?


"What's the worst that could happen? How do we know if there actually is a wrong door?" He asked. "I mean... It's worth a shot, isn't it? It's just a dream... It can't harm me. The most it's going to do is shake me up a bit, and if that happens, we'll just stop experimenting with it, okay? I think it's out best bet of finding out what that dream was all about, and maybe--.. Maybe it links to what happened to mom and dad, Mia... What if it leads us one step further, or something?" He asked.

 

[Zhai]

"I don't understand how this is going to lead us one step further to our parents when we don't even know what step we're at right now? We don't know how close or far off from them we are. We don't know where they are! People ar-..." Mia stopped, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath through her nose and resting her hands on her hips. Shifting her weight side to side, and beginning to pace again, Mia tried to remain...calm, pretty much. She wasn't angry with Carl and his dream but she was frustrated with their position in all of this mess.


Their parents were missing - they could agree on that. There were other people missing family members and friends - that was also a fact. No one knew where the Hell these people, including their parents, had disappeared to. No one had any information, no one saw anything, and more importantly - no one who was missing had come forward to say 'Oh hey I just got lost on the way to blah blah. I'm fine'. No one had done that, and she expected their parents to be the first to show up raising Hell to know where their children were when they magically showed back up on the map. Mia didn't know where they were in this wild goose chase because they hadn't even really started looking for their parents. Right now they were trying to escape Lydia, make it back to their home town, and manage to not get caught in the process.


Mia stopped pacing again a the foot of Carl's bed, relaxing her shoulders and dropping her hands from her hips. "If you want to do this whole dreaming thing, then I'll watch and make sure nothing happens." It was useless trying to sway Carl away from literally chasing his dreams and she decided to just go with it, as she'd done with everything thus far.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. If you don't want me to, I won't, but I'd say it's our best bet." He sighed, closed his eyes, and then lied back in bed. He lied perfectly straight, his legs together, and his arms at his sides, and then took a deep breath. "Right... Let's just get this over with... I'll see if it works. I just need to--.. I need to look at my watch in my dream, and then I'll know it's a dream, because there won't be proper numbers, or anything like that... I can't get excited, either, or the excitement will wake me up." He took another long deep breath and then began to take deep breaths.


Five minutes in, he felt his breathing become shallow.


Ten minutes in, he started to feel more drowsy.


Fifteen minutes in, his chest began to feel heavy, as if someone had put a brick or a stack of books down on it.


Twenty minutes in, REM started.


Twenty-five minutes in, REM was fully in effect.


As soon as he was sure that REM was as popped up as it could be, he opened his eyes, and he was met by strange images and flashing colors and Christ knows what else. This was it, wasn't it? He started to see strange shapes and outlines of people, and he couldn't even see Mia anymore. He was in a land where dreams were created, but if he kept his eyes open for too long, he'd go into sleep paralysis. It was time to start this. He shut his eyes again, and then things went weird. He was in a green field, but the field was partially covered by snow.


He looked at his watch. The hands were spinning like crazy.


This was it. He was here.


He pictured everything. If he ran in the dream, he began to feel physically tired. He was feeling drowsy, but there was a large building. He ran to it. He was greeted by a room full of people, a desk, loads of stuff. He went through some rooms, and when he got to one room, he was met with the dark room. Five doors, one man at his desk to the far left, and one person who was standing behind him. Who was it. He didn't know. He went up to the middle door - he didn't know why, it just felt right. He opened it up. He heard crying. He heard sobbing, but it was pitch black aside from little rays of light that were coming in through... slots in a blind, or something? From the ceiling to the floor. The crying got louder as he stepped towards the door. It was... He could hear himself among the cries. He tried to turn around, but he was met with one face.


Mia.


She wore an angry look, and then the most horrifying thing happened. She pushed him down a little set of stairs through the door behind him, and then slammed the door shut. He was left in darkness. He was left among the cries.


And then he woke up.


