Note Book 10 Page 45-47

I felt that I needed to write... The nightmares won’t stop. Every night since the incident in Hazhalm I’ve had the same nightmare, it doesn’t change, it doesn’t falter, and it always ends in the same way… With me waking up in a cold sweat, gasping for air, and shaking uncontrollably while on the verge of crying. It almost seems too real to be a dream. All of it seems to be too real, too frightening…

Every time it starts it’s always nearly pitch black, only being able to hear at first. I can hear the sounds of blade hitting flesh very clearly, the sound of multiple voices crying out in agony, then the thump of the bodies crumpling to the floor. I always grab my ears in the dream, wanting the noises to stop. But when I do the darkness begins to pull back slightly, allowing me to see what’s close by. I really wish I could look away… Every time, all the people I know and am close to lay dead, scattered all around me in pools of their own blood.

Terror and panic always kicks in at this point. I can’t move, can’t look away, I start hyperventilating because of my panicked state while looking around at the faces of the bodies and recognizing every one of them… Every last one of my friends… their lifeless eyes all staring at me… But the body closest to me is always the same person, Sparhawk… Every time in this dream when I see him I can feel my heart stop for a moment and my blood run cold.

When I can feel my heart beating again I can hear it echoing slowly in my mind, then the pain starts. The same extreme searing pain that I felt back in the Testing Grounds when I held his body in my arms. Like a jagged hook had been driven through my heart and body and was pulling me backwards… I always collapse to my knees at this point in the dream, either to check the body or just in pure disbelief. But then I hear it, her wicked laughter… The next moment I look up, there stands Lillias, swords drenched in blood, and her face clearly twisted in delight behind the veil of her keffiyeh.

I can never get up at this point, though I try so hard to get my legs to move, to be able to move at all, I just can’t. I can only sit there and stare, unable to move or speak. She always laughs, her green eyes narrowing, point both swords down at me. “Worthless little coward.” Her laugh echoes all around me while she says this. “You couldn’t stop me from killing any of these fools even if you tried. You couldn’t save any of them…” Raising her swords with a smug glint in her eyes “You can’t even prevent your own death.” She swiftly swings her swords down at me, but before I can feel the blades pierce my own flesh, before I can experience my own death within my nightmare, I always jolt awake.

When I wake up on the floor of the San d’Orian rent-a-room I’ve been staying in, at first all I can do is suffer from the immediate panic attack I get. My heart is always still hurting when I wake up. This nightmare is frightening no matter how many times I suffer through it. The doll that Alberic gave me helps me find a little comfort, along with the flowers Sparhawk gave me back during the Starlight Celebration, but I feel like I need to be with Sparhawk in person to find any real comfort. When he is with me I feel warm, happy, safe… but when he is hurt while protecting me… I freeze up. I want to be strong enough to help him, strong enough to help my friends when they need me, but… I’m a coward… a horribly weak little coward… If I can’t protect my friends and who I love, then what use am I?

… I want to be with Sparhawk more than anything right now. I felt like I had lost him and almost gave up hope… I really don’t want to experience that feeling again. I’ve given up on my own happiness so many times… But when he is with me, I can still see it, like it’s still within grasp. I’m feeling really weak right now, most likely due to exhaustion from lack of sleep and the fear these nightmares evoke. Then again I may be coming down with some sort of cold or sickness… I need to force myself to rest somehow…