I thought that, at least, I knew myself.
I might have many flaws and many weaknesses that prevented me from being the man I wished to be – but at least I was under no illusion that I already was him. Even if I could not always do right, I understood what right was, and I understood the faults in my being that opened the gulfs between the real and the ideal.
But I had never thought myself to be so afraid.
Every night, a new dream seeks out another impurity in my soul and, with unerring accuracy set to the tune of distant laughter, rubs my face in it. I’ve learned, already, that I am terrified of so many things a man ought to be able to bear with more equanimity than this.
Last night, I was in the oubliette again. I had almost forgotten that for some time after they pulled me out of that hole I hated and feared the dark; for months I kept a candle burning even when I slept, an extravagance that would have horrified Maman if she had been in town.
The Sleepless winnowed that germ of old terror from its hidding place in the recesses of my mind and magnified it to madness. A year of nightmares, I bargained, once a night. But time is one of the many powers and principalities that must bend the knee in the face of dreams, unstoppable in their own logic.
I was in the oubliette again for what seems to have been about two hours in the real world, but countless years in my mind. This time, though I was starving and thirsty just as I had been in reality, I wasn’t given the bare minimum required to keep me alive.
Yet I didn’t die.
My body fed on itself, reducing me to wasted skin and hollow bones, but I didn’t die. My lips cracked, my tears evaporated, and finally my eyes withered like old grapes in their sockets, but I didn’t die.
In the real world, they came twice: one to question me, and once to torture me for the fun of it. I had not realized that those moments had been a sort of reprieve until I knew, somehow, their appointed time had come and gone without one sign that anyone was ever coming for me. I would have cried, then, if I had still been able.
I don’t know if the Sleepless is getting better at flaying my mind – none of the other dreams have been this bad – or if an unpredictable routine is part of her charm. Lulling me into a sort of comfort with a milder dream one night, just so that the next can shatter me harder.
But I do not think I can survive a year of this.
Not in the lonely, duty-filled life I’ve made for myself. After Gianina, I embraced the Knighthood in the hope that good work would soothe me – would cleanse me. But I think I wasn’t getting better; even before my deal with the Sleepless, I was getting worse. And now that I’m having these nightmares, I’m sick nearly as often as I was before the surgery – I’ve even been forced to use my cane a few times. My mind is falling apart, and because of it my body is following suit.
Who can I turn to? Is there anyone? I have friends, thank the Lord, who would help me – at least a few. Tomas will be there if I ask it of him – will drink with me, spar with me, distract me for a time. Rain would talk to me of everything and anything, Physicians’ work and the Southside – and she would listen, too, if I simply needed to unburden myself. Cellan has already offered to sit up with me during the nights I can’t get back to sleep after the dreams, though that’s a side of me I’d rather not show just about anyone.
…but I want someone there. I want someone to hold me, to let me hold them, when I wake up shaking. I want someone who will say soft things to soothe me and look after me and prevent me from doing anything – stupid. If I don’t make it through this year, Levona’s soul is surely forfeit, and then it will all be for nothing. Not even to mention the mission I’m failing so desperately at already.
I went to the Palazzo the other day, and stared at the windows. Even with how roundly I’ve insulted her pride and hurt her, I don’t think Marisa would turn me away if she knew the depths of my despair. She might well even be willing to give me everything that I needed… but I would be the worst sort of bastard to try and find out. I cannot, I will not, ask for things that I am not sure I would be able to properly give in turn.
But I cannot allow myself to be destroyed, either, not with so much left undone. I must find some way to get through this. After the oubliette I lit every candle in the house, gorged myself nearly to the point of sickness, and then ran as far as my leg would allow. Even with that kind of mindless overindulgence, the temptation of more… drastic remedies played in my head.
When the Sleepless doesn’t hold me, I dream of dying… and it is not a nightmare any longer.