He gasped. He was... He was back in the real world, right? It was still dark. He couldn't have been out long. Not even an hour, it felt like. Mia was there, but he didn't know what to say. It was a loud gasp, so he sat up not too long after.


"Holy shit." He said.

 

[Zhai]

Mia's eyes switched down to her watch more times than she could count. She probably looked at the watch more times than how many seconds it took for the minute to pass. As well, she'd barely paid attention to Carl until she heard his soft, slow breathing and she stopped watching the clock to much. Thirty minutes gone. Okay, Carl? Either he was actually sleeping and Mia was left hanging in the balance; or he was experiencing some whole other dream that wasn't the door dream. Maybe he had to start from the beginning of the dream, considering he made it back to the same exact dream. Mia checked her watch again. Forty minutes; what if he was opening every single door in his dream, being picky as to which one he wanted to go through?


Come on, Carl. Pacing stopped, she walked to the side of Carl's bed, staring down at his positioned body. He kind of looked dead, honestly. She would just need to cross his arms over his chest and bam!, he was ready to be put in a casket and on display. Mia cringed at the thought of seeing her brother in a casket and she mentally took back everything she'd thought. Be gone bad thoughts.


Checking her watch again and about to turn away to start pacing a hole into the carpet again, Carl's gasp stopped Mia mid-turn and she angled her body back around to look at him. "What happened?" She still couldn't believe she was going along with Carl's whole dream thing but she was curious as to what he'd seen while he was..dreaming, she guessed. Mia still thought he might have just been sleeping and the 'Holy shit' call out he did when he opened his eyes was maybe him forgetting to wake up.


"What did you see, Carl?"

 

[DrTrollinski]

"Mia, oh my god. The door, it was like--.. I went through the third one, and!" He took a few deep breaths and then sprung up, running to the window to pull the curtains back and look at the blinds. It was like looking at the slots in these blinds." He said. "There was light coming through. I could see people in there - the door lead down a tiny little set of stairs. It was pitch black aside from the feet of people, and the floor. The floor was wooden." He paused for a moment and thought about it. He missed out the start.


"I--.. I started off in a field, though, covered in snow, trees everywhere, and so on, but the part I was on was all open - I went up to this big building, and a door I went through in there lead through to the room with five doors! I heard crying down the stairs of the third door. I was crying, but there was someone else there, too! There were more people!" He gently stamped his foot on the floor and then walked back over and sat down on the bed. This was all very exciting, to be quite honest.


".. And..." His face dropped. "I turned around to go back... and I saw you, you looked angry. You reached out and pushed me down the stairs, and then you shut the door on me." He shook his head. "Mia, the dream. In the dream, it was you that betrayed me... It--.. It can't be right. It isn't right." He said. "We'd never betray each other, so I don't get that, perhaps it means something else." He said.

 

[Zhai]

Mia backed up from Carl's bed as he sprung otu of it and rushed over to the window. Standing in place, she watched and listened to her brother's quick, kid-in-a-candy-store tone as he lingered in the curtains. Looking through blinds? These blinds? Was Carl dreaming about this room in particular? Mia was about to walk over to the window, interested in what her brother was looking at outside the room - when he retreated from his perch and back to his bed. She watched in confusion, still deciding if she wanted to look out the window or not.


Abandoning the window peek for now and returning to stand at the foot of Carl's bed, she noticed his enthralled expression shift into something dark. Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pressed together, waiting to hear the bad news of the apparently good experience. "Wha-" Her arms unfolded and slowly dropped to her side, her expression relaxing from concerned to shocked, and she didn't even feel like she was breathing properly anymore. Carl's words stung her. They fucking hurt; and she didn't have anything to say for herself because she didn't even know what to say exactly. "Betrayed you...how?"


Right, wasn't that another golden question of the night again. Mia couldn't help feeling a little frustrated - well, majorly frustrated - that she'd been the person in the dream world to betray Carl. Not only that but she didn't know what the betrayal was or when it would happen or why it happened. Was it good betrayal or was it bed betrayal? What'd closing him in a closet mean? Carl hated closets and everyone knew that, especially Mia so why would she close him in one?

