Nightmares - Part 1

Sitting on the grassy field that looked down upon the little village, Blur prepared herself mentally, physically and spiritually for the forgetting spell, which was a pretty hard thing to do considering every time she loosened herself up enough to perform the task she had to jolt herself awake again. On her fifth try she managed to relax and stay conscious, but just barely. The words fell on her tongue so easily now she had said them so many times, they flew into the air and, somehow, they would reach all the ears of those who were sleeping (lucky buggers) in their beds.

 

“San unes helta nemadyl te dominese,

en te aginalem rem uar teta.

Ima ua sati niver ogen psi,

guset psi gi temar en te unlume rem meteta.”

 

It had taken her forever to learn that spell; although fey people did have their own dialect once upon a time, most had switched to the language of the humans who lived nearby. However, the magic ran only though those old words, the problem being that you had to know what they meant to make them work. Consequently there were many powerful enchantments that were meant to be cast... in a dead language.

 

So many spells...

 

As Blur repeated the strange words over and over, she also had to think of them in a way she could understand:

 

“May my face become a shadow,

in the corner of your mind.

So you shall never see it,

for it is locked in the darkness of forever.”

 

Piercingly, her last note hung, reverberating in the quiet morning air. For some reason, when casting a spell over masses, her normally airy voice became powerful and commanding, reaching the ear drums of souls miles away. This particular spell was written by her own people generations ago; they were masters of the shadows and creators of hiding games. It was how they survived, all those years ago: hiding from the humans, or whoever else tried to kill them. It was how they evolved to shape shift, but it left them with weaker bones and the constant changing made their hearts feeble, accordingly, they didn’t have a life expectancy of above 50. Blur, of course, had inherited these traits and it scared her; the thought of dying years before her friends. Of growing old, while they were still young. Of-

 

She ran through the woods, the browns, reds and golds flying past her and laughing with her companions. She was easily the fastest, speeding past Cocoa and Pages, their russet hair spiralling out behind them, then taking the lead in front of Hardy, his violet eyes sparkling in sun, like liquid amethyst. Her cheeks hurt from grinning and her chest burned; she needed to rest.

 

Hardy flew past her calling, “See you Grandma,” he waved a thin, tan hand over his shoulder.

 

He was only poking fun, but it hurt in her chest. Or was that the stitch?

 

Blur was panting for breath as Cocoa zoomed past; yelling at Hardy, “Stop being mean! You should be kind to the elderly!”

 

Meanwhile, Pages stood by her side and held on to her arm, “Blur, you should rest,” she said, instructively, “You’re not as young as we are.”

 

“I’m only a year older than you,” she retorted, indignantly. But right then a shock of pain jolted through her chest knocking the breath out of her. As she struggled to take in oxygen, she clutched at her bosom, as though trying to rip the pain out. Forgetting all else but the want to breath, to live, she stumbled and fell. Pages calling her name, desperately. Her real name, as if it held some extra power.

 

The muddy ground coming closer and closer.

 

The hands that reached out to meet it were not her hands. They were skeletal, swollen at the joints and they were cold, so cold. The veins, so prominent through the pathetic, delicate skin, seemed to be failing to pump the warm blood through them.

 

Oh, no. Not her.

 

Please, not her.

 

Jerking awake Blur took a few minutes to steady her breathing, it seemed like the panic attack in her dream had affected her in real life. Not that it felt like she had been sleeping; she was still just as tired as earlier.

 

As if that dream could actually happen, she tried to scoff; once she got that old the others would be almost the same age. Well, not almost the same age, but definitely not young. Secondly, there was no way that they could be running around in the forest happily; this wasn’t exactly the woods around Snow White’s cottage, if they were running anywhere in that place it was probably for their lives.

 

She got up, still shivering slightly from the experience and entered the wood following no particular path (as if there was one this side of the forest). Next time she went to sleep she’d think of ‘happy thoughts’.

 

If that was possible.