Chapter 1
"D'mitri?" Kaneki asked, looking up at the younger brunette from his book. They were in the BC food court, which was rare for Kaneki since he hated the incredible distance it took to get anywhere you wanted since the food court offered every dish imaginable by food cul-de-sac(or so Kaneki believed.). Yet, the brunette leafing through ice cream catalogs with the most innocent, adorable look on his porcelain face was able to convince the ghoul to come down to the food equivalent of a mega-mall.
D'mitri looked up when Kaneki called his name, pulled from his ice cream trance. "What's up?" he asked, and Kaneki bit into his cheek.
"Are you...afraid of anything?" the ghoul was semi-hesitant to ask, but he was reading about dreams and the subconscious, and as soon as he hit the part about Sigmund Freud's research into the amygdala and the subconscious mindscape, he'd the urge to ask.
D'mitri blinked a few times. Was Kaneki serious?
"Uh...I'm not really afraid of anything," D'mitri answered, "I'm a doll, remember? I can't exactly feel fear. I can only feel distress, which is exactly what I'm getting from you. Is anything wrong?"
"No. I just...was wondering. You know what I'm afraid of, and I don't really know what...well, I guess it's nothing, then. You're really not scared of anything?" he asked again, and D'mitri smiled warmly. "Kaneki, the only thing I would be afraid of is losing you. And that will never happen as long as I'm here to protect you. Unless..." his smile disappeared and the hand that had taken Kaneki's dropped as he continued speaking; "unless you left me."
Kaneki smiled wryly. "You act as if that would ever happen," he said, then he joked, "maybe only if Rize wasn't a flesh-eating bi-"
Kaneki was interrupted by D'mitri's hand slapping over his mouth. "Don't ruin the golden moment," D'mitri said, and Kaneki simply nodded.
That night proved D'mitri wrong. As usual, he'd nightmare after nightmare, but most he knew he wouldn't remember. Until he found himself in a rather odd dream.
All he could hear was the soft yet intense music of Blue Foundation; he smoothed out his black tuxedo automatically and tried to stop himself or move as he clipped on his cufflinks, but he couldn't react as he slowly walked down a hallway, approaching a large oak door. He took several rough tugs on the door, but it wouldn't give. D'mitri frowned and propped his foot up on the wall before giving another sharp tug. With a loud groan, the door opened, and D'mitri was met with painful darkness. He stepped foot inside and immediately felt himself falling, but also floating, as if that door was the entrance to Wonderland and just like Alice, he was falling down the rabbit hole.
But this was different.
This was different because D'mitri couldn't breathe.
Air bubbles escaped his lips as he tried to gasp for breath, and when he looked up, all he could see was blurry lines of blue, green, orange, and the yellow of what looked like the sun baring down on him, and he knew. He was drowning.
D'mitri was then yanked back up to the surface and he struggled to breathe as suddenly he was surrounded by water fountains of all kinds spurting out from a lake. He was back at Woodward park in central Fresno, and he couldn't contain himself as panic ripped through his senses. Every time he moved or turned, there was another water fountain splurging up in his direction and he screamed in terror, but he wasn't sure why the fountains were making him so terribly frightened. All he knew was that he wanted it to stop more badly thank he wanted anything else he could think of.
Just when he thought he could take no more, something pushed him from behind, straight towards the water fountains. He fought and thrashed hard, but nothing could stop the inevitable, until the water fountains mutated into an electrical transmission tower and he fought harder, screaming into the cloudy skies.
The pull towards the tower became stronger and he moved faster until he looked around to see he was in a car with his parents, but neither turned to look at him. He tried to call for them to get their attention, but neither noticed he was in the back, so he attempted to reach to touch them, but he was binded tightly by the dozens of seatbelts in the back to the seat of the car. Then he realized where exactly they were headed.
Just a few hundred feet away were the most enormous wind turbines he'd seen in his life. And they were headed straight into the forest of them.
D'mitri closed his eyes tightly as tears streamed down his cheeks. He wasn't having this. He wasn't having any of this. He closed his eyes tighter, and when he opened them, he was awake, really for real awake, and he was in the hospital where several people near his room were looking strangely at him. D'mitri snapped, "what!? Haven't any of you ever had a fucking nightmare before!?" He got up and bolted to the bathroom to look at his reflection in the mirror. He indeed had tears streaming down his cheeks, and he started to realize how hoarse his voice was from screaming.
He'd screamed and cried in real life...that's why everyone was staring.
D'mitri looked back up at his reflection. He wouldn't let those nightmares get the best of him.