 

[DrTrollinski]

"No, no. You look offended, I don't mean it like that. Like... In the dream, you pushed me down the stairs into the darkness that I tried to run away from. I think it was a--.. I don't know. A cruel-to-be-kind sort of thing - I heard my own cries in there. That must mean something, right? You were sending me in there to... Set myself free. I don't think you'd ever betray me, don't you worry about that... I know you'd never deliberately cause me harm unless it was entirely necessary... I don't know what it was, but what if, in the first dream... You were the person that grabbed me, you know? It must all mean something... It must." He said, and then got back up and walked over to her.


".. What do you think the room was? It wasn't big enough to be a room, to be honest... It was like a two-by-four bathroom you'd get at the back of a Kindergarten class, if that." He said. He didn't like the fact that she looked offended. He leaned out and hugged her, rubbing her back. ".. I don't think you'll betray me. I never said that - that's just what the dream was saying." He said, and then sighed a little as he rested his head on her shoulder. "It might be a huge coincidence, but it felt so... real, to me, you know? Like it really happened, like we've already been there and just don't know it." He shrugged, and then pulled away.


".. Shall we get some sleep and discuss this over breakfast tomorrow morning?" He asked, and then climbed back into bed. "Love you, Mia. Sleep well, okay? We're going home tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to." He winked at her and then set his head down on the pillow. "Thanks for taking care of me, sis... I feel much better now." He added. "I might be able to sleep easy at long last." He said.

 

[Zhai]

"I'm not... offended." Mia let herself lean into Carl, her arms slowly rising and her hands settling on his back. She sighed softly, her eyes staring at where Carl had laid in the bed. Where he'd just had his dream or whatever it was, showing that it was Mia - herself - who had thrown her brother into a deep, dark somewhere.


In a deep, dark somewhere that could have possibly been a closet, the one place he hates, and closing it on him so he could...suffer. It didn't make any sense because..well it just didn't! There had never been a thought in her mind about throwing Carl in a closet, let alone betraying him in some fashion. The fight at the diner the other night was just both of them releasing anger and she wasn't even remotely thinking about betraying him by running off or anything.


There hadn't been any thoughts like that. Ever. Not when they woke up to find their parents gone; not when they were planning their escape from Lydia's house before they even arrived; and definitely not recently when he was sick as Hell - and still probably sick with whatever it was he had.


Mia wasn't ever going to cause harm to Carl - on purpose or otherwise - and she wasn't planning to betray him. Hell, she still didn't even know what she would be betraying - in real life or in his dream.


"It could...have been...a closet." There was a hard, huge knot in her throat as she croaked out the end of her sentence. Goddamn it, just saying 'closet' made her feel weird. It made her feel sick, almost, putting out that suggestion and not even having been in his dream. What he was describing sounded like a closet and what worse place for someone to be pushed in a dream, than their own nightmare.


When Carl was back in bed, Mia felt the urge to pace and her hands were still nervously falling into a fists. "Love you..." Mia wasn't ready to sleep - not anymore at least - and retreated to the bathroom. There was a subtle smell but she ignored it, closing the door behind her, turning the lock, and turning on the shower. Hot. Very hot. Already there was a thick cloud of steam rising out of the shower, coating the glass until it spilled over and floated across the ceiling.


She stood there, leaned against the counter, staring down into the empty sink. So...she had betrayed her brother in a dream for reasons they didn't know; threw him in a closet, locked the door and melted down the key for reasons they, again, couldn't explain; and now Carl just wanted to brush the whole thing under the rug. Mia hissed through her teeth, shaking her head and regretting that he'd gone through chasing his dream only to find out it was really a nightmare in the end.

 

[DrTrollinski]

".. A closet... Fucking hell. That would be horrifying." He sighed. "I know you'd never do that, okay? It's just a dream. It doesn't reflect what I think of you, just my fears. You were in the dream, and it's just how things played out. Don't let it get to you, alright?" He smiled and squeezed her hand for a minute, and then lied back and shut his eyes tight and listened as she walked out of the room. He hoped she wasn't too upset.


