Two of Us

I realized I was dreaming only after the witch had managed to get ahold of me. I should’ve realized it sooner, when I noticed that my running form was even worse than it was in the real world, and how tiresome it felt to move my limbs through the air—as if I were carrying the weight of two bodies besides my own.

Perhaps another clue had been the floating quarter notes and eighth notes above me as I tried to run. An old record player sat in the corner. Somehow, I knew it was there without looking. It was playing an old jazz record, its blue surface utterly unbecoming of the scene. Above me, and above the witch chasing me, musical symbols protruded from the vinyl like helium balloons.

Aside from that, the room itself was rather unremarkable. I suppose I can forgive myself for initially overlooking the floating sheet music and my own languid movements. After all, I was being chased.

The blood running through my limbs must've felt cold, but I couldn't feel it. Even in the real world, I wouldn't have harped on that sensation. The witch's hands tightened around my shoulders, conveying the kind of disdain one could feel through a touch. I had no idea what I'd done to her, but it must've been something serious.

Up close, she was rather short, but the force of her grip was more than enough to pin me face down against the floor. Then again, perhaps it wasn't so much her strength as the fact that my body was exceptionally light to her. It was odd, considering how heavy I felt.

"Gotcha," the witch said. It was a voice I immediately recognized.

With only my head free to move, I twisted my neck to confirm who the voice belonged to.

"Gemma?"

"Shut up," she ordered, her voice confirming her identity before her hand unveiled the familiar face beneath the dark blue cloak.

"Emmy—why are you in my dream?"

"Don't call me that." She covered my mouth with her hand. "I don't want to hear another word from you."

I wanted to tell her she should've just said it was her chasing me. I wouldn't have run away.

"This is the moment you shut up and listen. You understand?"

I mumbled a response against her soft palm.

"That's disgusting. Stop it."

Our eyes met. The scorn in her grip traveled from her pupils to mine. I tried to catch her scent, but my sense of smell didn't seem to work in the dream.

"Are you listening?"

I nodded, scraping my cheek against the unremarkable room's floor.

"Good. Now, the moment you wake up, you're going to leave me alone. No more talking to me, no more trying to be near me, no more confessions. No more anything from you."

She really wasn't making any sense. In real life, she'd already rejected me several times, but this was my dream.

"What are you trying to do?"

She'd sensed that I was trying to manipulate the space around us. We were inside my mind, after all.

It wasn't working, however. What was working instead was the pressure of her grip on my bent arm.

A strangled yelp escaped through my nose as she pulled my arm, twisting it to the side.

"Say it. You will leave me alone. Promise me."

Even if I'd wanted to, the pain in my arm wouldn't let me utter a single word. Not that I wanted to say it anyway.

Seeing—or rather, hearing—my pathetic whimpering, she removed her hand from my mouth and eased the pressure on my arm. My ragged breathing filled the room. The sound of the vinyl had long since faded into the background, along with the floating musical notes.

I thought that, even in my own dream, the real Emmy was far more beautiful.

"I can't—" I managed to whisper before she began twisting my arm again. Now her knee was digging into my back.

"Say it. I won't ask again."

I managed to hold on until the very moment I felt my arm was about to be torn completely from its socket.

"Okay, I'll do it—I'll say it."

At that, the pulling stopped, but her knee remained firmly pressed against my back.

We waited in silence for several seconds. I knew that if I said it, something would change.

"I—" I began, the pain of saying those words far greater than that of the knee pressing against my spine. "I will leave you alone."

There was no feeling behind the words, but the words leaving my mouth, in a selfish attempt to stop the pain aching through my body, disregarded what I actually wanted.

She didn't stop immediately. Instead, I felt the gradual release of her grip on my arm, a sense of dread rising at the same time as comfort replaced the hurt.

I turned around. The witch, still taking the form of Gemma, gave me a reassuring smile. It was as if the actual feelings behind my coerced promise were enough to bring about whatever would follow once I woke up.

"Wait—" I pleaded before my vision became enveloped in darkness.

The blur wasn't the pitch-black darkness of the lights going out, but the warm, dark brown of my closed eyelids. My consciousness was still awake, but my body was slowly returning to sleep.

The reflection of myself in the dream was being consumed by a deep, heavy sleep, while my body in the real world was slowly beginning to wake. I felt all of it within my consciousness, trapped inside my brain.

I desperately tried not to open my eyes, but my weak will was overwhelmed by the simple act of my eyelids separating.

It was too late. I realized it as the dark blur slowly shifted into focus, now illuminated by the blue light of dawn creeping into my room.

I was forgetting something. I knew what it was, but I myself had already forgotten. My consciousness tried to shout it to my brain, but I—my body—was deaf to the cries of my mind. Yet I could sense everything my waking body felt.

Slowly, this version of me, the one who had been forced to make a promise, began vanishing from my mind. The new consciousness needed space, and my old self was taking up too much of it.

I was disintegrating. I felt it happening as the waking version of me took control of the body lying in bed. With every passing moment, there was less room for the person I had been in the dream. My feelings for her were slipping away. The hope that someday she might feel the same way—all of it was disappearing from me, even as my waking body continued to hold on to the memories. But the new me had no reason to miss what he had never felt. He was waking up, and I was becoming something he would never remember.

My last memory went away with me: the bittersweet smile on Gemma's beautiful face. She had looked as though she were about to cry, but I couldn't tell whether it was from relief or regret.

I should ask her why sh—