After all, he'd made it perfectly clear that he trusted and loved her. Why would a dream upset her? Was it just the general idea of her betraying him the upsetting thing, and not the actual dream itself? Who knew, who knew. She wouldn't hold it against him. She was his sister - she wouldn't hold a dream that he had no control over against him, would she? No, of course not, she was better than that. She was loving and understanding, and she cared about Carl more than anything, and vice versa. Carl would do anything for her, and she'd do anything for him, no matter what their states were. That was all that mattered. They'd always be there for each other, and that was the most important thing.


No. Some stupid dream wasn't going to come between him and his sister.


He'd made it clear. He meant no offense.


He just told her what he saw in the dream. He was just as upset by it as she was. He knew it wasn't true, though.


Hopefully she did, too.

 

[Zhai]

Well...that was the worse night ever, huh? Even though Mia had turned on the shower with the intent to actually shower, she didn't make it in there last night. Mia spent nearly an hour, at least, staring between the sink and the mirror until the steam had formed a thick, constant glaze over the mirror that no amount of wiping away could clear up. It was also getting harder to breath in the hot bathroom and she instead turned the shower off, used the bathroom, and went to bed. That was the last thing she remembered doing was peeling out of her clothes in the dark and getting into the bed.


Now, she laid in bed, still listening to the soft breathing of Carl in the other bed just a few feet away. She didn't know if he was awake or not, and she wasn't keen on going to find out either. They'd both had a long night and there was no sense rousing Carl out of his sleep at, ugh, five thirty in the morning. What was she even doing awake at five thirty in the morning? What time had she crawled into bed? Well past midnight, she was sure. There was that familiar stinging around the rim of her eyes that suggested she'd slept less than her body would have liked.


Reluctantly sitting up - as slow as she could possibly manage - Mia sighed softly and looked through the darkness of the room. Pointless. It was as dark in here as if she were looking around with her eyes closed. Mia crawled out of bed, felt her way through the room to the living room, grabbed her pack, and felt through the dark back to the bathroom. This time, she actually showered, brushed her teeth, and combed through her hair. Looking down at her watch produced a mere thirty minutes later. Great. Six in the morning and she was barely awake, freshly showered and starving. Breakfast, according to the little booklet, wasn't until seven thirty.


Mia left the bathroom and the bedroom, shutting the door softly on her way out and crossing the living room to the mini fridge. The second orange juice was snatched off the shelf and she settled into a corner of the sofa, waiting for the next hour and half to creep by.

 

[DrTrollinski]

Six thirty.


Why was he up so early.


He looked at his phone, groaned, and then slowly threw himself out of bed. He was in his underwear, and right now had no intent of getting dressed. He felt hideous after all the shitting and vomiting he'd done last night, so he was going to have a shower and get changed into some fresh clothes before he did anything else. Well, that wasn't entirely true, because after he looked around the room, he saw that Mia was no longer in her bed. Christ, what time did she get up, then? She better not have gone to breakfast without him, or shit was going to go down.


He walked out, and there she was.


He slowly walked over - typically, he needed to pee - and smiled at her, lowering himself down onto the couch beside her. "Morning, Mia..." He smiled, his voice quiet as he reached up with one hand and ruffled his own hair. "You okay?" He asked. He noticed how tired she looked, and then gave a long-winded sigh. "You didn't sleep much last night... did you?" He asked.

 

[Zhai]

Mia, still curled into the corner of the couch, lifted her head from leaning over on the arm of the chair when the door to the bedroom opened and Carl came sauntering out. He looked like he'd just woken up, his hair still sticking up every which way and his eyes barely open. Hell, Mia had been up for awhile and her eyes were still squinting every now and then. She cleared her throat, knowing her voice would crack if she just spoke right off the bat. "Mornin'..."


Her feet curled closer to her, giving Carl room to sit down beside her, knowing Carl would want to sit closer to her than further away. She managed to keep her head up, despite how immense a weight it felt on her shoulders right then and there, and she glanced at Carl. "I slept like a princess." She smirked, unfolding an arm and using it to prop her head up instead of straining all her muscles to keep her head up.


"How'd you sleep?" Mia didn't ask about dreams. She honestly didn't want to know but if Carl talked about it, of course she'd listen to him. Since last time she was probably going to never ask about anyone's dreams. Ever.

 

[DrTrollinski]

He smiled at her and then dropped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. ".. Slept like a princess, eh?" He asked, chuckling a little. She certainly didn't look like a princess, as much as he hated to admit it. He wasn't going to say that, though. He was just going to wish her the best and then go and hop in the shower. The TV was on, and the usual stuff was playing. He grinned as he reached down and playfully tickled her side.


"Going home today!" He grinned, and then stood up and kissed the top of her head. "I'm going for a shower, princess. See you soon. Breakfast is my treat this morning." He smiled, patted her shoulder and then wandered off to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. First, he went pee, and then he hopped into the shower and put it on full blast. The heat was near enough unbearable, but better than nothing. It really woke him up.


Once he was out he walked back through to his room with the towel around his waist and got changed into some dark blue jeans, a pinstripe short-sleeve shirt (casual), and his La Coste black and white sneakers. Once again, the sunglasses hooked onto his shirt, and he was good to go after gathering up his pack and slinging it over his shoulder. He walked out and rejoined Mia, sitting down beside her.


"Breakfast, or do we have to wait til a certain time?" He asked.

 

[Zhai]

The way Carl repeated her words back to her was as much as she could expect, especially since she knew that she didn't look like a princess with bags under eyes and probably wrinkles from stress starting to form on her face. Admittedly, she looked like shit and it was a relief Carl didn't say that aloud. They both silently agreed on its truth, and that was good enough for her. At least Carl looked like he got a better night's sleep than her. Mia was about to give into her own reluctant curiosity and ask what Carl dreamed about, but by the time she opened her mouth, Carl hands were attacking her sides.


Newly energized, Mia laughed louder than she had in the last...boy, she couldn't even remember. She enjoyed the short moment, arched out of Carl's grasp and onto the floor in front of the couch. It was almost painful to laugh and the after sensation of Carl's tickle attack kept a small smile on Mia's face as she sighed and leaned her back against the couch. Going home today, huh? Was that what today was?


Mia eventually got back on the couch, relaxing into the stiff cushion as best she could, waiting for Carl to finish. She tried not to think too much about the whole 'going home' thing because she didn't want to get her hopes up. Once again her thoughts went spiraling; what if the bus breaks down? What if the bus doesn't show? What if Lydia shows up or the police? What if they get on the wrong bus? What if, what if.


She exhaled sharply to shut up her own thoughts and luckily, Carl came back out into the living just in time to interrupt her train of thought. "We can probably go down now." Mia lifted from the couch, moving to grab her bag and turning in a circle. Nothing had been left because she hadn't taken anything out. The clothes she used were back in her bag, shoes on her feet, and tooth brush in her bag still. The key to the room was in her back pocket and she felt for it just in case. "I'm ready.."

 

[DrTrollinski]

Seeing the laughter before the shower made him feel quite a lot better about himself. He prayed that things would stay like that forever, when he could still pin her down and tickle her restlessly to his heart's content. It was what any siblings and/or partners did at some point in their time. Carl even saw mom and dad doing things like that at a few points. (Once when they he was very young and walked into their bedroom late at night. He never forgot)


"Alright, sis. Lead the way. Get whatever you want for breakfast today... I'm thinking about getting something healthy on the side to help settle my stomach a little. Some fruit and cereal, and then whatever the fuck I please." He laughed as he hoisted the bag back up into his shoulder and smiled as they left the room. He was happy that they chose to stay here of all places - it was better than the motel, that was for sure. Now they were going to go for a complimentary breakfast that was hopefully quite good.